So I went to the bank today. I went and tried to access my foreign currency account - where I have some US dollars. Well they don't "do that" during the weekend. So I asked when they allow access to foreign currency accounts. I learned this only occurs on weekdays from 10 am to 2 pm. This evidently is the only time that Maybank can access my money that is sitting in their coffers. Much like everything else in Malaysia, this makes no sense and I will not try and apply logic to it, in any way shape or form.
In case you wondered, beware, I know enough Malay to know when I am being made fun of, sometimes. Banyaknya means soooo much! But the unspoken undertone was: groceries you gluttonous white man. This picture is only about half of what I bought.
I couldn't find the original blog posts, does anyone know what was said? Anyway, the thing that floored me (and shouldn't, here) is this “Let his case be a lesson to others who think they can express themselves openly without worrying about repercussions." Count your free speech blessings.
Anyway, I think it's pretty clear that there was plenty of fodder for this blogger (whatever he said) based on this writeup in the Asia Sentinal about the Sultan's, um.... colorful past. I didn't feel comfortable posting it directly, as I'm sure you can understand considering the topice of this blog. Also read the comments to the aforementioned article if you want to know some local sentiment toward the man.
Hisham: Blogger must answer for insulting late Sultan
By MAZWIN NIK ANIS and FARIK ZOLKEPLI
newsdesk@thestar.com.my PUTRAJAYA: The blogger arrested for allegedly insulting the late Sultan of Johor Sultan Iskandar ibni Almarhum Sultan Ismail will not be let off the hook easily, said Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein.
“Let his case be a lesson to others who think they can express themselves openly without worrying about repercussions."
“He has been arrested and will have to wait for the Attorney-General’s Chambers to decide on the appropriate action to be taken against him.
“Even if he apologised to the Sultan or the public for making the insult, my ministry and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission can still take action against him,” he told reporters yesterday.
On Tuesday, blogger Asuda Taruna, who allegedly insulted the late Sultan of Johor, was remanded for four days to facilitate investigations.
Johor police chief Deputy Comm Datuk Mohd Mokhtar Mohd Shariff said the blogger is expected to be brought to the Batu Pahat police headquarters to facilitate further investigations into the matter.
“We will not let anyone insult the royal institution in any way. We will not hesitate to make more arrests if others are found to be involved in similar activities,” he told a press conference in Johor Baru yesterday.
He urged members of the public who find similar insulting videos or blogs to lodge reports quickly.
I'm still not sure what exactly we did last night. I mean we say a DJ, named Bez, who evidently rode to stardom by first being a groupie with the Happy Monday's who then eventually became a fixture performing not so good dance routines on stage. Now he tours. I don't understand the Brits.
The guy to the right of the guy dancing is Bez. I think our friend Dave is better. Maybe he should start touring.
Before we dive into the day to day activities of the Ford/Rice party, I think I will start with superlatives.
Best nickname: Jesus. Jordan’s hair and look caused quite a stir in this Muslim country. Literally everywhere we went someone said it, and Jordan laughed about it. Jordan claims that one man on the beach looked at him like he was the second coming. The culmination of the trip saw Jordan in a long robe walking into the Purtajaya mosque, and saying to himself “this is just wrong”.
Best confused moment: At Batu Caves, I was trying to describe some of the sacrifices the worshippers are making, while a couple carrying a baby in a cloth strung on a bamboo pole walked by. Mom was thinking I was saying sacrifice, like the cloth contained a dead baby which might be an offering. It was great. Thinking about it, probably the closest thing I’d seen to this was Indiana Jones and the Temple of doom, but there is no lava shaft in Batu caves as far as I can tell.
Number of hurling events: 4/6 of us hurled, at least once, at some point in the trip.
Theme song(s): TiK ToK by Ke$ha, particularly the part about “boys wanna touch my junk” . Another might be Meet me Halfway, by Black Eyed Peas. Malaysian radio is just like WNCI but slightly more limited in the song list. Maybe 6 songs on rotation at any given time.
