Wednesday, October 05, 2005
The Lonely Planeteer
Day 0
KL
We touch down in KL and tread over to the Pan Pacific Hotel. It's late, and we're exhausted.
D tries to haggle a bit with the pleasant lady at the counter to no avail. It's the ninth floor luxury rooms or nothing at this hour.
We make to leave, but I am just exhausted, and I don't relish the thought of waking up insanely early in three hours time to make the long trek back to the airport.
Something in my expression, or perhaps my chronically sleep-deprived panda-ringed eyes makes the counter girl have a change of heart. She brings down the price, just for me. Aww.
Four hours later we're awake again (having been frozen half to death by the 15 degree thermostat) and feasting on a ridiculously posh buffet breakfast, after having stumbled goggle-eyed around the sheer extravagence of the Pan Pacific. We're beginning to think that we should just cancel the whole tour and stay here for a day or two more... heh heh
*****
Day 1
KL to Kota Bharu
We meet up with S, and her friend R.
I haven't seen S in a while now; she's sporting a healthy tan, but otherwise looks much the same.
R looks a bit like a medical student I used to know at my own uni; that is a slightly slighter version of Dolph Lundgren. haha.
We step forwards and hug. Sometime later she confides to me that she missed me a great deal after leaving Singapore.
I bite back my truth, which is that I missed you, too.
*****
First impressions
This is a vast, untamed land. I watch the trees fly past the bus in droves... and the undergrowth is so, so dense. It's almost primal.
People live simple lives here, very much back to basics. Decrepit huts lie incongrously amidst stone villas. Threadbare geriatric men chug by on stripped down scooters. I catch sight of an old man hitching a tow on his skeletal scooter, from another old man on his slightly less malnourished vehicle and have to stifle a laugh.
We zip past two children, a boy and a girl playing with a shovel. Another pair, playing with the back of a chair. How strange and wonderful to see children using their imaginations - and not having it done for them by an electronic gameboy...
It's a vast, vast canvas this land - a template, for things yet to come. Or for things that will never be.
Unspoken, unfulfilled promises whispering in the wind.
It's so, so beautiful.
Is this what Singapore looked like once?
*****
Nine hours later (still en route from Kota Bharu to Taman Negara) I'm beginning to think... it's all the same. same. same.... same. green. same. grass. hut. same.
It's Jurassic park sans dinosaurs.
Argh! Get me out of here!!
*****
We finally arrive, aching and exhausted (it's hard work riding a minibus... all that tiresome snoozing...) at Taman Negara only to discover that rooms for the midrange hotel are out.
I discover to my surprise that my compatriots whom I thought were taking me along for a four day tumble in the jungle - roughing it and bashing down banana trees along the way - are actually more interested in cushy digs than I am. And that bashing down trees isn't after all part of the agenda. I can't decide if I'm pleased, or perhaps just a little disappointed.
We move on to more expensive digs - still mid-range to my anglicised mind, since all this is in ringgit, and I still automatically convert ringgit to pounds in my head.
Its raining when we arrive and all activities are off as a result. We have an early dinner, play a bit of pool, then turn in.
It's almost a decent night's sleep, except for the moment when someone tries to open our door with their key...
... and succeeds.
The deadlock stops them from entering, twice.
I wake up and say, What the Hell? And the door is gently closed. My blood runs cold for a second. I know this story... I know the one about the machete wielding crooks... who probably work as staff for the hotel.
They had our key
I ring switchboard and complain, and they aren't impressed. They aren't impressed the next morning either, and absolutely nothing aside from stupid suggestions that some other room's doorkey opens ours, or that the security guys thought they needed to check on us are offered.
It's during this time as we barricade the doors and I text message someone that I realise that I'm really not afraid of death.
I'm afraid of dying without truth.
Day 2
Taman Negara
Everything, it seems, comes to a standstill on Sunday morning. Come on people! Eight o clock! rise and shine!!
Somewhere in the night the island's power has cut out, and everything is dead including the internet. So much for our plans to rebook a more sensible return path via KL to Singapore, instead of Penang. (err... who planned this trip again. Oh yeah, D.)
As I step out the door of our room (Woodlands Hotel, highly recommended at RM 144/night, just keep your door firmly locked...) I am treated to the stunning sight of sunrise streaming through tendrils of mist rising gently off the hills to join wispy, low-flying clouds which blanket the treetops of the reserve.
