Is
Malaysia a developed country? Or developing country? How can the roads be this good?
Coming
from India, where depending on which part of the country you are in, you may
find superb, bad, or non-existent roads, the uniform wonderfulness of the roads
we experienced piqued me. I asked every cabbie we traveled with about this. I
was somewhat relieved to hear them say that the country roads were not that
great. But wherever tourists went, good roads went ahead of them.
I
have to confess I was happy to see a few potholes when our affable cabbie took
us through some short-cut country roads on our way back to the airport from
Malacca.
KL
is a concrete mess. A mini version of Singapore; a souped-down bird park, a
watered-down aquarium, and less awe-inspiring version of everything else. But
the cabbies seem to take pride in the fact that compared to their 'pangali
brother' they have 'more' free speech and can drive their cars faster,
well, because they have space to drive them fast. And since Singapore already
had me in this love-hate tussle, I couldn't really find much to go ga-ga over
KL. The views from the towers - KL Menara - or the Petronas which we thankfully
missed - are what you would expect when you look through the windows of a very
tall building. Well, before I wash off everything as disappointing, I have to
mention that lovely hotel we stayed in - the Furama - with a lovely breakfast
spread to match. The croissants are the best in the world - at least the world
I know of. Buttery soft flaky cloudy melting fragrant joy in every bite
that dissolved in my greedy mouth. Ah, heaven. The view from our 16th floor
window was not too bad either.
The
food in Malaysia was good. For the most part. At least for me. What was tough
for my fellow travellers was the omnipresent Belacan - very smelly at best and
overpowering at worst. For those uninitiated to the wondrous flavours of dried
fish or dried shrimp so popular in South India, the Belacan is simply intolerable.
(Dried Anchovy curry is something of a religion in some foodie communities
here). For those initiated, like me, it still is tough. There's only so much of
the Belacan odour you can take before it just makes you go 'blech'. Vegetarians
are left with green leafy soggy things, (bok choy?) non-vegetarians have huge,
intimidating pieces of meat and fish to contend with - it was tough time for
the folks. What was a lovely surprise was the presence of paniyaram, the
all-time favorite snack of my childhood. Maybe adopted from the Chettiars who
traded with these people from quite a long time ago.
The
food in Melaka was very enjoyable. For the most part... you get the drift.
Anyone familiar with the Goan-Portuguese style of cooking would notice the
unmistakable resemblance to many of today's famous Goan curries. A sweet sour
spicy mixture of goodness - with Belacan. So what if they put lady's finger in
shrimp curry, somehow it works, and very well too. Gula Melaka is
another amazing thing - of course, I returned with a kilo of it. The folks,
however, wanted any thing that did not have Belacan. Which was nothing. So we
had to hunt for fruits, with very minimal success.
Malaysia
is well packaged. Truly Asia? I do not know. What I do know - a landscape made
ugly by palm tree plantations, ridiculously expensive taxis, even pricier beer
- makes me think I won't go back. Tumbling around late in the night, stumbling
into Bukit Bintang with wonderful singers from the Philippines, the complex
sweetness of gula melaka on my tongue, buttery, flaky Furama croissants,
glorious rainforests - maybe I should think again.
