I was bored today for the first time since I got to KL. Partly it has to do with being in a retail paradise and the realisation that my money will run out far too soon if I don’t put the breaks on. I could do to earn at least five times my annual salary, just to support the ten week holiday we get in the summer. Such hardship, being a teacher.
Breakfast buffets in expensive hotels are so difficult. With so much that is delicious to tempt you, it is always a challenge to get out without eating so much that you need to go back to bed for a few hours to sleep off the morning feast. I am in a fit, as opposed to fat, phase at the moment, and so each visit to the breakfast buffet is like a special torture. In expensive hotels that is. Not such a problem in the Allson Genesis. Sure, its quite nice, to damn it with faint praise, but it is at breakfast that I am reminded that this hotel costs less than twenty five pounds a night. Thin orange juice, orange in colour at least; slightly soggy cornflakes, more flake than corn; and grey coffee are the most tempting things at the AG buffet. Across the road there is Muslim Indian restaurant, where for about 30 pence they will serve delicious ‘roti canai’ and ‘teh tarik’. But, as the hotel breakfast is included in the deal, I endure it briefly each morning. Why I make this daily sacrifice is a not yet clear to me.
There is a shopping center off Jalan Bukit Bintang, five floors of technology and a thousand geeks. I was there to flick through hundreds of CDs and DVDs, all pirated and on sale openly and for a small fraction of the cost of original versions. A Malaysian I had met on the flight here complained that England was technologically out of date. Its not surprising, we spend most of our money on software, not the hardware on which to run it. In the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, on the ground floor, I met an Ausralian, her Apple Store bag providing sufficient introduction. A English lecturer from the university in Brunei, she was on her annual holiday and had just returned from three weeks in Laos which she had found remarkably poor and underdeveloped. She was enjoying the civilization of Kuala Lumpur and didn’t sound enthusiastic about returning to Brunei, which she described as parochial and conservative.
The hotel lift requires that you insert your room key into a slot before it will allow you to select your floor. Like an abused credit card, mine wouldn’t work, no matter how persistently I swiped it. Somewhat irriated I took it to the reception desk. “What time do you wish to check out sir?”, asked the clerk when I finally managed to drag him away from his computer screen. We had our dates confused. I thought I had another night here, they thought otherwise. We negotiated. I could stay another night, but the room would be at their promotional rate - some ten pounds more than the rate I had been paying. I demanded to know the logic behind this - how could booking through a third party and paying their commission be so much cheaper than paying the hotel directly. To save face, the clerk revalidated my key and said that he would get the manager to telephone me in my room, which he did whilst I was in the bathroom. There is something slightly absurd about standing in the middle of your room, underpants round your ankles, negotiating for a discounted room rate. You are hardly in a position of strength. Eventually, I did managed to negotiate a good rate and, feeling pleased with myself, decided that it might be better to move away from the picture window.
There are many pleasant Western-style bars in KL now but the place in which I find myself most comfortable is a small open air Chinese restaurant, plastic tables, bright green chopsticks in orange plastic pots and with the kitchen stove on wheels. It is on the street corner and its a hive of activity every evening. There is no menu but the Carlesberg signs above the mobile stalls describe what is on offer: mee with pork or fish balls, prawn mee, goreng kuey teow, popiah and fried rice. Thats it. As I sit here writing and drinking my Tiger I am reminded of those adverts where one man stands still and everything around him is speeded up, a blur of activity. Chinese eat fast. They arrive, double parking their Mercedes, BMWs and Range Rovers, order in harsh voices, feed in a frenzy and leave. I order another Tiger. Actually that isn’t true. Already a local, the kind lady just smiled at me and brought me another.
Many years ago the government of Singapore held a campaign to get the nations shop keepers, then a miserable bunch, to smile more. The thinking was that this might actually improve sales. Campaign posters around town carried the message “Have you given your ten smiles today?” It must have been an up hill struggle. I remember leaving a shop in misnamed Happy Plaza with the clerk following me out waving good bye with two fingers and a not so friendly “F**k you, mister.” I had asked to see a piece of camera gear, that I doubtless bought later in a more amenable place, only to be told “You buy, you look. No buy, no look.” I may have commented upon his expertise as a salesman, his intelligence generally, or perhaps the similarity of his head to his genitalia. I don’t recall. Malaysia, is now holding a similar campaign, perhaps to encourage more tourism, this being the fiftieth anniversary of independence and yet another “Visit Malaysia Year”. Banners like the one in the photograph (out of focus, it was late, too much Tiger etc.) are scattered around town. Translated, loosely: “Smile! Friendly without speaking. Good manners is our culture. The KL way!” On the whole, it is true, although I think that some Englishmen at least, tend to be a little suspicious of over friendly foreigners.
Speaking of which, there are a lot more prostitutes around town than there were fifteen years ago.
