the bus stopped in the early hours of the morning and after being ceremonially ripped off by the taxi driver, we settled into a dive to catch up on some sleep. The next day we went in search of some more suitable accommodation, found the best deal we could, and settled in for a week or so. Shortly after we arrived I was seduced into buying what I was told was a genuine jailbroken Iphone 4 for a bargain price, but after getting home and charging, it became apparent that this was no Iphone. I took it back to the place I brought it and he was really not willing to take it back. for every argument I had he had some bullshit excuse. I started to get pretty angry (as I had paid him about $600 for the phone) and found myself leaning over the counter threatening to get the police involved. I tell you, I have never been so livid with a retailer in my life. After considerable assertion, and perhaps some intimidation, he agreed to give me my money back minus a $30 "admin fee". Well I was still not happy but I guess it is better then loosing it all. Over the course of the next week or so we frequented china town and bargained for souvenirs and bags for our families, Met and had drinks with some street musicians, frequented some GIGANTIC malls, and even went for a roller coaster ride inside one of them. We managed to fix Melissa's computer, but went shopping for our own replacement harddrive, and I decided to upgrade my own while we were at it. KL is an IT dream. But beware, if you don't know what you are talking about, you are prey. We also went shopping for a phone that we could use as a mobile hotspot to guarantee some kind of connection to the internet whenever we needed it. We ended up deciding on the Samsung galaxy SL, and spend a couple of days snifing out teh best deal, only to find that the promised inbuilt 16G storage, was actually 4G. My fault for not doing my research I suppose. Well there was no way I was getting my money back, so I managed to negotiate a reasonable rate on an additional 16G external SD storage card.
I had read about a drum circle in the lonely planet so we stuck around to check it out. We rocked up to the same place they have been holding the drum circle for the last 10 years or so, and soon met all the drummers. I soon felt at home, as I was kindly lent a drum, and even asked to lead the drum circle! (I declined), Sitting in that circle all of the stresses of the consumerist environment surrounding us melted away, and for a couple of hours, I felt like I was back home.
After the drumming had finished Paul, the founder of the drum circle invited us to join him for dinner. We graciously accepted, and were treated to what is perhaps the finest indian food I have ever had. Paul was even nice enough to drop us home after diner, and as we were about to part he suggested a jam night to me that happened to be on later that night! Well, we fairly much jumped straight on the train and were there in no time. the musicianship there was of a very high caliber and eventually I was invited up to jam twice. Damn it felt good. I needed it so much after over two months away from the kit. Towards the end of the night a guest band who normally played at one of the local hotels got up to perform a short set. Holy Shit they were good. Funky as hell ad-lib jamming, and the drum solo. Man, That guy was the best drummer that I have ever seen who was not part of an international tour. Absolute gold.
Anyhow, I returned to the hotel recharged, and with my faith in the inherit goodness of people restored.
From there we headed to Malacca. The first night we arrived was raining, so we ventured a short while and found a nice pub overlooking the canal to eat at. The next day we went exploring the maze of old town Malacca, found a Buddhist temple that did daily chants, and arranged to come back and record it the following day.
and at some stage we attended a coffee house show with crazy child acrobats and stuff.
I am a little bit hazy about the order of things, but one night we went to check out the local markets and stumbled across a street performance buy a man who holds the world record for piercing the most coconuts with his finger in any given amount of time. Well he was a great showman, and built thinks up for around an hour, during which time he decided it would be a great idea to include me in the performance.
His antics included having me select three playing cards for him to throw at me, and choosing a coconut for him to break, which I was then asked to attempt to break first. Hilarious. His routine also involved allot of hard selling of some kind of muscle warming lotion. I don't know what he was saying to the in Malay, but it sure was effective, The locals were buying his product by the dozens. Later on in the night we saw him at one of the stalls and he invited us over for a beer. We indulged in a couple and had a good talk to him about his Kung foo and his achievements.
He is a very proud man.
The next day we ventured a little further afield and wound up having a drink in a bar in the more townish side of town. Well it turned out to be a Chinese bar, with some weird dancing, karaoke singing, girls thing going on. We were well over charged for our drinks, and then a guy came over gave us a drink, and explained that we were out of place here. He struck up a long conversation with us, but something didn't feel right, so we left as soon as we could without finishing the drink he had brought for us.
From there we headed to Penang. It was Melissas birthday coming up, so after one night spent in a dive (the usual after arriving at some ungodly hour on an overnight bus), we moved to a nice island resort so that Melissa could get some pampering. Her only request was that the place had a spa pool that we could use. Well the next day we went in search of said spa pool, and after much wandering around and confusion discovered that the pool (air temperature), that was positioned adjacent to the Spa (massage) was infact the Spa - pool. Well Princess Melissa wasn't very impressed, and after acting like we belonged in such a poncy resort, we negotiated a complimentary meal for that night. We ended up using the Spa - pool anyway and it was actually a rather special swim with no one around and an uninhibited view of the bush and distant city. Very romantic.
