Malaise...ahhh

Just after I got back from home, we popped to Malaysia for a few days. I say “popped” because it is just a little jaunt over the bridge. It’s a bit like “popping” over to Wales for the day when you live in Bristol, I suppose.

Although getting over the river Severn costs about a fiver whereas crossing the causeway costs nothing.

Anyway, it’s a funny old place, Malaysia. You see, Singapore’s a place in which you feel very safe, it’s (fairly) clean, it’s a little bit… dull sometimes. It’s a kind of sanitised Asia with lots of the sensations filtered out. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Anyway, as soon as you get over the causeway and enter Johor Bahru (known as JB, would you believe), Peninsular Malaysia’s southernmost city, you seem to be plunged into the heart of Asia – traffic chaos, which means the spectacle of hilarious traffic police is never far away, a hideous smell of sewage or something is quickly usurped by a smell of delicious food cooking, pavements are blocked by hawkers, walkers, vehicles and animals. Or they’re simply broken. You suddenly feel like you have to keep an eye on your man bag, mainly because signs are up everywhere saying “Beware of Pockpicket”.

Why are the traffic police hilarious? Well, they seem to be quite similar in a lot of major Asian cities from what I can work out. They appear at seemingly randomly picked spots of congestion on their little motorbikes, park, slide off, straighten their tight little uniforms, walk into the middle of the road, and in a rather camp fashion, still wearing their white helmets and white gloves, looking not unlike giant tics, start doing their job. As far as I can work out, their job is to blow their whistles and wave cars on with a series of flamboyant gestures. This, of course, rather than making them look like they’re directing traffic, makes them look like they’re auditioning for the Village People.

Anyway, quite often I’ve seen this “traffic policing” happening on bits of road that aren’t actually junctions – they just wave on and whistle at slow moving traffic, as though they believe that the drivers are like donkeys that need a kick every now and then to remind them that they should, in fact, be pressing down on that little pedal under their right foot. “Oh yeah, I was driving, wasn’t I? So glad that ridiculous camp looking chap is there whistling to remind me to move forwards…”

In JB the traffic policeman was weaving his mesmerising magic at a junction. This junction had traffic lights, which were working perfectly. He was waving the traffic on just about in sync with the lights, except he let just one or two more cars through as they changed from green to red, whistling frantically. Give a man a whistle and he loves the power.

We watched him for about 20 minutes.

We didn’t stay in JB for too long. We were intending to hire a car and drive up the East coast. Every time we go somewhere we end up not doing anything like what we intended, so it was no surprise to us that within an hour we were boarding a coach that took us up the West coast. We ended up in Kuala Lumpur (known as KL, would you believe) the capital city. It’s a five hour bus journey from JB to KL and it costs about five quid for a seat with copious leg room. Winner.

Anyway, because Ella’s been very ill and was just starting to recover, we didn’t do a great deal of exploring in KL. What we usually do when we get to a new city is wander about fairly aimlessly for the whole of the first day, getting our bearings a bit. So instead we sat in a few cafes and bars, watched the world go by, watched the Charity Shield, that kind of thing.

On the last day we decided to go a bit further and went to see KL’s twin towers – pretty impressive, if you like tall buildings (which I do). You can go up to the bridge between the two buildings every day except Monday.

It was, of course, Monday.

When we got back from KL, the first time we switched the news on, we realised that we had been there at a time when the government had declared an emergency. Forest fires, burning in Sumatra, Indonesia, meant that smog had enveloped KL. I had thought it had been a little misty and that visibility was on the low side.

It made me ill, too. I had 24 hours of flu type symptoms – very achy, it was painful to breathe, temperature fluctuating and I had to lie down in a darkened room. Ella, still recovering from her tropical fever, had to go out and get supplies.

This forest fires thing is pretty serious, though – it’s the result of slash and burn land clearing strategies used by big palm oil companies, apparently. More about that here.

In my time here I’ve mainly been to Asian cities. Being a city boy myself, I find cities much more interesting than beaches. When I said this to Joe, he agreed completely. “What’s a beach?” he asked. “Cover yourself in fat and lie in gravel. What’s the point?” I almost agree. I find them beautiful for a day, then get a bit bored so head for the nearest town, or go off down some lanes or something. A city, however, has an ever-changing landscape, it’s always on the move, it’s varied and exciting.

I’m going to try to prise myself away from cities in the second year of my time here, though. Need to find some hills, some countryside, some mountains, that kind of thing. Get back to nature.

I’ll probably avoid the Sumatran forests in August, though.

I was saying why Malaysia was a funny old place. It’s a bit of an odd combination, I suppose. The roads are very good, which isn’t the case in many Asian countries. There’s obviously a lot of wealth there. It’s really cheap, though, probably a third of the price of Singapore, but not as cheap as Thailand or Vietnam. I suppose it’s how Singapore would be if it was bigger.

So, on that profound note, I think I’ll cut my losses and stop trying to describe an entire country from a three day visit in which I mostly sat in cafes, bars, coaches or spent lying down in darkened hotel rooms.