Makan Time in Kuala Lumpur!!

15th March, 2019

Well here we are again and you are forgiven for wondering what may have happened to us since the last post. As ever, it is the giddy round of fun, fun, fun that has separated me from the keyboard, but I will now try to fill you in on what we have been up to post-Bali.

We left Bali last Saturday and were very sad to depart. The resort had been very comfortable and friendly, not least as we all got to know each other and had long chats and the odd Bintang beer with the other guests. We have all swapped email addresses, etc and there is much hope that we will meet again in various locations, but, as ever in these cases, we shall see.

Made, our trusty taxi driver, drove us to the airport, the flight went fine and we landed in Kuala Lumpur late afternoon, before boarding our pre-booked taxi to the city centre. For those of you who are not so well informed as some, Val was born in KL and lived in or near the city for her whole life before departing for Papua New Guinea to have a ‘holiday’ with me in February, 1983 (a very long holiday, as you can see!). For my part, I arrived mid-1978 and left mid-1982. Now all this is very much ancient history and that fact is very much rubbed in every time we visit KL and discover that we have not the faintest idea as to where we are in the city. It has changed soooo much!! Every now and then, like a prairie dog, we seem to surface and recognise an old familiar landmark, only to submerge ourselves in more high-rise apartment and office blocks, over and underpasses and light railway systems. I think it is the road layout that has changed the most. It was always a little confusing even in my day, not least as there were very inadequate maps (a ploy, I was told, to deter communist terrorists) and certainly no satnav. I well remembered getting lost on my way home from work once and having to go back to the office to ask for guidance!

That said, it is still a great city to visit, with a surprising amount of greenery and enough of the old buildings still there to give a sense of what it had been like in the past, contrasting with the very new and shiny ones such as the Petronas Twin Towers. Val and I have done all the touristy bits and this was very much a flying visit to catch up with old friends and relatives, so I would direct you to my blog (mrbennsblog) of 3 years ago, should you require some advice as to what is good to visit and do in KL.

We arrived at Lanson Place, where we are staying for the duration of our stay at about 7.00pm and checked in. Lanson Place is not a hotel, but serviced apartments with a gym, massive swimming pool and meeting rooms, etc, designed for those expecting a longish stay in KL, but also catering for the likes of us. We found that we had been upgraded to a two-bedroom apartment, which was nice, if rather pointless as there are only two of us, but we have now got his and her bathrooms!! It is very big, the apartment, and fully equipped with a kitchen and utility room with a washing machine and dryer. We are on the 42nd floor, which is fun, though there are no 13th, 14th, 24th or 34th floors (considered unlucky), so not quite as high as it would seem, though still spectacularly elevated to give anyone who suffers from vertigo the heebygeebies! Here come the photos!!

As mentioned, the view is pretty impressive!

The title of this post is ‘Makan Time’ as for those of you who are not quite up to speed with your Bahasa Melayu (Malay language), ‘makan’ is possibly the most important word of all in Malay as it means ‘eat’ (food). Eating is just about the national religion in Malaysia and we certainly have had plenty of opportunities to experience it as we have had a pretty much never-ending round of meals and snacks.

It started the first evening as we needed a bit more sustenance than our (excellent) Air Asia meal had been able to provide, so we turned right out of the Residency (as Lanson Place is called) and walked about 300 yards to a street called locally as Changkat teeming with restaurants and bars of every persuasion from Spanish Tapas, through Italian, Arab, Mexican, Tropical, Cuban, Japanese, Chinese and on to Irish Pub. It seemed to be permanently Happy Hour and everyone was having a very good time by the looks of things. We ended up having excellent pizzas as a bit of a respite from all things Asian that has been the standard fare for the last few months and will be the main offering in the days to come.

Our first full day was Sunday and we started early with brunch with friends of Val from her primary school in Rawang. I am totally bowled over by this as will be many reading this post who, I suspect are like me and know nobody from their primary schools (or possibly their secondary schools!). We tucked in to some excellent Chinese food at Madam Kwan’s in the KLCC complex and then posed for the obligatory group photo.

It was then off to lunch at a hotel that was quite old even when we lived in KL, the Federal  Hotel, to meet up with the next reunion, members of the Secretaries Society of Malaysia (of which Val was once President!!). More food and this was actually a buffet (low prices for senior citizens!!), so it was something of a challenge, but I reckoned I could do justice to the many desserts on offer. Another group photo!!

