Brickfields, the Tamil area of Kuala Lumpur

Check out at the buffet restaurant Brickfields

Brickfields, the Tamil area of Kuala Lumpur (KL),
smells of incense, strings of flowers hanging from stalls,

Indian music blaring from speakers, atmosphere is lively, noisy but unexpectedly I like it.
Intense looking guys who give me polite gentle answers about "where are the batu caves ? " how to do I go there ?"

All night flight from MELB,

    Air asia be blessed,
    thou makest the distant possible,
    thou bridgest the cosy clubs of travel agents,
    mixer of humanity be blessed,
    en el padre i el spriritu santo...
    Aaaaaaaaaaamen....

Nothing touristy here at Brickfields,
its all real. Old Tamil guys eating under trees in side streets,
An Evangelical Zionist church around the corner,
right behind it the Buddhist Maha Vihara (whatever that is, it's big though)
An Ashram teaching third eye and kundalini awakening at the corner of the side street. Statue of the 'master' in bronze in the middle.

Brickfields

 

Green energy efficient high rise office block going up on the opposite side of the main road.
KL's Sentral (Central) Megacomplex train-bus-monorail station is next to it all.

I write this in a dark cool internet cafe.
Young guys, playing games all day, Indian music beating from the ceiling.
Just off the plane, I'm headed for a swish place to stay, but this is my first port of call in KL.
I need to touch base, feel real, ground myself before I face the rest of the city.

So here I am in a dimly lit, cool, music filled filled internet cafe writing this stuff.

I'll see if the guy who sold me the pocket watch last year remembers me.
Watch doesn't keep good time, went on strike after 7 weeks, but not his fault.
Luck of the draw.
Ce'st la vie...

Will head for my hotel soon.
Luxury makes me nervous, it feels fake underneath it all. I've paid for all those smiles and politeness.
But I've decided to give it a bash.
Why?
No reason, just because I CAN, because life is short and I blow heaps of $$$$'s on other stuff without thinking twice (two days ago $800 for a new electrical switchboard in my flat, 300 for insurance, 700 for rego, 250 for electricity bill, 200 body corp fees, 800 for conference... and so it goes on and on and on and on ....
HEY!@@!!!!
when's my turn ?!@*(## !
right NOW! 

so here I am ! he he he )

I'm 50 now, anything can happen anytime,
Noticed my body isn't 30 anymore...
who knows what happens in 5, 10 years....
can't save this kind of thing for the future.
The "libido" of the "joie de vivre" might evaporate by then ...
..so who knows what happens in 5 years.

But I DO know what happens right NOW :-)
LUNCH !
:-)
Time for lunch, real Indian.

There are no other tourists, no 'whiteys' or gringos here.
Stuff isn't glitzy and polished and ritzy here,
Its not for show or dazzlement, just sit down and eat ....
Mostly everyone speaks English, if not, I just point at stuff, mime the rest.
.................
more later...

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Ahhh...back from lunch.
That was good.
Went to a local restaurant next to the Crescent hotel.

First time I went there I expected to be pointed to a table to order stuff from a menu and to eat with cutlery.
No way.

Now I know the drill:
Grab orange plate - put banana leaf on plate.
Help yourself from one of the buffets by the wall.
HUGE range of stuff.

Rain in Brickfields

There is a Chinese Vegetarian buffet, a pure Indian buffet and others I've not worked out yet.

Sit down.
Eat.
Use hands - sorry: use hand_. Right hand.
A guy will come round and look at your plate and write down what you owe on a piece of paper he gives you to take to the cashier on the way out.

A lady comes round and asks me about drinks.
"Drink ?" 
"Masala tea please."
Masala tea appears a minute later.
Drinks are a separate business within the business. All the Indian restaurants work that way. Don't know why.

It's all low fuss, all self help, all designed to run smoothly.
Food is GOOD.
Cheap. Approximately 10 Ringgit ( AUD$3.50 ) + 5 Ringgit for two Masala teas.

Ok - time to drop stuff at the swish place, then the Batu caves.

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I already have a SIM card for my phone, thanks to Air Asia: they sell SIMs on board the plane, so you can hit the ground running.
So you never get away from it all totally ...but that's ok, I need to call a few people in KL. Melbourne people don't know the local number :-) I didn't know it till I got off the plane.

First time I was in Malaysia, 1978, the only way to find out information was to ask other travellers at the backpackers in the evening.

Letters took 2-3 weeks and were sent to Poste Restante http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poste_restante

Phone calls in those days cost the equivalent of one days travel budget for ~3 minutes. About $35/minute by today's standards.
"Hi Mum, Dad, I'm fine, in Kuala Lumpur."
"Good, all fine here too."
That's it.
Was it less than 60 seconds ?
55 seconds, great!

If you are up for more reading: At the end of this email is a post from a traveller who spent the last 3 years just travelling and working in IT while on the road.
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Links for places mentioned above
Brickfields: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brickfields

Hotel Grand Crescent hotelgrandcrescent.com

Travel - Kuala Lumpur:
http://sites.google.com/site/heikorudolph/travel-kualalumpur

Poste Restante http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poste_restante
cheers

Heiko