I have only seen the likes once before, watching a chill mist rising slowly off the magnificent glens of Loch Ness in the background, and the foreboding ruins of Urquhart Castle in the fore... another holiday getaway, that time alone, relishing my solitude, and with no fewer thoughts flitting through my chaotic mind.
We finally sort our act out and make it across into the reserve proper. 1 Ringgit per person, 5 ringgit per camera. Human life it seems comes cheap here.
A mere two hours later (my travelmates have now settled into the age-old joke about Malayan time being slower... essentially a joke about rubber time. Rubato.) and we're finally walking the Canopy Walk... five hundred meters of rope bridge strung high amongst the treetops. All around us are the sounds of the jungle - but suspiciously, no sights at all. I crane my head to catch a glimpse of at least one bird... but I see nothing. It reminds me of the ski slopes of Switzerland I once saw.. I could swear I heard cowbells... but where were the cows?
It's beautiful up here, even without monkeys clamouring to be fed, or furious hawks razing our scalps. It's a fairy-tale jungle walk set in the sky, and five hundred meters comes too quickly to an end for myself... I wish it went on for a couple kilometers more.
Somewhere along the way I lean out over the ropes and glance downwards, out of curiosity more than anything else.
I realise dispassionately that I'm not apparently afraid of heights, either.
I suppose it's the landing bit that most people are truly afraid of. Laugh.
Later, while waiting for the vaunted Night Safari to begin, we somehow get sucked into a white-water boating experience.
There are no words to describe this aside from "magical". It's like being in a wildlife documentary... right there, on the lake. Trailing my hand through the tepid water... I can't see any wildlife but it doesn't detract from the statesque granduer of the jungle, tall trees towering high above us on either bank.
S sits lightly against me; she comments that it looks like Lord of the Rings. I agree, a little distractedly.
It is strongly reminiscent of Lord of the Rings, but right now I'm just wondering if perhaps I could come back here someday with another... friend, whom my gut tells me would enjoy this beautiful scene.
We begin to crest the rapids, downstream on the way back. Water slaps me hard across the chest and face, and we squeak in equal parts shock and delight.
It suddenly hits me that my mobile phone is somewhere in our communcal black waterproof trashbag, and that if anything were to happen, right now...
... I would pass, without truth. Without words. In silence, with water all around. Without the chance to text message these words to you : You would have liked this, M, I think.
I would have liked to have been here, with you.
Yet later, we spend the evening chugging on a tired jeep through a rubber plantation, and assorted random parts of the countryside, our guide wielding a spotlight like a laserpointer, waving it in dizzying circles ostensibly to stun the wildlife into immobility. Oft times the vehicle jolts to a halt as the driver sees something, and we are instructed to look at a pair of shiny eyes which eventually close in disinterest.
Apparently we are lucky enough to catch some civet cats, a slow loris, some cute adorably little birdie thingummies clustered to the underside of a palm leaf in a line (like a kebab. ha!) and a large, photogenic owl which apparently shows up on the dot every night to have his photograph taken. The evening wears on and we finally return to base camp, lids heavy with fatigue.
For some reason, the mosquitoes have given me a miss.
*****
Day 3
Cameron Highlands
The bus pulls into Cameron Highlands at last.
Somewhere along the way I've made friends with C, a charming medical student from Wales. She has a habit of muttering silly jokes under her breath which I'm well familiar with, and I can't help but catch them all. We kid around a bit after the guide meticulously explains why Blue Valley is called Blue Valley (because they used to grow tea there, but now do not...) and decide it must be because the teabags come with blue tags when they're harvested out of their tea pods, yes that must be it.
She reminds me very, very much of someone from a very, very long time ago. Rather than dwell in before though, I enjoy trading silly lines with her as the air slowly but certainly turns more chilly.
It begins to rain.
Cameron Highlands is tea-and-strawberry land, it seems. I don't remember it from my childhood very clearly, but I know I've been somewhere really cold in Malaysia before with lots of mountains, so I'm guessing I've been here before.
My travelmates are not impressed we chug slowly past countless Chinese villages dominated by shabby houses, tacky storefronts and run-down four by fours... they wonder if perhaps we should just catch the nearest bus straight to KL...
I prefer instead to watch the countless tendrils of mountain mist creeping off the treetops and birthing the fast-flying, low-lying clouds sweeping off the mountaintop. I imagine to myself that if I was a teacher, I'd tell my class - This is how clouds are made.
