Time Travel in a Modern World

My second visa run lands me in Kuala Lumpur, the visually striking capital of SE Asia’s first real trade center. Time-worn architecture sits next to colonial Dutch buildings, which in turn give way to the most modern posh highrises, across the street from cramped, low-budget concrete housing. Although most of peninsular Malaysia has been sown with palm plantations, KL is astonishingly green– patches of jungle fill city parks, line high-speed railways and blanket hillsides.

I enter a world of traffic signage and signals, well-maintained roads, ubiquitous coffee shops, megamalls and fast food. The airport contains a mall (or several). KL Sentral, the city’s main transit hub amongst several varieties of train and dozens of bus lines, contains a modern mall– situated beneath the train’s elevated tracks– and a direct connection through to yet another. I drink fancy Starbucks coffee with relish and scan railway tokens and cards with computer chips for the first time in well over a year.

It’s astonishingly comforting to find myself surrounded by a phonetic language for the first time since leaving home. Even though I don’t understand people around me, I can read signs and pronounce words correctly. I pick up phrases without worrying that intonation will change simple food into derogatory curses, a few syllables allowing me to connect more easily with strangers on the street than I have in months.

As I wander into Bazaars throughout my few days in KL, I realize that I understand what people are saying around me. Although I’ve trained martial arts based in the region at home and used Indonesian words and phrases for over a decade, I never expected the languages to be so similar. In a way, it feels oddly like an unexpected visit home.

I think Malaysia is also the first predominantly Muslim country I’ve visited. The vast majority of women wear headscarves. Almost every restaurant I enter is Halal certified. I never encounter pork on menus or in street food. Instead of Vietnam’s political propaganda, prayers sound five times daily from loudspeakers located throughout the city. Commuter trains have “Ladies- only” coaches and the more religious men I encounter take care not to touch me.

As a whole, everyone I meet is overwhelmingly kind and eager to point me in the right direction. I think it’s a testament to human character, that such overreaching kindness can hold prevalent in a country rife with racial tension. For a place known worldwide as a cultural mixing pot, tension certainly runs throughout– between Muslims and Christians, ethnic Malaysians and Indians… For the most part, people seem to largely not care that I’m Jewish. It’s somewhat surprising, given that Israelis aren’t even allowed into the country and Judaism has been all but obliterated within Malaysia’s borders. One of my cousin Gideon’s friends mentions stumbling unintentionally into an underground Jewish community of sorts after spotting a menorah in a shop window. Apparently the people she met were guarded at best and surprised she understood the object’s significance.

Terence, a friend of Gideon’s through his life coaching program and former competitive climber, welcomes me into his apartment while I’m in the city. My first evening we drive to the city center and step into the Central Market, a hub of regional handicrafts and souvenir trinkets by day, all but deserted by night. We wander halls laid with 19^th-century tile, stopping to dip my feet into a tank of tiny minnows that rush to the task of nibbling off dead skin. We emerge into an alley of historic Dutch buildings, weathered facades housing such modern entities as KFC and Canon.

We stop to sample skewers of lamb, beef and chicken with peanut sauce, and at Gideon’s insistence– Whatsapp has him throwing suggestions to Terence from DC in real time– I manage to swallow a few bites of durian. While jackfruit’s little brother with the texture of spreadable cheese and the taste of rotten sulfur may be one of Gideon’s favorites, I’m more than happy to toss the pit and declare “Been there, done that.”

We duck into Petaling Street, KL’s Chinatown night market, where men roast chestnuts by the barrel and I sample tofu soup and fried noodles under rows upon rows of glowing red lanterns.

Before heading back to Terence’s place we swing into downtown, passing the KL Communications Tower and the city’s twin towers, glass tiers lit and blazing into the night sky above rows of palm trees in front of a full moon.

The next day I wander. I take a train into the middle of the city, crossing the river on a pedestrian skybridge that lands me in the old train station. Still utilized as a commuter station today, the building’s white latticed windows, spiral staircases and towers present a classic convergence of Dutch and Muslim architecture as they stand stark against the gray glass of KL’s surrounding highrises.

I cross through a tunnel and follow a narrow road into KL’s city park, an expanse of jungle dotted with official city attractions. Beyond a butterfly garden I find the edge of the city’s Bird Park, a vast expanse of green draped in netting, proclaimed to be the world’s largest free-flight aviary. At present, a family of macaques has turned the netting into a playground, clambering to the top of its support poles and butt-sliding all the way back down to the road.

Rather than paying the Bird Park’s western tourist entrance fee I eat lunch in the park’s cafe on a balcony overlooking the jungle. Egrets surround me while a massive hornbill hops amongst tree branches, causing water to cascade off leaves onto unsuspecting visitors below. The meal’s only glitch comes when a Russian family enters the restaurant and takes particular offense at some item on the menu… because if watching mega giant tropical birds preen amongst massive trees in the middle of a tropical rainforest in the middle of a megacity isn’t enough to nix the family travel grouch, I don’t know what is.

I spend some time after lunch in an orchid garden before following the road as it loops back down toward the city (Monkey crossing signs, anyone?), arriving at the National Mosque. As I set aside my shoes and the nice little lady helps me into a burka, she asks: “Are you Muslim? You look Muslim.” Although I’ve been told that with a tan I can pass as Mediterranean, or South American, or Middle-Eastern, being assumed Muslim is a wholly new experience for me.

The mosque is simple in its grace, white columns supporting ceilings over open rooms around an open sanctuary designed for capacity. Pillars holding delicate mosaics give way to white walls blanketed in patterned imprints and relatively simple stained-glass windows allow light to enter through the room’s domed roof. A keyhole door at the front of the sanctuary faces Mecca, much as a synagogue’s ark points our way to Jerusalem.

