My first day in Kuala Lumpur!

 

4/10/11

In the stillness of this first morning, I have found peace. I woke up today at 6:30, surprisingly late because I fell asleep at 9 after a long...I don't even know how many days of traveling. The cool darkness of the Malaysian gloominess spoke to me, as just the dirty buildings and slums that are the foothills to their reigning hotel mountains groan and sweat in the humidity. I am, so far, absolutely in love with this place.

I tried to nap yesterday but ended up just taking some time to myself before asking Ria, the front desk guy, where to go to eat. He promptly said the place next door which looked too expensive, so I asked him where his favorite place was to eat and he said, “go right, right left”. Ok. I emerged from low-hanging trees and careless motorcycle drivers to find market stall after market stall, swaying gently beneath the mammoth buildings that are people's decaying homes. I couldn't figure out if it was the type of place where people walked in the street or not, so I did what other Malaysians do until I got honked at. This place was incredible, an onslaught of sensory material. No matter how much of a smelly soccer mom I looked, walking around in my tennis shoes, smiling like an idiot with my camera out and ready, I was united and unafraid. I walked up to a food stand and stared at piles and piles of sea animals barely alive inside their sea shell homes. Typically, I would walk right past something like this, afraid to be approached and to have to gently say no, I don't want to eat I'm just curious as to what the hell this is, and have to leave their sad faces behind. Or I would let my travel partner do the talking while I study the trees or the colors in people's outfits. But I wanted to know more about these animals on ice. Had I been at home, I would have collected the empty shells and placed then in my room as a beautiful jewelery holder and not even worried about the poor blob of meat aimlessly and homelessly floating around. But this was something special. The most intricately designed shells and fish- smooth ones, brown ones, thin ones, red and white ones, ones with pink meat on the inside, whole fish with no skin, whole fish with all their skin but no skin on the head – had me captivated. The adolescent restaurant “host”, if you will, asked me if I wanted to sit (in plastic chairs lining the busy street, inches away from a cars' side mirror when they pass). I said no thank you, but proceeded to ask him a million questions. His face lit up! My face lit up! Cultural exchange! I giggled, not with him, but with the words he was saying. I pointed to a twisty blue and green coarse shell and said “what is the name of this?” “Snail”. Oh. So I pointed to a red and white small conch looking shell, waiting for him to tell me its name was conch menoris of the red and white sands of the Malay Sea. “Snail”. Ok. I pointed to a green and brown long skinny one with meat hanging off it and said confidently, “snail”. He vehemently shook his head and said with a slight air of pretension, which I love to hear slipping out of 14 year old's mouths, “No, that's bamboo la-la”. I had to laugh. Of course! Bamboo la-la. They can BBQ it or simply fry it for me if I'd like. I pointed to my stomach in an effort to explain that I had just gotten here and already thrown up all the airport food I'd consumed, so maybe later. He smiled and I went on my way.

I continued on, taking pictures of the fry your own jellyfish stand and random balls of other stuff stand, and a prickly fruit that looks like something you could play a fun sport with. I settled for an aggressively charming restaurant host that already had my table set up by the time I walked into his jurisdiction. His female side-kick, with a cigarette hanging out the side, of her mouth showed me pictures of the food and I saw the dish that looked most appealing and bland for my recovering stomach, “spicy chicken noodle soup”. I asked for medium spice. My food was delectable. I got so frustrated with myself because I wanted so badly to eat with my chopsticks but then I couldn't shovel it in my mouth like I wanted to. Which in the end could have been a good thing, because the medium spicy still felt like my noodles were served to me in a light fire.

Around me, I watched Malay men pushing strollers and carrying babies, and women selling food, smoking and walking carrying fresh lobster. I saw families in the slum apartments above me changing baby diapers and living their daily life and I felt like a total outsider...a sponge soaking up everything this place could possibly offer me, noticing tiny little quirks that I find hilarious (some people call me “sister” here, which has happened almost everywhere I've gone). I love it, from the way women wait in lines at the bathroom, by waiting in front of the stall they want to go into and not waiting for the next one to open up, to the way my mind tricks me into thinking that babies are driving but really, the steering wheel is on the other side of the car. I am here, I am filling up.