8th Feb to 12th Feb, 2016

Well, here we are in wonderful Kuala Lumpur. We arrived last Monday, the first day of Chinese New Year (Kong Xi Fa Cai!!) which meant that the roads were relatively empty. If you had never been to KL before you could be forgiven for thinking that it is a remarkably easy to get around, but sadly it is only like this for this week. Soon it will be back to normal with one enormous traffic jam, just in time for my venturing out in the minibus I have hired for next week.

A bit of background for those who are unaware. Val was born here (though she lived just north in a place called Rawang) and went to school and worked here. I too worked here from 1978 to 1982 before being posted to Papua New Guinea. I worked for a very old British company called Harrisons & Crosfield who were one of the largest plantation owners in the country (rubber, oil palm, cocoa and coconuts), though they sold out all their interests here some years ago. I would add quickly here that I was very much the Head Office wallah in case you were hoping to see me in my tropical shorts and sola topee! I did go for a bit of a walk today and photoed my very first office – now a car showroom! It is a fantastic 1930s (I think) building, often described as looking like a ship. Note the high rise new buildings behind it! All VERY nostalgic!

Ah yes, of course you want to know where we are staying and what our room is like. Sorry, I forgot how interested you are in the accommodation east of Suez. Well, we are ensconced in the Shangri-La Hotel in the centre of town and very lovely it is too with some pretty spectacular views out of our 15th floor suite!.

Most of this week has been spent catching up with old friends and EATING! Well, we are in Malaysia, national religion food! All that hard work in Thailand is beginning to creak at the seams (almost literally) (is that possible? Almost literally??). Still, we are now skipping breakfast which is helping.

First night we saw Ad & Babes in their fabulous apartment, then it has been lunch with Bash and Zee at the Royal Selangor Golf Club, tea with Babes’s brother, his family and lovely 96 year-old mum, then the Twins at their home for dinner, lunch with Saniah and her two daughters (and three grandchildren), dinner with Babes’s sister Mahes and her husband Rajan, lunch with a few of Val’s old school chums from the Methodist Girls School, dinner with Bok and Mano Maniam and lunch today with Vivienne and Jeff. We are not having dinner tonight!

Other than all of this we have been whizzing around in taxis having wonderful chats with the taxi drivers (you get a very strong response to any enquiry about the current PM!) and today we ventured out so that Val could get her fix of a roti for breakfast. It also gave me a chance to have wander with the camera ending up with two new friends (Jasper & Jack – surprisingly both Sikhs, father and son living respectively in Australia and Vancouver) in one of KL’s oldest landmarks, the Coliseum where one beer miraculously turned into four. The following is a brief taste of some of the old KL and the new.

Tomorrow the invasion starts! More soon.