17th January, 2024

As you will see from the date, I am typing this on Day 4 of our trip to Kuala Lumpur (KL), so there is a bit to cover, though we have done very little other than eat and meet old friends (or, to put it in a better way – to meet old friends and eat!).

We set off in good time for Doha Airport and I think I left you in the last post, sitting in the departure hall waiting to board our flight. We were delivered safely to our seats on our Qatar Airways Boeing 777 and settled down for our 6.5 hour flight to KL. They certainly pack them in on these planes, but all was fine, the food was mostly OK (not as good as BA), the entertainment so-so, but as it was an overnight flight, sleep was the main priority. I managed some, but Val didn’t, but we got to KL fine, picked up by Jacky in his pre-booked taxi and whisked off to our hotel in Petaling Jaya (a suburb to the west of KL proper). This is the Eastin Hotel and it is mostly OK, though it is looking a bit tired in places.

We tried to sleep, but oddly couldn’t seem to get settled. So we went for a short walk and had supper in the hotel. You would think that we would have effectively passed out that night, but Val was restless and I was too. Luckily our agenda is pretty easy and we got down to breakfast in leisurely time the next morning. It is the usual smorgasbord of different dishes. Val is delighted as they have everything from Roti Cenai to Nasi Lemak. As Malaysia is predominantly Muslim, there is no pork, so I am still on the beef bacon. It is really not the same thing. Ho hum – I know, I am lucky to even be here!!

The most interesting thing about breakfast on our first morning was the loud and VERY cheerful Christmas music playing, in a rather Chinese style. It was fine, but not what I was expecting – especially before my first coffee of the day. In the run-up to Chinese New Year, they have now reverted to more traditional (I assume), Chinese music that sounds as if we are in an epic Chinese film. Very uplifting and rather martial – and very loud!

Lunch on Monday was with two classmates of Val’s from her primary school. I know, unbelievable! This was Sanda and Beldev. They are not a couple, I would add. Baldev has lived in Rawang, where Val grew up all his life and seems to know everybody there – including all their cousins and aunts. Fascinating to chat to, presenting a sweep of pre and post-colonial history in a small(ish) town in Malaysia.

The evening was spent in the wonderful company of our very dear friends, Ad and Babes along with Babes’s sister, Mahes. Fabulous food, as always and great to catch up, though poor Ad currently has to rest his voice due to a recent operation. We shall be seeing them again on Friday to celebrate my birthday!!

Yesterday was more friends for lunch, this time ex-secretarial college mates, Vivien and her husband, Geoff and another friend called Ann. Dim sum this time, that seemed to just keep coming. Very good food though and wonderful company again. Geoff is a very spritely 84 and regaled me with tales of growing up in Japanese-occupied Malacca. Fascinating stuff.

We barely had enough time to gather our bits together before organising another taxi, this time to go to the apartment of another old friend, Mano Maniam, a rather celebrated Malaysian actor, now retired. We met up with him and a friend of his, Kanan, who was born in Malaysia, but moved to the States at the age of about 18. He has been a lawyer, but also a playwright and director. So we were in the artistic world and heading for yet more of the literati of Kuala Lumpur to see an exhibition of photographs by two very eminent local artists at a place called the Sukra Foundation. The latter is effectively a house donated by a famous Malaysian classical ballet dancer and choreographer, Ramli bin Ibrahim which serves as a centre to encourage people to learn various traditional dances and also a space for artistic exhibitions.

I will be honest, the photos did not get me going and the briefing by the artists regarding the inner meaning, metaphorical context and cultural symbolism etc, was a bit hard to believe. Still, it was fun to chat to a few local artistic types and to soak up an atmosphere of a Malaysian cultural event. Stupidly, I failed to take any photos, so I will have to leave it up to your imagination.

Today, Val met up with another old friend, Saniah and as they were going to chat the whole day, I took off and decided to visit the National Art Gallery. I did have an ulterior motive in that I bought a number of paintings while I was living in Malaysia, from 1978 to 1982 and I had been trying to get a bit more information on the artists. As I had photos of the paintings I thought I would try my luck. And I was right. They were able to identify one of the signatures and they even have some of the artist’s work in the Gallery, which is exciting. We didn’t get much further than that though a very nice lady came and tried to read the Chines calligraphy on some of my other paintings, though she confessed it was not very clear. Sad to say, they did not leap in the air with excitement that I had in my small collection a masterpiece worth a small fortune.

The Gallery itself had some nice pieces and some more challenging work. I liked some of the watercolours by some of the early British explorers, such as George Giles and Frank Swettenham in the end of the 19th Century. Here is a sample of some of the others…

I then made my way to the metro/light railway to get to my next destination, though I got off about halfway in order to walk some of the way. Although so much of KL is unrecognisable from when I lived here, you can still find snippets of the old KL, often crumbling, so I had a good (and warm) trip down memory lane. I was heading for the KL City Gallery but it sadly did not live up to expectations. It mostly seemed to be a few photos, but these were blocked by people queuing for the restaurant. All very odd. I asked if this was it, but was told there was more upstairs, though that consisted of a large model of modern KL and little else. So all very disappointing. For the record…

It was then a matter of getting a taxi to the hotel. This can prove a bit difficult unless you have the local Uber equivalent, which here is called Grab. As we don’t have a local SIM card and data roaming is prohibitive, I had to rely on hailing a cab. There are not many of these now, but I managed to spot one in a queue at the lights, so jumped in. Luckily he had a meter, so I did not have to have a long discussion as to what the correct fare should be. The taxi and its driver were both really old and I was a bit worried as the old gentleman driving could barely see over the dashboard. He seemed to get a bit lost for a while, but he got going Ok eventually. When he approached the hotel with the meter showing 18.50 ringgit (Malaysian Dollars), he said he would only take 15 presumably due to him getting a bit lost at one point. I insisted on 20 and won the battle and I thought he was going to be in tears he was so moved. As I got out, he blew me a sort of kiss, which was sweet.

Val and I headed out to find some street food tonight. This was made a bit more interesting as we needed to take the wheelchair. We were a bit worried when the smallest taxi you have ever seen turned up. Amazingly we got it and us in, though our driver oddly took us to the wrong place initially and had to divert to get us to the right one.

Excellent food (I had fried rice, one of my favourites) and lots of help getting the wheelchair in and out of the tables. Time came to head back and a very nice chap at our table very kindly offered to order one for us, which he did, so we paid him and got back in no time.

OK that’s all folks. More soon.