Spunk of a Sea Slug and Wait...Do Those Look Like Caves To You?: The Ferret Does Malaysia

Took me bloody long enough to finish writing it, but here it is in all its glory. The sequel to both an "Englishman and a Frenchman walk into a bar" and "Three Kinds of Moisturiser But All Kinds of Mischief," I give you "Spunk of a Sea Slug and Wait...Do Those Look Like Caves To You?"

1. The flight over there – a 17 hour ordeal in all – was the first time I flew alone, and also the first time I had an interconnecting flight. Despite nervousness at both these aspects, it went about as well as could be expected. The first leg saw me with the only seat on the plane with a vacant spot adjacent. Hello nap city, even if I did have a burly man with a cockney accent screaming loudly at the screen as he watched a bad romantic drama on the aisle opposite. The second leg, however, was slightly more problematic. One man lit up a smoke in the middle of the plane and then argued with the staff until they told him to put it out or be arrested when they landed, but that's really only the icing on the cake. I sat next to a Chinese girl – maybe 16-18 years old – who fell asleep on my shoulder. Now, you know that guilty feeling you get when you move and wake someone up napping on your shoulder? Yeah, and my pillow was just out of reach. And her hair was conveniently in a bun. Turns out her parents weren't too happy with me using her hair as a makeshift pillow...


2. The start of the journey takes place in the land of Kuala Lumpar: the relatively small capital city of Malaysia. Impressively in such a small place you can walk for half an hour and end up in a completely different part of town; starting from Chinatown it was pretty easy to walk to the colonial square filled with mock Tudor buildings and the old British Embassy (I think) complete with “drinking hole” nearby and a cricket field on the front lawn (at some points of the journey I felt like I'd travelled in time rather than halfway around the world), stopping by the small Chinese and Hindu temples and a fairly large mosque on the way. But you can read all that in a guide, moving on.


3. More striking than all of this was the national past-time. Shopping. There were I think more than half a dozen shopping centres, though I only visited three or four, often spanning multiple floors and containing specific items; one was dedicated to local tat, trinkets and cheap clothes; Chinatown had all the usual fake lighters and DVD sellers that seem to flood the world; one specialised in stuff only rich fuckers with too much money could afford; another dedicated almost entirely to electronics. The air conditioned halls makes it a great spot to escape from the heat so even if you aren't interested in buying anything you often excuse a perusal just to cool down from the perpetual 30C+ temperatures. Locally produced tat and knock offs comes at a great price, electronics and other items were no better than home, so I'd end up forgetting the PS3 and getting a silk hand made batik for my wall instead. Still need to hang that bitch...


4. This isn't my first foray into the world of Malaysia, albeit its been about a decade since I last stepped foot on their land, and whilst it wasn't in my thoughts as a child the consequences of piracy is certainly on my mind now, and Malaysia would seem to be an interesting case. When last here I fondly remember the market stall selling goods at low cost – I remember getting a number of discographies on an MP3 CD, a large number of VCD films, as well as a couple of game boy cartridges holding some 25 odd games each – and its only in retrospect that I realise how prevalent piracy was, and how publicly it was on display. I can understand the desire for such items; where we might complain about that £15 CD or £40 game, when you factor the difference in economic strength not to mention the importation costs, it goes from simply 'being expensive' to being extortionate. As times have shifted towards online sharing, the number of such stores seems to have vanished in its favour and consequently you seem hard pushed to find a single place that will sell you a CD, DVD or game – legal or otherwise – and its an intriguing snapshot of what a world of absolute piracy would bring about.


5. In the land of the 5ft3, the 6ft man is king.


6. Deboning of food doesn't always happen. Quite often they only do it to pander to fussy foreigners (I admittedly am one of those fussy foreigners), so quite often food might arrive looking like it was sliced and diced by a tired drunk man with a cleaver. Dishes are often quite literally described – you wont find any hidden ingredients, no extra cheese or mayo they forgot to mention – and you can almost always find plenty of Chinese and Thai dishes (as well as local Malay) and quite possibly the best bit: the seafood. Say hello to my seafood diet; Squid, Octopus (oh I discovered a new love for this creature) and prawns that look like that if they were alive they'd have a stab at eating you. I'm fairly sure some of the smaller ones met their demise – head, legs, brains, the works – at my lazy jaws. Just be warned that prawn brains don't taste all that great.


7. We ended up buying some fruit called “rambutan.” They tasted like sweet pears, had an MDF stone in the middle and – since she's making sure she's quoted on this one – my sister aptly described their appearance as “an unruly and ungroomed monkey testicle.”


8. Apparently the Malay don't have much of a sweet tooth. Of the limited available chocolate on offer, the Mars bars and other Cadbury's goodies are all Aussie chocolate (designed not to melt), which whilst does make sense, just tastes wrong. The red bull comes in a misshapen gold can, is completely flat and has an odd but not disagreeable fruity tang, and yet amidst the sea of dried fruit and sweetened seeds – apparently what locals use to get their sugar rushes from – for some bizarre reason you can buy a pack of Mentos in almost every flavour imaginable.