We had just enough time to get back to the apartment for a wash and brush-up before heading out again to the Lake Club to see some very dear friends of ours, Zee and Bash (as in Bashir). They had very kindly entertained us and our offspring and their partners very royally the last time we visited KL, at the Selangor Club where the night of karaoke has already gone down in our family history. Sadly, since then, Bash has developed Motor-Neuron Disease and whilst he is still mobile, his speech is badly affected, so it was a quieter affair this time, though as an object lesson in dealing positively with adversity, he is pretty much unsurpassed.

Well, the next day was not greatly different, except that I had a reunion of my own, this time of ex-work colleagues from my days of working for the plantation company, Harrisons & Crosfield. It was organised by the redoubtable Andrew Lim and was great fun, despite an absence of some 37 years. Val was meeting up with a reunion of her own, this time of her classmates from the Methodist Girls School (her secondary school) luckily at a next-door building, so we dropped her off there and I walked a couple of hundred yards to my appointment with this lot!

Val was not to be outdone, of course, so here is reunion group number 3 with some of what they ate!

Luckily our afternoon/evening meet-up took place in the same place as where I had lunch, so I just stayed put and kept downing the beers. The absolutely legendary couple of guys we met up with were Mano Maniam and Raja Zailan, the latter known to all, most affectionately, as Bok (pronounced ‘Boh’). Mano is an actor of great note, appearing in a number of films and countless plays locally and abroad including Anna and the King and The Sleeping Dictionary. You can check his entry on IMDb. Bok is a member of the State of Perak royal family, but is unlikely to ascend the throne just yet and has the most ready and infectious laugh of anyone I think I have ever met. We caught up with a lot of old times and, you will be pleased to know, put the world to rights (at least for that evening!).

Well, that was Monday, I think, and Tuesday was much the same, but a little different in that we ate ourselves to a standstill, but only in one place. This time we went to visit some more very dear friends of ours, Ad and Babes, who stay 6 months of the year in KL (the winter) and 6 months in the south of France (the summer!). They have a wonderful, spacious apartment with all the mod cons (gym, swimming pool, etc). Babes’s sister Mahes also lives in the same complex and it was nice to catch up with her too (and eat her excellent Marks & Spencer scones with a cup of Earl Grey tea). It was a lazy day, with lunch, afternoon tea and dinner with two other couples and a wonderful opportunity to catch up (much discussion of Brexit!!!!!). Strangely I didn’t get any photos of them, but the following will give you a feel for the location.

OK, Wednesday we were out again, this time meeting up with another friend of Val’s, Lily, who came to our apartment block and with whom we took a shuttle to KLCC for some elevenses (unbelievable rum and raisin cake).

Then it was off to Bangsar Village (it has not been a village for many years!!) to meet up with another friend, Mila for lunch.

And so back for a bit of a rest at the apartment and a takeaway pizza and an early night.

Thursday has been very similar. First stop was to see Val’s old boss, the extraordinary Austen Zecha, an astounding man of some 80 years who is still running his advertising and marketing agency and who seems to have the facility to remember the name of everybody who has ever worked for him or possibly ever met – and which year! Much catching up on the ‘old days’ and there were even some old work colleagues still there from when Val worked there before she left in early 1983.

On from there to lunch with more friends, this time and old work colleague, Lam Ghooi Ket and his wife, Geetha, both of whom now teach classical Indian dancing as well as taking part in performances too (I think I have that right). Geetha’s family came from Kerala in India to Malaysia like Val’s and, unusually for the day, she married Lam, who is Chinese, so we were able to compare notes on the subject of mixed marriages. Great chat and lots of laughs – and food, of course.

And finally, after a long ride in a taxi through the pleasures of KL rush hour, we arrived in Puchong at Val’s first cousins on her father’s side where there was a good gathering and some very delicious food and yet more laughter and jokes. Great fun all round and wonderful to catch up.

And so we are about to say goodbye to KL once again. A great trip, though we both feel very full of food. We fly to Colombo tonight for about 2 weeks of touring the southern half of the country, so stand by for more posts and photos. Thanks for reading this far and I trust all is well with you wherever you are.