Best recurring joke. One night Jordan was called an Aussie, and with the 10 beers we drank on the street to that point in the night, decided he was an Aussie. For the next 4 days we laughed our butts off trying to outdo each other. Think about (in an aussie accent) what a turtle eating a wet baby wombat and shitting in a ‘roo pouch would smell like. That’s the level of conversation that we laughed about for 4 days straight. By the way, you can dip a ‘roo burger in just about anything.
Total miles travelled. About 20,000 in the air. Plus I forced them into another 980 miles via shitty van. But it was well worth it.
Arrive in Singapore, check into Hotel Excelsior at like 130 AM. I think that everyone should go to bed, and am quickly overruled (how silly of me). After stashing the bags, we meet up and find a bar in the hotel that is open until 3am. There is a front room that we are relegated to separate from the club, but we had a pool table and a lady helper named Kathy, our entertainment, who helped us select and sing karaoke. Dad and I were then later in the evening given a business card and asked if we were interested in ladies, or if we’d be back in town without the family any time soon. We drank several pitchers of flat Carlsburg. I was nearly forced to tip “the ladies” for their help. I suppose helping us pick karaoke songs is worth 25 bucks. We hit the hay.
We wake and try and head out at 9am. We got about 4-5 hours of sleep, and check our luggage at the front desk and head in 2 cabs to Killiney Kopi Kapotium for breakfast. Runny eggs and chicken curry and. We make our way to China town and see Buddha tooth relic temple. Then St. Andrews Cathedral. We then walked some more to Raffles Hotel for a very expensive Singapore Sling.
We take a flight back to KL later that day, grab the rental van, all the luggage and make our way into KL. This night we make some spaghetti and drank some of the liquor we bought, since buying duty free liquor is the only affordable way to drink in KL.
Day 2
Wake up and hit the line for the PETRONAS twin tower bridge tour. After we got our tickets we ate breakfast at the Nasi Kandar Pelita restaurant and have Teh Tarik (pulled tea). I discover that my pronunciation of said drink sounds like something they have at lunch and doesn’t start until 11am. I thought the first time was a fluke until they said the same thing 2 days later. So I said, ok Tea. They said “tea with milk?” I said sure. I think I got Teh Tarik. Other things we tried were Mee Goreng (fried noodles), and roti telur (egg bread).
We then headed out to Little India and shopped for sunglasses and fabric and ended up at the Coliseum Cafe where we had a couple of beers. We walked then to Chow Kit wet market and shopped for fruit. This is the first time that Jordan is called Jesus, which is a recurring theme throughout the trip.
After Chow Kit we headed back to the PETRONAS towers in time to see the bridge tour. We ate Indian that night. I hurled. We drank a little too.
Day 3
Hung over, we decide the best thing to do is to go to the 421 meter (1381 ft) KL tower and look over the edge. That was funny. Mom was the only one that had any sense at all the night before and thoroughly enjoyed it. The rest of us drank 100 plus (the only hangover cure you’ll ever need or ever want) tried not to barf. It needs imported to the states for sure.
We then headed to Central Market and shopped and then saw Sze Ya Temple, the oldest Taoist temple in Kuala Lumpur, right next door. Lunch was in order (and beer) and so we went to Bukit Bintang to Magnificent Fish and Chips for just that. After that, strangely, we were drawn to the Fish Spa, to have those tiny bastards eat our foot funk and calluses which we have worked up in the past couple of days. I think the video says it all.
Later we went back to China town to have dinner at Restoran Kim Lian Kee. This place is touted as being the birth place of Hokkein mee. We tried that, some Tom Yam soup, and mee hoon goreng. Very good. Mom saw her first lady boy, and her first family of rats. We saw chicken frogs whatever the hell those are.
Day 4
The next morning we travel to Penang, Malaysia. As soon as we hit town we go to Sister’s Char Kway Teow for a great lunch. We also try assam laksa. There were no beers but our livers thank us. I met the owner’s brother, and learned that one of the sisters has moved to KL so we’ll have to check that out. After lunch, we then head out to the snake temple and screw up, and end up at Kek Lok Si Temple instead, which is totally awesome and not a mistake at all in the end. We heard a day later from a new Aussie friend that the place is a bust.