9. The Batu caves are a beautiful naturally formed limestone rock formation that just so happens that the Hindu's thought it'd make a nice spot to put a temple its heart; up the giant steps and through the epic archways to a an open roofed clearing high up in the cliffs a short way north of the main city of KL, colourfully adorned for those who actively worship there. Also in the background are the resident macaque's (a breed of monkey) munching on food stolen from the offering table, thieving drink cans from unsuspecting tourists, humping one another, and when all that fails, masturbating on the people below. Beautiful!


10. Because of being a largely Muslim country – albeit a pretty liberal one with a hefty ex-English presence (essentially it was under British rule for the hundred years preceding WWII, to my understanding) – alcohol is available but heavily taxed. It only dawned on me how heavily it was taxed when we revisited a restaurant we liked, and even though the only major difference was two fewer beers between us, the bill was 1/3rd less than the previous night. Doing some basic maths and you'll realise that for the first meal out, 2/3rds of all the money spend went on a couple of beers each! You can expect to spend 8-12 ringgits for a 320ml can of beer; that's £1.60-£2.40 a can (so of course, buying it in bars or restaurants costs more). Malaysia is not a place to come to party...


11. The level of corruption here is apparent to anyone reading the local news and has not gone unnoticed by the locals. On our last day in KL, over a cup of tea and a perusal of a local paper I read the story of a key witness for a major trial who, whilst under the care of the MACC (Malaysia Anti-Corruption Comission) of all people, mysteriously died. The autopsy showing strangulation marks was said to have been caused when the witness strangled himself, which being so dodgy a response prompted a second post-mortem which conveniently found nothing. He then 'fell' off the narcotics building where his remains scattered the balcony below. Almost the exact same thing happened a few days later to another key witness, and when it was uncovered that there had been more than 2,000 deaths of witnesses under the MACC's custody in the past ten years, an investigation was commissioned by the Prime Minister. Yup, they're investigating the Anti-Corruption Commission for corruption. Awesome...


12. As with a lot of places, the 'rules of the road' feel more like guidelines really, and driving over here is no different. Have you ever played “Burnout” or “Need For Speed” ? The traffic lights mean absolutely nothing, the speed limit is dependant on how quickly you can dart between the other cars all trying to get past the guy in front of them, and as for anyone behind you, well that's they're problem (they should watch where they're going). No, cars won't stop if you're crossing the road; yes, large bike gangs of elderly men are just as dangerous; cars don't need doors and an entire family of four can fit on a moped so long as you pack them just right...


13. Once my foray into the tourist traps of KL had come to and end it was time for the 3½ hour drive to Taman Negara; a small town called Kuala Tehan consisting of a few small shops, a handful of basic restaurants and more kittens than you can count. At least until you cross the river and suddenly find yourself in the oldest rainforest in the world of course. Then its all birds that sound like buzz-saws, inch-long ants, lizards lounging in the undergrowth and a handful of monkeys that are most definitely laughing at you and not with you.


14. What's the most stupid and retarded piece of equipment you can imagine to be sold right outside the entrance to the rainforest? Where its sweltering hot and stupidly humid, not to mention without a single place of robbing interest in sight? Twigged yet? Yup, against all odds, not only did my dad find a balaclava for sale, but he even bought the damn thing.


15. Malaysian cartographers need to be retrained. The official map of Taman Negara – the one that's compulsory to take with you at all times in case you get lost – has absolutely no scale whatsoever. An inch on the map could be a few hundred metres or a five hour hike; bridges are not really considered necessary to navigating the populous estuaries in the forest and contour lines are a foreign concept (as every walker knows, 5km on flat terrain is VERY different to 5km up a mountain and down again). I think it says a lot when the discoverer of the Cameron Highlands returned with tales of all the wonders he'd seen only to realise he'd completely forgotten to mark anything down on the map he was supposed to be making. Nothing against the Malay in this though, the dude was British sadly. Took nearly another 40 years for someone to prove he hadn't made it all up...


16. After our first four hour foray into the wilderness, we thought for our next adventure we should choose a gentle stroll along the river. Taking a 25km longboat journey to Kuala Keniam (if the distance wasn't already a warning sign we missed, the guide wishing us 'good luck' as we left should have been), we arranged to be picked up at the next jetty, just a couple of hours walk away, but making sure we had three so we would have plenty of time to get there. Well, 3 hours later and six streams that seemed to be flowing in completely the wrong direction and we were starting to get worried, plus we hadn't actually heard the river for a while, let alone seen it, but nonetheless, we thought we'd give it another half hour. Then came the caves, and at this point we realised we were fucked. According to the map, we must have ended up walking the wrong direction and gone 4-5km towards Gua Luas, and left with little option we did a 180 and marched our way back to where we started in just over two more hours. All that was left was a quick negotiation with some locals to the region to take us to where we were meant to be, a frantic waving as we saw our boatman giving up and going back, a quick hop across and huzzah! Back to the hotel, and only slightly over twice as long and three times the distance over a more hilly path. The net result?
    