These are the cloud-factories of the world, children.
C, and her travel companion R step off the bus at the Father's Guest House, a quaint dwelling which looks suspiciously like an army barracks. Typically, I forget to actually give her my number for when she swings by Singapore en route to home. Empty promises, that's me.
A short hotel-hopping experience later, and we've somehow wound up at Ye Olde Smokehouse, an all-english, gorgeously done-up colonial bungalow. There are so many shiny things here I'm simply enthralled. It doesn't take much to please me... sigh.
(My travelmates are most unimpressed with the less exorbitant hotels, since their squash courts and jaccuzzis are not ready...)
We sit down to a very civilised tea of scones, and... tea. And strawberry jam (but of course), and then set out to explore the town, armed with our umbrella. It's still raining.
The rest, as they say, is history (or rather, another blog entry) - I discover that my blog has been perused even here... its slightly scary, and slightly funny all in one.
Lazy after dinner drinks back at the hotel around the open log-fire listening to the strains of a BBC comedy show. I forget to order strawberries and cream for dessert as we drowse and make pleasant supper conversation.
There follows a rather uncomfortable sleep curled up on the settee because, well... I will not, ever, be caught dead sharing a bed with another man. Not even if it has red satin sheets and four posters. cough.
*****
Day 4
Penang
Snatches of memories here... it was such a rush. Wake up. Brush teeth. Get changed. Run downstairs. Full English Breakfast gobbled down in about five minutes. Tea to finish, and it's off to the bus station to catch the express to Penang.
We leave S and R behind to explore the highlands at their leisure, and I feel faintly jealous that I have to go back to work tomorrow...
As we part, I feel a little sad. But fortunately I still have D, even if he was a little over-eager to share ze bed wif me last night. Just joking, D... :) We both know your wife would never stand for that.
ahaha.
On the drive out, I notice the hills. Cut, terraced over the centuries, farmed, bare, unfarmed... lying cheek to cheek with wild rolling virgin hills, in an intimage embrace - man, and the wilds.
And then I look harder and notice the orange bougainvilleas creeping steathily along the face of the whole picture, seeking slowly but surely to blanket the entire scene in a few thousand years, like an encroaching moss. And I notice the way the wilderness eats away at the terraced slopes, reseeding it with its vibrant chaos, and hiding away the forgotten concrete steps that peep through occasionally. My eye becomes more practised and I realise just how many of these slopes have actually been farmed, over this past millenium...
The wilderness reclaims her own.
Penang is another whirlwind experience... We don't actually get to eat Penang Laksa like I hope. From the spartan bus station we choose to be conveyed to the northern beaches.
They're not much to look at, to be honest. I've seen far better. But my eye is instantly caught by a horse-ride being offered.
One of my lifelong dreams has always been to ride a horse along a wide, expansive beach. The sun is low on the horizon, and the beach is white and gleaming with moisure, an even plane in the reds of the sunset; the horse's hooves strike through the receding surf in perfect rhythm as we gallop down into infinity...
Or barring that, second best would be riding along a forest path - an English or German forest, opening into unexpected hidden green vales and clearings (think Tree Ents in Lord of the Rings)... and not the mad chaos of a south east asian rainforest.
Right now, it's nothing like that. The beach is narrow and cluttered with driftwood and litter, and the horse looks exhausted, treading his way warily through the litter and trying his best not to let his feet get wet. It's a most unromantic scene.
We walk, and eventually settle down for a cheap and cheerful lunch at Deep Sea Seafood, which turns out to be some kind of front for criminal activity. I swear at one point the lead character for the Hitman computer series walks into the scene.
Towards the end of the day we wander down to Georgetown, because, well, Penang is Georgetown.
It looks disconcertingly like Little India, only Chinese. Chinese gold merchants, chinese fashion, chinese everything. We walk till boredom sets in, then visit the nearby mega-mall and browse everything from women's fashion to pirated PC CD roms...
Somewhere along the way, I discover a triplet of glass dolphins.
D begins to haggle with the petite salesgirl, and I silently wish he'd stop. She has beautiful eyes.
It strikes me that many of the women in Penang have different features to the Singaporean girls... and perhaps on the whole even better features. I wonder if they're from a different part of China ethically?
D wanders off as I pay for my purchase, and she looks up for the first time into my eyes.
We watch each other for a split second, and then I smile, and she does as well.
"You're not local?"
"No."