On the way to the hotel we see a dog with impossibly huge testicles drinking windshield washer fluid from a gas station. I say “maybe he’s trying to off himself”.
We made it to the hotel with enough time to have some beers: liter sized Carlsburg before heading to Batu Ferringi (foreigner rock) bistro for dinner. It was amazing. Jordan decided the new advertising slogan for stingray should be “pig of the sea”.
Day 5
We spend most of the day by the pool, and had lunch at Happy Garden, and had a neat conversation with a local guy that likes badminton and likes America and has friends in Phoenix. We head to downtown Georgetown, Penang, Lorong Baru (new street) for dinner. We settle in at Kedai Kopi Goh Chew and ordered many dishes: Chicken wings, chicken satay, fried oysters, fried prawns, chicken porridge, fried fish bee hoon, and other stuff we couldn’t recognize. Jamie hurls and has a fever all night long.
Day 6
We check out at noon and drive back from Penang stopping at Batu Caves, a hindu temple, and witness pre-Thiapusam activities including men pierced with hooks and people carrying milk pots. Mom mistakes me saying “sacrifice” and thinks that the people are carrying babies in cloths as offerings – Indiana Jones and the Temple of doom style. Prior to that, Dad hurls from the seafood the night before and pukes in the parking lot. I think I see a whole shrimp. He certainly would have puked in the caves for the sights and smells. I’m sure my driving has something to do with this.
That night we do Mexican food - something more normal for the pallet. Margaritas rule.
Day 7
Wake up eat some breakfast and hit the road to Melaka, a historic port city. We saw the colourful Christ Church Melaka, and some ruins of a church named St. Pauls, and Fort A Formosa. At St. Paul’s we were followed around by a monk trying get donations. The rule is that as soon as you take something from a monk, most likely a little colorful item, you owe them money. Dad didn’t get the memo and took one, and as I interceded we ended up with two of them, and in the end were extorted for one hundred ringgit. C'est la vie, maybe my reincarnation will go well now. After that we took trishaws into China town and stopped to see Cheng Hoon Teng Temple , the oldest traditional Chinese temple in Malaysia. It’s on a street they call unity because there is also a Hindu temple and a mosque on the same street. The Mosque is called Kampung Kling and was built in 1748. Jamie and I bought a giant concrete Buddha head imported from Bali. We like it, and the coffee table hasn’t broken yet.
We arrived back in KL that night and headed straight to dinner at Nagasari Curry House, a banana leaf restaurant in the Bukit Bintang area. We tried murtabak, tandoori chicken, naan and many other things and had a great time, and lots of double deuce beers. After dinner Kim is hit on by an Indian man who wants to know if she can come home with him, and if the family will mind.
After that we headed to Jalan Alor for some Durian, that oniony smelly spiky fruit that we all love. I have to say, that although I burped it up the whole rest of the night and into the next morning, that spending the extra few ringgit was well worth it. Not nearly as freaking gross as the last time.
We then went to have an apple flavored sheesha (hooka) and had our first tower of beer. Amazing that this had not occurred before this point. We drank our weight in double deuces to this point in the trip.
Day 8
We wake up, head to the Nasi Kandar Pelita and order lots of roti telur. I try to order dad two fried eggs. Instead they make the roti with 2 eggs each and Kim hurls from having too many eggs. This is the 4th hurling episode if you are counting. After that we head to PutraJaya to see the architecture and the Putra Mosque. Mom got the rarest of rare insider peak at the mosque which women, don’t get to see. We were genuinely interested in what our female Malay guide was saying, and I guess that’s all it takes. They were inside maybe a minute, but people never get to see it, ever! It was an amazing opportunity.
Then, just like that, we’re at the airport again. Having Starbucks, and delaying the inevitable good bye. What a great trip it was indeed.
We have just relocated to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We will spend 3 years working here. We hope that you enjoy our stories about living in Malaysia and our other travels!
