Goodbye, KL

Although my guesthouse is located in the heart of the Golden Triangle, Kuala Lumpur's upmarket shopping and hotel district, I awoke this morning with the disorienting feeling that I'd been sleeping in a jungle somewhere: there was some sort of intense bird conversation going on outside my window, about twenty solid minutes of unfamiliar hoots and screams. I've seen a fair amount of animal life in KL: tons of stray cats (KL has a cat problem the way Yunnan Province has a dog problem); a couple of rats on the sidewalk; a crow who lives on the balcony of a house down the street, and seems to spend most of his time collecting garbage and storing it there (I've seen him fly toward the porch carrying a piece of cardboard and a watch-strap--I wonder how the owner of the house feels about his crow resident); a pair of geckos who chase each other around the common room of my guesthouse, disappearing under furniture or into cracks in the walls as soon as they sense your presence. There is also a man down the street who keeps ten or so chickens in the outdoor entrance foyer to his house. When he wants the chickens to move somewhere, he sprays a hose at them.

The animal highlight thus far, however, was without a doubt the catrescuemobile. As I was walking home on Friday, I passed a parked motorcycle with 15-20 cats stationed all over it, all bouncing slightly to the vibration of the motor. There was a man busily taping signs to cat-free parts of the motorcycle (there weren't many) and nudging the cats back into place if they started to fall off or, as one kitten did, actually jumped off and started walking down the sidewalk. According to the signs, the man is Kuala Lumpur's famous cat-rescuer. He has rescued over fifty strays; rather than foraging for garbage, they now ride around on his motorcycle having their picture taken in exchange for donations (yes, I took a picture--will post it when I'm back in Hong Kong). If I were a cat, I'm not sure I would prefer this to the independent, rodent-hunting stray life, but who knows.

In a few minutes I'm checking out of my guesthouse and going to the Puduraya bus station, one of the most crowded places I've ever been--yesterday, when I bought my tickets for Melaka and Penang, it was a solid wall of "teksi" drivers looking for long-distance fares, women in groups of three or four (most wearing headscarves, some not), long-haired young men sitting in groups on the floor, Malaysian tourists taking photos. Chinese new year is a popular time for travel here, so I imagine I saw the station at its most insane. Despite the huge crowds, the ticket windows were incredibly efficient, and I'm hoping that the buses themselves will be too. Although I'm excited to see some other parts of Malaysia, but could easily just stay in KL, continuing to eat roti and milk tea for breakfast at one of the food stalls on the corner, getting lost, walking through street markets selling jackfruit three times the size of a watermelon, cinnamon sticks and mustard seeds, knockoff Oral-B toothbrushes, saris, fried noodles, the lime soda I've become addicted to (it's such a nice change to travel in a country where one can actually drink iced things without fearing gastrointestinal catastrophe!), packets of enormous banana leaves (used for plates in many restaurants and hawker stalls), dried fish, fresh durian, lamb legs, and on and on...