And then we're away, back to the chores of everyday.
KL
We touch down in KL and tread over to the Pan Pacific Hotel. It's late, and we're exhausted.
D tries to haggle a bit with the pleasant lady at the counter to no avail. It's the ninth floor luxury rooms or nothing at this hour.
We make to leave, but I am just exhausted, and I don't relish the thought of waking up insanely early in three hours time to make the long trek back to the airport.
Something in my expression, or perhaps my chronically sleep-deprived panda-ringed eyes makes the counter girl have a change of heart. She brings down the price, just for me. Aww.
Four hours later we're awake again (having been frozen half to death by the 15 degree thermostat) and feasting on a ridiculously posh buffet breakfast, after having stumbled goggle-eyed around the sheer extravagence of the Pan Pacific. We're beginning to think that we should just cancel the whole tour and stay here for a day or two more... heh heh
*****
Day 1
KL to Kota Bharu
We meet up with S, and her friend R.
I haven't seen S in a while now; she's sporting a healthy tan, but otherwise looks much the same.
R looks a bit like a medical student I used to know at my own uni; that is a slightly slighter version of Dolph Lundgren. haha.
We step forwards and hug. Sometime later she confides to me that she missed me a great deal after leaving Singapore.
I bite back my truth, which is that I missed you, too.
*****
First impressions
This is a vast, untamed land. I watch the trees fly past the bus in droves... and the undergrowth is so, so dense. It's almost primal.
People live simple lives here, very much back to basics. Decrepit huts lie incongrously amidst stone villas. Threadbare geriatric men chug by on stripped down scooters. I catch sight of an old man hitching a tow on his skeletal scooter, from another old man on his slightly less malnourished vehicle and have to stifle a laugh.
We zip past two children, a boy and a girl playing with a shovel. Another pair, playing with the back of a chair. How strange and wonderful to see children using their imaginations - and not having it done for them by an electronic gameboy...
It's a vast, vast canvas this land - a template, for things yet to come. Or for things that will never be.
Unspoken, unfulfilled promises whispering in the wind.
It's so, so beautiful.
Is this what Singapore looked like once?
*****
Nine hours later (still en route from Kota Bharu to Taman Negara) I'm beginning to think... it's all the same. same. same.... same. green. same. grass. hut. same.
It's Jurassic park sans dinosaurs.
Argh! Get me out of here!!
*****
We finally arrive, aching and exhausted (it's hard work riding a minibus... all that tiresome snoozing...) at Taman Negara only to discover that rooms for the midrange hotel are out.
I discover to my surprise that my compatriots whom I thought were taking me along for a four day tumble in the jungle - roughing it and bashing down banana trees along the way - are actually more interested in cushy digs than I am. And that bashing down trees isn't after all part of the agenda. I can't decide if I'm pleased, or perhaps just a little disappointed.
We move on to more expensive digs - still mid-range to my anglicised mind, since all this is in ringgit, and I still automatically convert ringgit to pounds in my head.
Its raining when we arrive and all activities are off as a result. We have an early dinner, play a bit of pool, then turn in.
It's almost a decent night's sleep, except for the moment when someone tries to open our door with their key...
... and succeeds.
The deadlock stops them from entering, twice.
I wake up and say, What the Hell? And the door is gently closed. My blood runs cold for a second. I know this story... I know the one about the machete wielding crooks... who probably work as staff for the hotel.
They had our key
I ring switchboard and complain, and they aren't impressed. They aren't impressed the next morning either, and absolutely nothing aside from stupid suggestions that some other room's doorkey opens ours, or that the security guys thought they needed to check on us are offered.
It's during this time as we barricade the doors and I text message someone that I realise that I'm really not afraid of death.
I'm afraid of dying without truth.
Day 2
Taman Negara
Everything, it seems, comes to a standstill on Sunday morning. Come on people! Eight o clock! rise and shine!!
Somewhere in the night the island's power has cut out, and everything is dead including the internet. So much for our plans to rebook a more sensible return path via KL to Singapore, instead of Penang. (err... who planned this trip again. Oh yeah, D.)
As I step out the door of our room (Woodlands Hotel, highly recommended at RM 144/night, just keep your door firmly locked...) I am treated to the stunning sight of sunrise streaming through tendrils of mist rising gently off the hills to join wispy, low-flying clouds which blanket the treetops of the reserve.