    
    • Two tired feet with a leech bite on each. One's still bleeding as I write these notes
    • One pair of socks that can never be used again
    • One pair of trousers whose weight has been doubled thanks to the mud accumulated
    • Everything else worn is soaked right through, and no, it wasn't raining
    
    
17. Promptly moving on, the next stop on our Malay adventure was the aforementioned Cameron Highlands; a place so British you'd almost forget the country your in. Set high up in the mountains, the air temperature drops down to a comfortable 'perpetual British summer we wish we had' weather. With less rain. Home to half a Scottish castle (note: he only called it a castle, it was really just an extravagant highland estate and second home for a wealthy investor. It was unfinished when the owner died abroad and most of the workers came down with Spanish Influenza) and most famous for the vast fields of Tea exported across the continent. Many a Malay tourist made their voyage for the vast number of places by the roadside offering freshly plucked tea and scones, apparent by the way they dressed up in woolly hats and scarves. Scones were a bit naff; not enough jam, scones are always better with raisins in, and someone would make a killing selling people a decent dollop of clotted cream. The tea on the other hand was nice enough that we ended up bringing a load back. Englishman approved!


18. Time here was spent through the highland forests admiring the orchids and pitcher plants, and of course, yet even more monkeys. We spotted a pair of humping centipedes amidst the colourful fungi and fauna. Then there was more tea and scones, and we ended up visiting the nearby cave temple of Perak Tong (Ipoh). This temple was one of my trip highlights, putting the Batu caves to shame, and not just in the number of steps. Wall paintings galore, statues and winding steps leading high into the cliffs, yielding to further shrines and statues and overlooking the..uhh...dirty city. Ok, so the view sucked, but it was well worth the visit for everything else.


19. Time for our final stop on the adventure and off to the small island of Pulau Pangkor; just 40 minutes ferry ride from the coast, this tiny pink-taxi populated haven is the sort of shit you see on all those holiday brochures that joke about what Spain would be like if you booked with them. Local foreign birds (I'm referring to the animals with this one) swooping down for the food fed to them by locals; monkeys scratching themselves on the waterfront, on the roads and when perched along telephone wires; beaches where you are literally alone for the entire day, and plenty of empty sun loungers put out by restaurant and café owners that all seem to sell those cocktails with the umbrella's in them and are always more than willing to tell you what seafood they caught earlier for your dinner consumption later.


20. So naturally my first day as an accident-prone and sun-deprived tourist went about as well as can be expected. Things shaped up nicely with a cramp in my leg at 3am but it wasn't until we got to the beach that it all really kicked off. Forgetting my smokes and lighter were in my swimming shorts, my nicotine supply was quickly demolished by that most ancient of foes, the tide. After stepping in some gooey substance I can only assume came from some sea slug orifice – hence the title – I noticed the tide was coming in, forcing me to make my escape across the rocks. Remember I said I was accident prone? My right big toe bloody does as I dragged it across the sandy shore to the ever helpful comments of “You're sandals are looking a bit red” and “Oh my god Tom, I think you're bleeding!” from my father as small pools of blood began to form around my toes. Oh, and during this escapade I got sunburnt, giving me a day of nauseating heatstroke to contend with. Fuckin' marvellous.


21. I'd write about what else we did here, but quite frankly we did nothing.


22. It was here in Pulau Pangkor that I really paid any attention to the radio and I was struck by the censorship that I'd witnessed thus far. It started with the film channel back in Kuala Lumpar where I noticed films seemed to have a quarter of their run time cut; anything more than the most mild of blasphemy or sexual references would be cut out from the showing, and anything with more than a moderate amount of violence simply wouldn't get shown. It doesn't quite stop there though, with the radio editing songs to give a catchy chorus line of “I Kissed a [Pause] and I liked it.” For a country that on the surface seems so free compared to what I've heard of many Muslim countries, it serves as a constant gentle reminder that the government still have their hands in everything in order to uphold the values of their choosing.


23. For our final night it was back to good ol' KL; back for the hard rock café to end our adventure – a place where I've had the shirt for, bought as a gift over a decade ago but never actually visited – and to the infamous Concorde Hotel. Also known as El Swanko, for the fact that its where all the celebrities stay (though I must confess I've never heard of most of them, but if Hoobastank got a headling show they can't be that good) for the upcoming open air concert being held later that day at the Petronas Towers. The towers by night are mesmerisingly beautiful and not something I'll forget quickly. The concert, not so much.


24. The path to the towers takes you past the road with all the nightclubs that come to life. Lots of incredibly attractive Malay girls in skimpy outfits; Tuborg girls selling you beer and drawing attention in their skin-tight crop tops and mini-skirts. One guy asked if I was interested in entertaining some of them for a while – quite possibly their pimp as the local guide book did refer to the place as 'the local meat market.' My dad on the other hand succeeded on drawing the attention of the only (obvious) ladyboy in the vicinity, which coupled with the rent boy he got hit on when arriving in Pulau Pangkor seems to be following something of a theme...


25. Many films and bad TV shows were watched in the making of this adventure. None of them shall see review.

Originally Posted Monday, 11 July 2011