We headed back to Penang and found a place to stay with a reasonable rate and made good friends with the catering staff. We looked around the local shops as usual and even got a cheep tour on one of those couch push bike things by some drunk guy. (ok so he may have only been drunk because I was giving him sips of my whisky).
One night we ventured into a pub to get a drink and kill some time while we waited for our blind massage appointment. On the way to the toilet I was approached by a drunk young Maori guy. I told him I was from New Zealand, but since I didn't know where his home town was (some town out near Te Awamutu) He didn't believe me, and thought I was Australian. Matters were not helped when he tried to test me by asking me who the Warriors played last night. After much convincing via Kiwiana trivia, and correcting him that St Pauls was actually in Hamilton and not near Cambridge, and that he was thinking of St Peters, He finally believed me that I was a fully fledged New Zealander, which I guess gave me some kind of membership. He asked me who I was with and then left to go find Melissa while I finished what I had come for. We were brought a drink, and told us that there were 50 New Zealanders upstairs as the NZ navy was in port, and it was someones 21st. Melissa objected that we had an appointment to go to, but he was pretty assertive that "your not going anywhere". We were dragged upstairs where we were introduced to NZ's finest drunks. I accepted their offers to buy us drinks without a shred of guilt as it dawned on me, that every other night, they were drinking on me. After a few interesting conversations with the crew we became weary of the scene. A room full of drunken sailors pumped full of testosterone, who seemed like they hadn't had access to woman for quite some time. Their agenda was obvious, and the frustration was palpable. We could probably have stayed all night and indulged in the madness for free, but after a few freebies we decided to make a run for it and see if we could still make our massage appointment.
The next night I met a south African guy who used to work at Ag research. His job was to make mice glow, which apparently he did very well. We got talking about all sorts of ecological issues and his wisdom soon became apparent. He is currently working with orangutangs in Sumatra to try and make Karmic amends for the eventual purpose his research was used for.
While in Penang we spent alot of time sorting out our indonesian visa's, and also visited the snake temple where I eventually plucked up the courage to actually hold a python around my neck, and got pretty damn close to some wild vipers (Its ok mum, They aren't allowed to bite us because they are in the area of the sacred snake temple, The Chinese said so)
That night we ended up being taken out on the town by the owner of the guesthouse we were staying at along with the rest of the pigmy evening staff and another couple of guests from Holland. Well we had a great time ripping up the dance floor and ended up drinking and dancing till the morning came while propping up the guesthouse owner and trying to convince him to drink some water.
A quick visit to the beach, and a day of getting lost on the bus system later and we were off to our next location - Langkawi.
Our first couple of nights were spent in an overpriced room close to the dock. We explored the island by scooter the first day and got chased home by an approaching storm. This thing was evil. It really did look like the smoke monster from lost as it approached over the ocean. ominous and creeping. Every time we turned back to look at it it had developed a little more, and crept a little forward. We managed to stay just ahead of it the entire way home. But as soon as we reached our guesthouse and parked the scooter the rain started bucketing down.
The next day we were not so lucky and got caught in a monsoon rain on our way to the cable cars. The eventual cable car ride was somewhat into cloud, but rather spectacular for it.
The next day we moved to a nicer and cheaper part of the island and relaxed there for a couple of days and made a few day trips to waterfalls and things with plenty of monkeys along the way.
The local beach and music scene was really quite good with lots of good food and quality music to be enjoyed. One night I rocked up to a music venue a bit late, and got talking to the staff, we took a table and chairs out on the beach, stocked up on a few brews and wiled away the night with guitar, singing, and talk about the state of the world. We also planned to organise a jam with the in house band the following night. We parted ways as the sun came up, which incidentally is the first time that I could really see his face, he was much older then I had imagined. On a bit of a high from the depth of conversation that morning, the water looked so amazing on the way home that I decided to strip off and go for a swim. The solo sunrise swim , while perhaps ill advised, was really amazing until I felt a stinging sensation brush across my wrist. It was a jellyfish. Unsure of the severity, I asked a few locals who seemed to think that I needed to go to hospital. Well it all seemed a bit over the top to me, but after some deliberation Melissa managed to convince me that we were better off safe than sorry. We took a taxi to the hospital. A jab in the arm and a bunch of money later, we were all happy as Larry.
That night I headed back to Little Lydia and took them up on the offer for a jam. It was great fun with some amazing musicians and a much needed release. The drummer in the band had heard about "The Project" and gave me a few pointers about where I could find some traditional Malaysian music, and in particular, drumming.
We followed it up over the next couple of days and I managed to get a few quick lessons before we finished up in Langkawi and headed down to KL ready for our flight to Indonesia.
We ended up overshooting KL due to not getting off the bus quick enough and ended up staying in a town slightly further south for a couple of days. It was all good to relax and recover, but I missed out on catching up with Paul before we left. All said and done, we packed our bags and headed for the air port. Destination: Indonesia