I have only seen the likes once before, watching a chill mist rising slowly off the magnificent glens of Loch Ness in the background, and the foreboding ruins of Urquhart Castle in the fore... another holiday getaway, that time alone, relishing my solitude, and with no fewer thoughts flitting through my chaotic mind.
We finally sort our act out and make it across into the reserve proper. 1 Ringgit per person, 5 ringgit per camera. Human life it seems comes cheap here.
A mere two hours later (my travelmates have now settled into the age-old joke about Malayan time being slower... essentially a joke about rubber time. Rubato.) and we're finally walking the Canopy Walk... five hundred meters of rope bridge strung high amongst the treetops. All around us are the sounds of the jungle - but suspiciously, no sights at all. I crane my head to catch a glimpse of at least one bird... but I see nothing. It reminds me of the ski slopes of Switzerland I once saw.. I could swear I heard cowbells... but where were the cows?
It's beautiful up here, even without monkeys clamouring to be fed, or furious hawks razing our scalps. It's a fairy-tale jungle walk set in the sky, and five hundred meters comes too quickly to an end for myself... I wish it went on for a couple kilometers more.
Somewhere along the way I lean out over the ropes and glance downwards, out of curiosity more than anything else.
I realise dispassionately that I'm not apparently afraid of heights, either.
I suppose it's the landing bit that most people are truly afraid of. Laugh.
Later, while waiting for the vaunted Night Safari to begin, we somehow get sucked into a white-water boating experience.
There are no words to describe this aside from "magical". It's like being in a wildlife documentary... right there, on the lake. Trailing my hand through the tepid water... I can't see any wildlife but it doesn't detract from the statesque granduer of the jungle, tall trees towering high above us on either bank.
S sits lightly against me; she comments that it looks like Lord of the Rings. I agree, a little distractedly.
It is strongly reminiscent of Lord of the Rings, but right now I'm just wondering if perhaps I could come back here someday with another... friend, whom my gut tells me would enjoy this beautiful scene.
We begin to crest the rapids, downstream on the way back. Water slaps me hard across the chest and face, and we squeak in equal parts shock and delight.
It suddenly hits me that my mobile phone is somewhere in our communcal black waterproof trashbag, and that if anything were to happen, right now...
... I would pass, without truth. Without words. In silence, with water all around. Without the chance to text message these words to you : You would have liked this, M, I think.
I would have liked to have been here, with you.
Yet later, we spend the evening chugging on a tired jeep through a rubber plantation, and assorted random parts of the countryside, our guide wielding a spotlight like a laserpointer, waving it in dizzying circles ostensibly to stun the wildlife into immobility. Oft times the vehicle jolts to a halt as the driver sees something, and we are instructed to look at a pair of shiny eyes which eventually close in disinterest.
Apparently we are lucky enough to catch some civet cats, a slow loris, some cute adorably little birdie thingummies clustered to the underside of a palm leaf in a line (like a kebab. ha!) and a large, photogenic owl which apparently shows up on the dot every night to have his photograph taken. The evening wears on and we finally return to base camp, lids heavy with fatigue.
For some reason, the mosquitoes have given me a miss.
*****
Day 3
Cameron Highlands
The bus pulls into Cameron Highlands at last.
Somewhere along the way I've made friends with C, a charming medical student from Wales. She has a habit of muttering silly jokes under her breath which I'm well familiar with, and I can't help but catch them all. We kid around a bit after the guide meticulously explains why Blue Valley is called Blue Valley (because they used to grow tea there, but now do not...) and decide it must be because the teabags come with blue tags when they're harvested out of their tea pods, yes that must be it.
She reminds me very, very much of someone from a very, very long time ago. Rather than dwell in before though, I enjoy trading silly lines with her as the air slowly but certainly turns more chilly.
It begins to rain.
Cameron Highlands is tea-and-strawberry land, it seems. I don't remember it from my childhood very clearly, but I know I've been somewhere really cold in Malaysia before with lots of mountains, so I'm guessing I've been here before.
My travelmates are not impressed we chug slowly past countless Chinese villages dominated by shabby houses, tacky storefronts and run-down four by fours... they wonder if perhaps we should just catch the nearest bus straight to KL...
I prefer instead to watch the countless tendrils of mountain mist creeping off the treetops and birthing the fast-flying, low-lying clouds sweeping off the mountaintop. I imagine to myself that if I was a teacher, I'd tell my class - This is how clouds are made.
These are the cloud-factories of the world, children.
