Category: Malaysia

I’ve made the occasional foray into Chinatown in KL before – I distinctly remember a trip to the market here for frog porridge several years ago – but I haven’t ever explored it properly, so I decided to sign up for a guided tour. Chinatown is famous for its market, which specialises in fake designer… Continue reading Little Devils in Chinatown

For my trip to KL this time, I wanted to try a few new things rather than just revisiting the old. Firstly, I decided that I’d like to try a blind massage as it’s a social enterprise that’s well worth supporting. There are quite a few blind massage parlours, so I looked online for some… Continue reading No hanky-panky

It’s not often that I get invited to a restaurant owned by a former male model, but on Friday evening my friend Ken, an expert in Peranakan cuisine, invited me to try a new restaurant, Limapulo, which belongs to his friend Alan Yun. Limapulo specialises in a unique mix of Malay and Chinese cooking called… Continue reading Limapulo, Kuala Lumpur

It’s been almost four years since I left Malaysia, and it’s lovely to be back. One thing I’d forgotten about, and which I find myself appreciating all over again, is that this is a country of contrasts and amalgams – old/new, east/west, Indian/Chinese/Malay. Everything is embraced and somehow it all seems to work. On Thursday… Continue reading Malaysian Fusion

To wrap up my time in Malaysia, we did a little strawberry picking up in the Cameron Highlands – – it must be the unique climate that makes them grow so big … The Highlands are ideal for growing tea, and in some places there are tea bushes as far as the eye can see… Continue reading What a whopper!

  I feel that I’ve hurtled at breakneck speed towards the end of my final term at school here in KL.  The tempo increased when, sadly, I had to make a second flying visit back to England, just three weeks after Sam’s wedding, for my dad’s funeral. Once back in KL, it was a sprint… Continue reading Two weddings and a funeral – and a blow to my ego

  Life lessons:  When a chef brings a pot of his own Thai green curry to a potluck supper, you make a beeline for it. When a friend then invites you to dinner at that restaurant, you accept with alacrity and Old Siam is even within walking distance for me … result! Pad Thai is… Continue reading A week of Thai feasting – part one

It’s not just Singapore that has Crazy Rich Asians – the Chinese Malaysian parents in KL are up there with the best of them. The most ridiculous thing I’ve been asked to date by a parent, was whether I thought it would be a good idea for a five-year-old to start learning Latin ‘because it… Continue reading Crazy Rich Asian Parents

Mindful that I will be leaving KL at the end of the year, and will be cut off from my new favourite foods, I put out a plea on the local residents Facebook page – I got a few suggestions for using salted egg powder instead of the real thing, which just wouldn’t be the… Continue reading Feeding my addiction

I’m constantly shocked by the number of spelling mistakes in the teaching materials at the language school where I work.  In a recent lesson on Sherlock Holmes, we had two creatively spelt names to contend with – I can only assume that Dr Whatson is a relative of Dr Who. Then we had a worksheet… Continue reading White Supremacist joins KL school

… no, not that Black Forest – this one was only black because it was dark, very dark. It was a night walk held at the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia, and our volunteer guide was a self-confessed snake addict.  Here he is holding his special snake stick – – I thought it was for… Continue reading A Walk in the Black Forest …

A perfect night to head off into the jungle to see fireflies – “In a minute, you will see like Christmas tree,” our guide said.  And she wasn’t wrong – all the mangrove trees lining the river were filled with tiny twinkling lights. I tried to photograph them, but just got a completely black picture.… Continue reading Being Intrepid – some successes and a failure

I’ve been on a jungle trekking expedition in Sabah – the furthest outpost of Malaysia, way out on the eastern edge of Borneo. We spent our time either cruising down the river looking for wildlife, or manfully hacking our way through the jungle on what were euphemistically termed ‘jungle walks’.  I managed to rip two… Continue reading When my heart nearly stopped in Borneo

Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet … … Well, Rudyard Kipling had obviously never been to Malaysia, is all I can say. One of the things I shall miss most – OK, the one thing that I will miss the most – when I leave KL is… Continue reading East is East …

One astonishing fact about Malaysia is that there’s only one place in the whole country where it’s legal to gamble.  It’s astonishing because this is a country with 6.6 million Chinese inhabitants, and the Chinese love to gamble.  So why the government isn’t cashing in on this and setting up casinos in every town, I… Continue reading On a journey to enlightenment, also involving chicken feet

After a while, once you get used to your new surroundings, even somewhere as different as Malaysia can seem a bit same-old, same-old.  So it was very exciting last week to do a whole host of new things. For starters, I went into Chinatown and had my first ever frog porridge – I have to… Continue reading A week of firsts …

And another riveting English lesson gets under way … I was rather disappointed that my new pupil, Gladys, didn’t turn up for class on Saturday.  I pictured her with her hair in rollers and a mop in her hand, looking rather out of place amongst the eight-year-olds in the class. And then she didn’t even… Continue reading Updates from the chalkface

Mahathir, Malaysia’s new prime minister, turned 93 this week, while his wife is a sprightly 92. But his impending century has not lessened his determination to expose the corruption of his predecessor, Najib, and Najib’s extremely unpopular wife, Rosmah. The whole country has been agog at the details emerging during the search of their home.… Continue reading A handbag?

Shopping in Malaysia can be a frustrating experience; customer service is an unknown concept, and it’s not unusual to be ignored in a shop while the many, many assistants all stand around glued to their phones.  I’m afraid that this attitude brings out the Mem Sahib in me, and I march up to one of… Continue reading Shopping … Malaysian-style

How about this for the entrance to a national park? We arrived by boat, and waded from the shallows up to the beach in gloriously warm water I couldn’t understand why nobody was swimming, until our guide explained that the waters here are home to crocodiles – and the saltwater crocodile is the largest living… Continue reading On the trail of the headhunters in Sarawak