The temperature in Malaysia doesn’t seem to stray far from 32 degrees, with humidity around 70%. It’s usually sunny in the morning, and there’s often rain later in the day – but this week has been an exception.
Last Tuesday we went to the Helilounge to celebrate Julia’s birthday. It’s a helipad by day and a bar by night, with no shelter at all, so we were hoping for good weather to enjoy the sunset and the views in the evening. When we arrived we congratuated ourselves on having chosen such a wonderful evening:
sunny to begin with –
then a spectacular sunset –
and finally, a perfect balmy night –
Little did we know that this was the beginning of a whole series of hot sunny days, spectacular sunsets and balmy nights … and they’ve been getting hotter and balmier every day.
I couldn’t walk to work, it was too hot – even at nine o’clock in the morning – and there was no rain at all … unheard of in KL.
Then finally on Monday, after a week of heat, messages started appearing on the Internet –
Heatstroke and exploding petrol tanks sounded rather alarming, so I went online to do some research, and discovered that we had all been the victim of fake news. The Met Office vehemently denied the stories circualting on social media, and said that the temperature was merely 36 degrees, and one degree short of an offical heatwave (try telling that to the Brits – we have a heatwave at 26 degrees).
But the Met Office did concede that the weather has been, and will contine to be, unusually hot.
But far from being due to strange movements of the sun as it shimmies across the equator, it’s simply the fallout from a typhoon in Japan. Fake news is always so much more exciting than real news.
So we’re set for a few more days of excessive heat, and for the first time since I arrived, I’ve found myself thinking wistfully of fog and frost and even a light sprinkling of snow.
Oh well, time for a swim to cool down, and then a nice chilled evening in front of the air conditioning unit.