C, and her travel companion R step off the bus at the Father's Guest House, a quaint dwelling which looks suspiciously like an army barracks. Typically, I forget to actually give her my number for when she swings by Singapore en route to home. Empty promises, that's me.
A short hotel-hopping experience later, and we've somehow wound up at Ye Olde Smokehouse, an all-english, gorgeously done-up colonial bungalow. There are so many shiny things here I'm simply enthralled. It doesn't take much to please me... sigh.
(My travelmates are most unimpressed with the less exorbitant hotels, since their squash courts and jaccuzzis are not ready...)
We sit down to a very civilised tea of scones, and... tea. And strawberry jam (but of course), and then set out to explore the town, armed with our umbrella. It's still raining.
The rest, as they say, is history (or rather, another blog entry) - I discover that my blog has been perused even here... its slightly scary, and slightly funny all in one.
Lazy after dinner drinks back at the hotel around the open log-fire listening to the strains of a BBC comedy show. I forget to order strawberries and cream for dessert as we drowse and make pleasant supper conversation.
There follows a rather uncomfortable sleep curled up on the settee because, well... I will not, ever, be caught dead sharing a bed with another man. Not even if it has red satin sheets and four posters. cough.
*****
Day 4
Penang
Snatches of memories here... it was such a rush. Wake up. Brush teeth. Get changed. Run downstairs. Full English Breakfast gobbled down in about five minutes. Tea to finish, and it's off to the bus station to catch the express to Penang.
We leave S and R behind to explore the highlands at their leisure, and I feel faintly jealous that I have to go back to work tomorrow...
As we part, I feel a little sad. But fortunately I still have D, even if he was a little over-eager to share ze bed wif me last night. Just joking, D... :) We both know your wife would never stand for that.
ahaha.
On the drive out, I notice the hills. Cut, terraced over the centuries, farmed, bare, unfarmed... lying cheek to cheek with wild rolling virgin hills, in an intimage embrace - man, and the wilds.
And then I look harder and notice the orange bougainvilleas creeping steathily along the face of the whole picture, seeking slowly but surely to blanket the entire scene in a few thousand years, like an encroaching moss. And I notice the way the wilderness eats away at the terraced slopes, reseeding it with its vibrant chaos, and hiding away the forgotten concrete steps that peep through occasionally. My eye becomes more practised and I realise just how many of these slopes have actually been farmed, over this past millenium...
The wilderness reclaims her own.
Penang is another whirlwind experience... We don't actually get to eat Penang Laksa like I hope. From the spartan bus station we choose to be conveyed to the northern beaches.
They're not much to look at, to be honest. I've seen far better. But my eye is instantly caught by a horse-ride being offered.
One of my lifelong dreams has always been to ride a horse along a wide, expansive beach. The sun is low on the horizon, and the beach is white and gleaming with moisure, an even plane in the reds of the sunset; the horse's hooves strike through the receding surf in perfect rhythm as we gallop down into infinity...
Or barring that, second best would be riding along a forest path - an English or German forest, opening into unexpected hidden green vales and clearings (think Tree Ents in Lord of the Rings)... and not the mad chaos of a south east asian rainforest.
Right now, it's nothing like that. The beach is narrow and cluttered with driftwood and litter, and the horse looks exhausted, treading his way warily through the litter and trying his best not to let his feet get wet. It's a most unromantic scene.
We walk, and eventually settle down for a cheap and cheerful lunch at Deep Sea Seafood, which turns out to be some kind of front for criminal activity. I swear at one point the lead character for the Hitman computer series walks into the scene.
Towards the end of the day we wander down to Georgetown, because, well, Penang is Georgetown.
It looks disconcertingly like Little India, only Chinese. Chinese gold merchants, chinese fashion, chinese everything. We walk till boredom sets in, then visit the nearby mega-mall and browse everything from women's fashion to pirated PC CD roms...
Somewhere along the way, I discover a triplet of glass dolphins.
D begins to haggle with the petite salesgirl, and I silently wish he'd stop. She has beautiful eyes.
It strikes me that many of the women in Penang have different features to the Singaporean girls... and perhaps on the whole even better features. I wonder if they're from a different part of China ethically?
D wanders off as I pay for my purchase, and she looks up for the first time into my eyes.
We watch each other for a split second, and then I smile, and she does as well.
"You're not local?"
"No."
And then we're away, back to the chores of everyday.
