A Catch-22 in the Urban Jungle

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I always feel like a small kid in a grown ups world when I stay in nice hotels, That’s why I generally trash the room before I can become comfortable in it. The best part is, housekeeping clean it up every morning, and I get to trash it all over again. I’ve been put up in The Regent Hotel, bang in Kuala Lumpur’s shopping district. I have a great view from the 14th floor, a king size bed with feather pillows, a doorbell, and something next to my bed with lots of buttons. I pick up the phone and call reception four times a day just to hear them calling me “Sir”. The breakfast buffet could feed the nation of Togo. I’m here to partake in the Colors of Malaysia Festival, where the country kicks in its summer to the delight of the locals, heads of state, and foreign media put up in nice hotels (with unlimited access to clean towels). I have a veteran guide named Mr. Khabir, colorful in shirt and language, and a driver named Rama, who is also a local TV star. KL is sticky, but blessedly out of monsoon season and the difference from my last visit is tangible. The city is literally throbbing with commerce. The quaint wooden houses on stilts in Borneo have given way to mega-malls, monorails and those twin marvels of urban architecture, the Petronas Towers. You can drink the water, you can walk around with a briefcase of cash, and you can eat everything and anything because it’s delicious. I also see a lot of tired people, because waking up at 3am to watch the last rounds of the World Cup is taking its toll.

“Many people don’t know this, but the Himalayas run all the way to Malaysia, dividing the peninsular,” explains Mr. Khabir. He points out the “Hi-Malaya” coincidence (geddit?), and also the fact that rare Himalayan plant species have also been found in the Malaysia’s Cameron Highlands. Mr. Khabir is infinitely knowledgeable and experienced about many things, but I especially delight in his ribald stories, like the time he was forced to guide a Saudi royal to a gay prostitute. Earlier that day, I enjoyed one of the three spas in the hotel and was openly hit on by a Saudi man with a thick mustache and queasy accent. Later I saw him with his wife, dressed head to toe in black, who I call Ninjas, but Mr.Khabir, a Muslim, calls Masks of Zorro. By contrast, Malay Muslim women wear thin, modest scarves that somehow accentuate their beauty. While there is a traditional rift between the Islamic Malays, Buddhist Chinese and Hindu Indian communities, they co-exist peacefully and their three main political parties joined together to defeat the British and gain independence in 1957. Meanwhile, back in the hotel elevator, a Mask of Zorro gets in with me at the lobby and pulls off her head scarf once the doors close. I am somewhat shocked, that she would do it in front of me, and that she is strikingly beautiful. The hotel is loaded with Saudis on holiday (the men usually wear sandals and shorts while their wives look like the black ghosts from Pacman). Soon, foreign media would be arriving with the sole purpose of getting drunk. Meanwhile, I had things to do.

Mr. Khabir’s plan was to show me the most important things a visitor should see in K.L, including some off the beaten tracks he’s picked up in the decades he has been a guide. This is how I came to have a rather large scorpion running up my arm. He’s taken me to a rather unusual, and rather unique factory where huge bugs, butterflies and scorpions are mounted in display cases, or encased in glass, turned into art, and sold around the world. It is the only one of its kind, and where else would I get the chance to play with scorpions. “They’re blind creatures, but they sense fear,” explains Mr Khabir, as a rather large black scorpion is placed in my hand. Naturally, I almost pissed myself with fear as a result, and the scorpion raised its tail with intent to sting. Since I was a kid, I’ve always had a thing for snakes, spiders and scorpions. Fascinated yet terrified. I conquered my fear of snakes by owning one for a short while, but truth is, scorpions are built to scare the bejesus out of us. As Mr.Khabir focused my camera, the critter began to run up my arm, which totally took away the fact that I held in my other hand a giant leaf bug about 6 inches long. I do this for you, people. Upstairs in the dusty showroom were hundreds of different species of mounted butterfly, including some priceless rare ones, and paintings made with the wings of dead butterflies. The bugs die naturally before they are used in this unusual art form, although no tour groups visit the factory any more because it tends to offend people who are not weird like myself.

Dear Mom, a package will be arriving from Malaysia. DO NOT OPEN IT. If it breaks, you’re just going to have scorpions all over the place, and that wouldn’t be good for dad’s cholesterol. Seriously. Thanks!

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