Month: February 2013

the heat at midday

Well I’ve been back in Australia a week now and already I’ve found something to complain about! Telstra: it’s so poorly run. Why is there default setting to interfere with your life as much as possible? I got prepaid 30 day things for both the internet and mob. phone but once that 30 days is up I’ll be spending my dolla elsewhere.

This is a bit later than when I’m usually here each summer, but this one seems like a particularly dry one — down here in the south-west of Vic. at least. I am sad to find out that the Poly-Waffle has been discontinued! We went to PakoFesta in geelong west yesterday — first time I’ve been able to go in nearly a decade. Was great to see the parade and interesting to see how the ethnic mix has changed slightly. Sweden, Finland and France used to have contingents but don’t now. And a couple of new African nations were there walking along and getting their groove on — new enough that the organisers haven’t made wooden signs for their countries yet. I am embarrased to say that I couldn’t really pick the flags, although I’m pretty sure one was South Sudan and the other would be geographically close to South Africa because the design was very similar to SA’s flag. Also, as with many areas of life, China was there, making a lot of noise and being over-competitive. I don’t remember them having a contingent in the past. I used the hipstamatic for all the fotos which probably wasn’t such a good choice.

<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/sunnybreaks/8498786379/” title=”And the band played on by esquimauxpie, on Flickr”><img src=”http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8239/8498786379_007d77246e.jpg” width=”500″ height=”500″ alt=”And the band played on”></a>

And now for the good stuff

It seems silly to go on holiday and only blog about the bad stuff. So here’s the good bits I haven’t mentioned yet.

<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/sunnybreaks/8463445541/” title=”IMG_1145 by esquimauxpie, on Flickr”><img src=”http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8367/8463445541_8fc8fcede9.jpg” width=”500″ height=”500″ alt=”IMG_1145″></a><br/>_at Tropical Spice Gardens_

Accommodation: In Kuala Lumpur we stayed at the *<a href=”http://classicinn.com.my/”>Classic Inn</a>* for a total of 6 or 7 nights. I definitely recommend it. The staff really make an effort to see that you’re happy. I actually stayed here two years ago too, but then I was in a single room. There was a slight misunderstanding on the first night when we got put in a musty-smelling twin-room with no window (avoid room 105 if possible) but once I kicked up a bit of a fuss (brought on by a distinct lack of sleep) we moved to a better room = ask for room 107; it’s a twin-room but you’re with your with your sweety you can just push the beds together. It’s got a window, is relatively quiet in that it’s down a separate hallway, but the window opens onto the front common area, so if the Inn is full then there will be people out there talking til late. That’s to be expected I guess, after all, it’s not a monastery. Also, the wireless node is on the ground floor so you get the best reception if you’re in the ground floor rooms (the rooms on the top floor don’t get any waves, I believe).

They give a free breakfast of coffee, (very grateful for that) fresh fruit, toast and Malaysian-style pancakes or cold noodles. They do laundry for a very reasonable rate and they’ll store luggage (again price is very reasonable) if you want to head off to other parts of the country. All the other features are on their website. The best thing about the place, I would say, is it’s location. It’s easy to get off to all the touristy places and all of the domestic stuff you might need (supermarket, reliable eateries) is literally just across the road.

*Penang* To be honest we really wanted to go to Langkawi Island but it was all booked up. Penang is a bit more urbanised, or to be more exact, _suburbanised_. There’s a ring road around Georgetown, the capital, that reminded me a bit of Melbourne or Sydney. Things are spread out across the island which mean you’ll be catching a lot of buses or taking taxis or renting a car. We stayed at the Hydro hotel, which, on the whole, was quite good. The room we stayed in was big, had a partial sea view, balcony and was quiet. They have a pool too, which is good because apparently the nearest beach, batu Ferringhi (not <a href=”http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Ferengi”>Ferengi</a>) was too polluted to swim in.

The best place we went to in Penang was <a href=”http://www.tropicalspicegarden.com/”>Tropical Spice Garden</a> which had a whole bunch of spice and herb plants spread around some lovely little pathways. If, like me, plants don’t rock your boat then you might be more interested in the … _monkeys!_

<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/sunnybreaks/8464434844/” title=”IMG_1113 by esquimauxpie, on Flickr”><img src=”http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8368/8464434844_3509816d6f.jpg” width=”374″ height=”500″ alt=”IMG_1113″></a><br/>_I’d been waiting my whole damn life to see monkeys in the wild. Last week I did._

There’s a bunch of little (I don’t know what kind) monkeys up in the trees and if you’re lucky (like if you go in the morning) you’ll see one or two come down out of the canopy to a lower level to eat flowers. It wasn’t crowded at TSG and it’s a good way to get away from the main road and its traffic noise.

Also while there we had the best meal of the whole two weeks, at their connected restaurant, called Monkey Tree. It’s actually Thai food and due to the spice gardens, they use all their own fresh lemongrass etc.

