Up the peninsula, to Ipoh
A final word about Brickfields, in case I don't revisit when I return to KL a week from now. The number of visually impaired people is kinda staggering. It led me to wonder if there was some exotic bacterial infection here 30 years ago, or if the area simply provided the support structure they needed. The answer is the latter, according to this article in the Star, a newspaper in Penang. A massage parlor operated by the blind was opposite my hotel. Makes intuitive sense: The blind have better tactile sensitivity than the rest of us, right? I don't know if that's true, but it seems true.
Buried in the article is one of those disturbing tidbits you'd rather not see: "A Menara Shell representative, who declined to be named, hoped anti-snatch theft barriers would be put up in more areas especially along walkways prone to such crimes," which is a disappointing confirmation of something you are told when you type "Is Kuala Lumpur safe?" The perpetrators are on motorcycles, and people who have tried to hold on to their bags and purses have been known to be dragged, and on occasion killed. I like this guy's countermove.
The train ride to Ipoh eats up half the day, which discourages day trippers from KL (making it more attractive to me, because I resent people like myself; I need help). Impressions leaving Kuala Lumpur: lots of rock and sand quarries, and then dense jungle for a good 60 miles. It is an alternate universe. Some of these trees have leaves the size of sleeping bags. Others have leaves shaped like pingpong paddles, arranged in symmetrical clumps. I felt the eyes of a million monkeys on me; it was really astounding. Eventually you see more light reaching the jungle floor, and more land under cultivation, especially palm plantations. My understanding is that to produce palm oil, you have to clear jungle, and the easiest way to do that is by burning it, though I still wonder how you burn jungle in 90% relative humidity. That's what's going on in Indonesia to the south, and the smoke from those fires is what Malaysians are blaming for KL's haze. Tin shacks, some cattle and goats, serpentine irrigation canals, vines climbing the guy-wires of utility lines, vegetation that looks like it's trying to swallow highway overpasses, elaborate Hindu and Dravidian folk temples the color of Sweethearts Valentine's candy.
And then boom, you're in Ipoh, which pushes up against limestone cliffs that ring the Kinta Valley. I'm here for the food, to be honest.
Buried in the article is one of those disturbing tidbits you'd rather not see: "A Menara Shell representative, who declined to be named, hoped anti-snatch theft barriers would be put up in more areas especially along walkways prone to such crimes," which is a disappointing confirmation of something you are told when you type "Is Kuala Lumpur safe?" The perpetrators are on motorcycles, and people who have tried to hold on to their bags and purses have been known to be dragged, and on occasion killed. I like this guy's countermove.
The train ride to Ipoh eats up half the day, which discourages day trippers from KL (making it more attractive to me, because I resent people like myself; I need help). Impressions leaving Kuala Lumpur: lots of rock and sand quarries, and then dense jungle for a good 60 miles. It is an alternate universe. Some of these trees have leaves the size of sleeping bags. Others have leaves shaped like pingpong paddles, arranged in symmetrical clumps. I felt the eyes of a million monkeys on me; it was really astounding. Eventually you see more light reaching the jungle floor, and more land under cultivation, especially palm plantations. My understanding is that to produce palm oil, you have to clear jungle, and the easiest way to do that is by burning it, though I still wonder how you burn jungle in 90% relative humidity. That's what's going on in Indonesia to the south, and the smoke from those fires is what Malaysians are blaming for KL's haze. Tin shacks, some cattle and goats, serpentine irrigation canals, vines climbing the guy-wires of utility lines, vegetation that looks like it's trying to swallow highway overpasses, elaborate Hindu and Dravidian folk temples the color of Sweethearts Valentine's candy.
And then boom, you're in Ipoh, which pushes up against limestone cliffs that ring the Kinta Valley. I'm here for the food, to be honest.
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| Ipoh train station, a jewel of colonial architecture often likened to the Taj Mahal. I'm betting the Taj Mahal has nicer toilets. |
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| Open windows add interest to a picture, don't you think? Ang Lee filmed "Lust, Caution" in Ipoh because the city reminded him of photos he'd seen of 1930s and '40s Hong Kong. |
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