Breakfast buffets in expensive hotels are so difficult. With so much that is delicious to tempt you, it is always a challenge to get out without eating so much that you need to go back to bed for a few hours to sleep off the morning feast. I am in a fit, as opposed to fat, phase at the moment, and so each visit to the breakfast buffet is like a special torture. In expensive hotels that is. Not such a problem in the Allson Genesis. Sure, its quite nice, to damn it with faint praise, but it is at breakfast that I am reminded that this hotel costs less than twenty five pounds a night. Thin orange juice, orange in colour at least; slightly soggy cornflakes, more flake than corn; and grey coffee are the most tempting things at the AG buffet. Across the road there is Muslim Indian restaurant, where for about 30 pence they will serve delicious ‘roti canai’ and ‘teh tarik’. But, as the hotel breakfast is included in the deal, I endure it briefly each morning. Why I make this daily sacrifice is a not yet clear to me.
There is a shopping center off Jalan Bukit Bintang, five floors of technology and a thousand geeks. I was there to flick through hundreds of CDs and DVDs, all pirated and on sale openly and for a small fraction of the cost of original versions. A Malaysian I had met on the flight here complained that England was technologically out of date. Its not surprising, we spend most of our money on software, not the hardware on which to run it. In the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, on the ground floor, I met an Ausralian, her Apple Store bag providing sufficient introduction. A English lecturer from the university in Brunei, she was on her annual holiday and had just returned from three weeks in Laos which she had found remarkably poor and underdeveloped. She was enjoying the civilization of Kuala Lumpur and didn’t sound enthusiastic about returning to Brunei, which she described as parochial and conservative.
The hotel lift requires that you insert your room key into a slot before it will allow you to select your floor. Like an abused credit card, mine wouldn’t work, no matter how persistently I swiped it. Somewhat irriated I took it to the reception desk. “What time do you wish to check out sir?”, asked the clerk when I finally managed to drag him away from his computer screen. We had our dates confused. I thought I had another night here, they thought otherwise. We negotiated. I could stay another night, but the room would be at their promotional rate - some ten pounds more than the rate I had been paying. I demanded to know the logic behind this - how could booking through a third party and paying their commission be so much cheaper than paying the hotel directly. To save face, the clerk revalidated my key and said that he would get the manager to telephone me in my room, which he did whilst I was in the bathroom. There is something slightly absurd about standing in the middle of your room, underpants round your ankles, negotiating for a discounted room rate. You are hardly in a position of strength. Eventually, I did managed to negotiate a good rate and, feeling pleased with myself, decided that it might be better to move away from the picture window.
There are many pleasant Western-style bars in KL now but the place in which I find myself most comfortable is a small open air Chinese restaurant, plastic tables, bright green chopsticks in orange plastic pots and with the kitchen stove on wheels. It is on the street corner and its a hive of activity every evening. There is no menu but the Carlesberg signs above the mobile stalls describe what is on offer: mee with pork or fish balls, prawn mee, goreng kuey teow, popiah and fried rice. Thats it. As I sit here writing and drinking my Tiger I am reminded of those adverts where one man stands still and everything around him is speeded up, a blur of activity. Chinese eat fast. They arrive, double parking their Mercedes, BMWs and Range Rovers, order in harsh voices, feed in a frenzy and leave. I order another Tiger. Actually that isn’t true. Already a local, the kind lady just smiled at me and brought me another.
Many years ago the government of Singapore held a campaign to get the nations shop keepers, then a miserable bunch, to smile more. The thinking was that this might actually improve sales. Campaign posters around town carried the message “Have you given your ten smiles today?” It must have been an up hill struggle. I remember leaving a shop in misnamed Happy Plaza with the clerk following me out waving good bye with two fingers and a not so friendly “F**k you, mister.” I had asked to see a piece of camera gear, that I doubtless bought later in a more amenable place, only to be told “You buy, you look. No buy, no look.” I may have commented upon his expertise as a salesman, his intelligence generally, or perhaps the similarity of his head to his genitalia. I don’t recall. Malaysia, is now holding a similar campaign, perhaps to encourage more tourism, this being the fiftieth anniversary of independence and yet another “Visit Malaysia Year”. Banners like the one in the photograph (out of focus, it was late, too much Tiger etc.) are scattered around town. Translated, loosely: “Smile! Friendly without speaking. Good manners is our culture. The KL way!” On the whole, it is true, although I think that some Englishmen at least, tend to be a little suspicious of over friendly foreigners.
Speaking of which, there are a lot more prostitutes around town than there were fifteen years ago.
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1 comment:
great story, not better that your other bathroom one! you know the slippery one. Well I would guess that breakfast is an important meal but when you have frosties and milk and OJ for 10 months out of the year what are few more soggy flakes, try peanut butter on toast!
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