<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/sunnybreaks/8464489362/” title=”IMG_1128 by esquimauxpie, on Flickr”><img src=”http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8516/8464489362_1ffecabba9.jpg” width=”500″ height=”500″ alt=”IMG_1128″></a><br/>_Mouthwatering!_

The sample relies mainly on the material object

One last little bit of bad news. We’ve been staying near Imbi, Times Square in KL and been eating inside the ginormous Times Square mall often. Tonight we went to a place (I think) called “Shabu-Shabu”, 4th floor West. Shabu-Shabu is my sweety’s favourite. However the place is infested with cockroaches! — No joke.  They started crawling all over the table as soon as the pots started to heat up. Normally that would’ve been enough to justify going apeshit for me but I’m trying to take it in an Indian, karma-like way. What happens will happen — most likely the place will get shut down.

Ipoh, Merak: What a dump.

You know I have to disagree with the philosophy of the lonely planet books, the way they put a positive spin on everywhere they research. It’d be more honest and _better for everyone all around_ if they told you to just avoid places that had no redeeming qualities.

Anyway, it could be worse. We could’ve been involved in a <a href=”http://users.lmi.net/tcs55/”>bus plunge</a> or been taken hostage or something. And it was our own fault for ending up here. We didn’t plan far enough in advance and didn’t realise the lunar new year would have such a huge effect on accommodations in this country.

The only interesting thing about Ipoh is the local buses. They look like they were made by people who’d only heard descriptions of buses and never seen any.

<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/sunnybreaks/8464954444/” title=”IMG_1165 by esquimauxpie, on Flickr”><img src=”http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8098/8464954444_54046423f0.jpg” width=”374″ height=”500″ alt=”IMG_1165″></a>

It’s mostly my fault. We had to leave Penang and I was given the task of finding the next place to go. There was still a week or a little less til we were due back in KL for the flight out, so I was looking for somewhere in between Penang and KL. In korea, I always like to see the average cities – to see the real korea. And so I thought Ipoh would be similar in Malaysia’s landscape. Fuck knows why I end up turning every trip into some grim documentary. Aren’t holidays supposed be about escaping reality? In conclusion I will say that there appears to be some sort of electioneering on the streets of Malaysia, and it’s promoting “1 Malaysia” in the sense of three ethnicities, one country but when I look at the differences in wealth between KL and Ipoh, the split isn’t between ethnicities, it’s between the city and the rural areas.

In Ipoh, we are staying at the *Tune Hotel*. It’s like staying in a <a href=”http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Borg_cube”>Borg Cube</a>! From the same people who brought you Air Asia, Tune Hotels give you what you pay for and not a jot more. When you pay for the room that’s what you get – the room. You pay extra if you want air conditioning, tv, or even a towel. You can pay some extra for wifi internet but you pay in 24hr blocks, and the password they give you _is only valid for one device_. That’s probably to stop people setting up server farms during their overnight stays. Just like making bookings with Air Asia, there’s a lot of things that can catch the first-time customer out. Like, if you’re ordering the towel and you’re two people, then you need to enter (and pay for the use of) two towels on the booking page. And if you’re staying for two days and you want a fresh towel for the second day, you need to order that too. I’d be interested in trying the flat-rate room for one night to see what it’d be like with no a/c, which is almost mandatory in this heat. Here’s what you do get : bed, pillow, linen, ceiling fan, coat hanger (or 3), 1 international powerplug, 1 british style powerplug, combination mini-safe, shower, toilet, hair dryer, bin, mirror, and a window. Every room is the same size and has a window — that’s Borg-style democracy for you.

What you don’t get is a mini-fridge, optional breakfast, phone, toiletries of any sort apart from toilet paper, and you don’t get any love neither. But sadly, this is probably the future of hotels. Or business hotels at least. To continue the science fiction analogy, I can remember back to my younger days working as a room cleaner at the Park Royal in Melbourne, and it was always obvious when a business person (let’s face it 90% were businessmen) had occupied the room because I could hardly tell they’d been there. Nothing was touched – not the coffee satchels, not the little bottles of shampoo — nothing. And in a few odd cases the bed hadn’t even been slept in — like they’d just stood in the corner and plugged into a power terminal for the night. Those kind of people would love Tune Hotels.

I hope you make a whole lotta money

Two days now gone on the island of Penang. It’s quite nice here though much more built up and populated than I thought it’d be. It was actually the second choice since Langkawi island was all booked up due to the Lunar New Year coming up on the weekend.

I’m sure I mentioned it the last time I was in Malaysia but easily the most interesting thing about it is how the the cultures live together in one country. I don’t want to be some guy making sweeping generalisations about whole nationalities based on a few anecdotal experiences so I won’t say much about it, except that I really quite like the Indian people here.

We went to have a look at this Hindu Temple in KL the other day and after seeing this all-star line up I was sad to realise that I only know one of them by face: Krishna. Vishnu and Shiva are probably in there but I don’t know who’s who. Note to self -> bone up on oriental mythology.

<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/sunnybreaks/8444610176/” title=”all the gods. by esquimauxpie, on Flickr”><img src=”http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8098/8444610176_de776dff37.jpg” width=”500″ height=”500″ alt=”all the gods.”></a>