Lumping Koalas

Taking off from Singapore early, bus for 12$S to Kuala Lumpur takes us flying past city limits. Forget passport at immigration. Fiasco ensues. Get through Singapore exit immigration, have to throw away prawn crackers due to laws of no dried fish products. Debacle avoided by finding local trashcan.

Little signs on bus indicate cheerily capital punishment for drug smugglers.

Random roadside stop with so many birds standard conversation screeches to a halt in the face of sonic avian onslaught. Trees teem with black shadows. Acute risk of being shat upon. Storm coming.

Arrive in KL, help a few Germans find a bank before splitting off to find a hostel. Find a few, compare pricing, settle on Wheelers. Sketchy hole in the wall façade gives way to a tiki themed lobby two floors up. We get a four person room. Lock up, head out for a meal of decidedly poor quality fried rice, make pact not to eat in tourist areas ever again. Wash down with greasy bok choy and oyster sauce and oil laden springrolls. Award for oiliest meal so far. Wash down with Tiger beer, all is well again.

Head across to a street stall area, get a bunch of assorted skewers from a skewer truck. Pretty interesting set up. Pots of water boil at each table, cook it yourself ethos. Most skewers mediocre. Fried mini-crab and BBQ duck stand-outs. More Tiger. Late. Head to bed.

Rise suspiciously early, strip tow opposing beds and make a permethrin lab in our room. Spray down clothes for malaria and bug avoidance. Worry for life of caged Iguana outside our window.Head out, letting room air without our having to be in it. Still hope Iguana will be okay. Sticky ride pastry for breakfast, surprisingly good and quite filling. Head to Chow Kit market on local buses, fun ensues.

Chow Kit is awesome, around two football fields worth of pure food and spice stalls, surrounded on all sides by clothing vendors and other miscreants. Because their stock never goes bad, clothing vendors are popular here, and can be quite lucrative due to disillusioned tourists. They seem to pop up everywhere there is food, generally ruining the purity of my quest.

First half of the market is produce stalls, arrays of exotic fruit. Try some jackfruit. Curious and good, like bubblegum and cantaloupe had a lovechild and left it on Durian's steps to be raised. Past this innocent façade of fruit lies a deep dark interior. One where I could for example, stand and watch a man burn the hair off a severed cow head. Or watch a woman try and butcher a live catfish nearly as big as her, eventually stopping for her son to step in, quickly knock it out, and proceed to butcher it live. Get fish water all over me. Whilst perusing wares of questionable ethics in generally unhygienic conditions(not a complaint, the world would be full of strong people if everyone ate at Chow Kit from the time they were children), a seemingly torrential downpour begins outside. It leaks through the patchwork market roof, creating floods in the walkways and dripping on meat and produce. This is the Malaysian experience. Exiting the aromatic(sometimes disturbingly so) into the warm tropical rain is like being thrust from one mind numbing sensation to another. Within seconds soaked to the skin. Take refuge at a small Indian cafe. Eat some delicious nasi goreng and head out during a brief break in the deluge. Keyword brief. Soaked to my lungs after finding the right bus stop. Enter bus, immediately develop ice crystals due to overpoweringly cold A/C. Overall experience 10/10. Little girl runs by with her father, stopping for him to place plastic bag over her head. "Worst Parenting Award" gets doled out.

Return to hostel, still downpour, but so soaked no difference is palpable. Enter, strip, shower, dry, pack for tomorrow, head out for dinner. Deluge is slowing up, meaning staying under awnings is actually useful now.  Try a burger which is wrapped in an egg, some chicken satays done over wood fire with no grill, an assortment of pork pastries and some egg tarts before going back to Wheelers to be in bed. Bed is good. Sleep. Tomorrow will be early bus to Jerantut, then Kuala Tahan, gateway to the oldest rainforest on planet earth.

BRAINPAN!