the world for more than it simply is

I have just returned from a forty-one hour stint in Kuala Lumpur. The underlying purpose of this trip was to obtain my Vietnam student visa from the embassy there–shopping, food, and site-seeing were of course the extra bonuses. Kuala Lumpur was a complete change of pace from Ha Noi; the city’s level of visible economic development more closely resembles a blend between Singapore and Bangkok with Islamic influences. Hac and I arrived in the city in the early hours of Monday morning. Upon exiting the airport, we were actually excited to see an adjacent McDonald’s. My midnight snack: a strange concoction called the Country Chicken Burger, which frankly was mediocre.

While in KL, we stayed at the Radius International Hotel. Our accommodating structure was a behemoth in relation to the nearby Arab town, where local street vendors had set up daytime shop to sell food and drink items in celebration of Ramadan. After my midnight snack on arrival night, we took an airport taxi into the city. The driver, a friendly fellow named Amir who also lives in the vehicle which is his source of employment, discussed with us the joys of Chinese prostitutes on the hour-long ride into town. It is the case that the sex industry is illegal, but is referred to causally in conversation. In fact, one taxi driver today, who I did not catch the name of, explained that his favorite prostitutes were Malays. He also explained that mid-range and upper-range prostitutes were tested weekly for STD’s, and warned against visiting the prostitutes on the lower-range: Indonesian and Taiwanese women. It is a sad situation that sex trafficking and prostitution is becoming so common in Southeast Asia.

On the first morning, I awoke early to go visit the infamous Petronas towers. Being Monday, the towers’ connecting sky-bridge was not open to the public. After an hour’s wait on the second day’s morning, I was finally on that very sky-bridge. The views were still amazing despite the thick haze which clouds the city’s air. This smoke, according to one resident, comes around once a year when Indonesia sets its forests ablaze as an inexpensive means of clearing land for agriculture. The Pacific trade winds, as I will refer to them, carries this pollution north into Malaysia where it stagnates and pollutes the air. Not only does this smog cloud one’s view of the city, it also blessed me with eye irritation and an itchy throat. The first day continued with the Vietnam embassy, a few hours of consumerism in KL’s many shopping plazas, some delicious siew pau, a lunch of roast duck over rice, a snack at Fatman Steamboat, and concluded with a visit to Chinatown’s night market.

The next landmark we visited on the second day after Petronas was Menera, KL’s telecommunications tower which provides a three hundred sixty degree overlook of the hazy city. Though forewarned by the ticketing personnel that it was in fact smoggy, Hac and I opted to pay the entrance fee to board the elevator to the observation deck anyway. In a way, this was to make up for the failure to go up in the CN tower the summer prior to the recent. Despite the greyness of it all, I am glad that I am able to say that I did go up the Menera, if ever asked.

 
Before departing for the airport, we decided to go to Chinatown one more time to search for dim-sum. Unfortunately after locating a restaurant by the name of Ho Yook…, we found ourselves dim-sum-less as the proprietor of the place stated that these delicacies were breakfast foods and we had missed it. However, we had the rare opportunity to savor two types of leftover dim-sum, which tasted exactly as it sounds. Lunch before departure was fried pan noodles with beef, along with some more siew pau for the road.