A man standing at the sanctuary’s door with a flip book in his hands draws us into a conversation about Islam. Somehow the well-meaning man manages to turn the conversation into a campaign convincing me that I simply haven’t recognized Muhammed as my true Prophet. Upon realizing that in the space of 20 minutes I’ve gone from lone American tourist to assumed Muslim to Judaism-Islam conversion project, I beg out of the conversation and make my exit.

Friday I wake early, arriving at KL’s southern bus terminal through a convoluted mess of trains. Bersepadu Selatan might as well be an airport terminal– crowds queue by the dozen at ticket counters and hand over ID for verification and monster reader boards announce departure times and locations. Busses board through specified gates throughout the building.

Two hours later I arrive in the historic city of Melaka, one of SE Asia’s first true trade centers. The city’s ancient mashup clusters in winding rows of buildings and alleys and roads, following the river’s curve to encircle its core. Ancient and modern architecture merge as rows of expertly restored oriental facades share street corners and alleys with modgepodges of trendy murals. While the front of my guesthouse throws me several hundred years back in time, the back door opens onto a river walkway blazing with color.

I spend the afternoon exploring aimlessly, ducking into shops as they catch my eye. Just past a mosque I find a textile shop run by a man from Kashmir who moved to Melaka a decade ago. He likes Americans, he tells me, because we love to have conversations and listen. 20 minutes later I’m yet to formulate a polite exit strategy.

Two doors down sits a ceramic studio run by a couple from Japan. Hundreds of spherical lanterns covered in geometric botanical cutouts sit in the forward display room. Further back I a hall opens onto an airy workshop where an older man forms base shapes and his wife carves intricate designs while his children work their own lumps of clay at a side table.

Another ten yards’ walk brings me to a coffee shop I’d expect to find on Hawthorne Boulevard. A bright orange VW van covered in daisies displaying binders of coffee art holds the espresso machine, opposite a wall holding row upon row of empty cans. A barber’s pole points the way to the bathroom from behind scattered tables painted as bulls' eyes. 

I step into an old antiques shop where a Chinese lady admonishes me to watch my purse more closely as we begin a conversation about being in the service industry. We talk about how people of different nationalities act and how travelers truly are ambassadors for their home countries, for better or worse. The conversation draws to a close as she concludes that the reason I’m so polite must be because I’m Jewish and my mother raised me well. I assure her I’ll pass on the compliment.

Before the block ends I find the oldest Chinese temple in Southeast Asia.

I pick up a couple pairs of comfy flip flops and a trucker hat as I cross back through the neighborhood’s party street. (Note to self: head to Malaysia for $3.50 Burton knockoffs… do they even know what Burton is around here??) A short river bridge lands me in the old Dutch portion of town, complete with massive water wheel and an ochre colonial-style church. Constructed entirely of imported brick, it sits behind a courtyard where dozens of rickshaws smothered in stuffed animals and dead-eyed dolls surround flower beds and monuments and a street market selling electronics and Hello Kitty pastries occupies any spare corner.

Just around the corner I find an old motorcycle parked in front of an unassuming tea shop. The  older Chinese shopkeeper with a palpable love for his trade welcomes me, taking a break from his ledgers to make and serve tea, traditional style, half-finished beer set close to his right hand. As we chat he mentions that even though his shop is shop is situated on the edge of Melaka’s tourist district, he’s catered primarily to the local population for the last 20 years.

I return to KL the following day, taking an hour to get lost in a megamall– and eating my first Krispy Kreme since college. That afternoon I connect with Catherine, a KL native who introduces me to an old tea house hidden three stories up a rickety elevator behind an unmarked door in China town. Maintained these days primarily as a tribute to the founders, the shop’s sunset view of the city’s high rises is obscured by thousands of signatures and notes scrawled across ancient window panes.

On the walk to dinner we shortcut through (Catherine tells me) the less-fancy of the city’s ultra-posh megamalls. The thing fits right into my imagination of a presidential hotel, live band in tuxedos playing beneath five floors of swooping accented banisters lined with plants. Monster chandeliers throw soft light on hallways and waiters in a chocolate shop snub their noses at me while serving customers in armchairs that probably cost several months of my salary…. Each. The crystal-strewn walls of the massive Dior shop, lit even after close, strongly concur that this is definitely not my comfort zone.

We eat dinner with Catherine’s roommate, Cornelia, at a middle-eastern restaurant on a downtown rooftop. The two feed off each others’ energy, unwavering zeal and love for life brightening the atmosphere as we bask amongst the wafting smell of hooka, palm trees and pita and gaze up to the KL Tower, lit high above us.

The morning of my last full day in Kuala Lumpur finds me at Batu Caves, a massive natural limestone complex filled with little Hindu shrines (also apparently a massive rock climbing destination. Too bad all my gear was left in Vietnam.). A massive gold statue of the god Murugan  keeps watch forward from the base of a staircase leading to the caves’ entrance. Although climbing 272 stairs isn’t hard, monkeys complicate the ascent. Macaques- the notoriously aggressive and disease-infected bane of my existence, swarm the brightly painted staircase. They chase each other. They grab backpacks. They bare teeth, snarling and screaming. One monkey provides a solid ten minutes’ entertainment when it snatches a pack of newly-bought chopsticks from a plump Chinese lady, climbing atop a pillar to claim its prize. She dances below, offering an upturned sunhat as she asks the monkey to drop her souvenir. When she finally pulls out a candy to offer in trade, the monkey tosses her chopsticks out of reach over the staircase’s far wall before claiming the candy from her hand.

The temples scattered through the caves, lit with dozens of strands of lights, prove somewhat downtrodden. The caves themselves, however, are spectacular. Stalactites cascade from walls hundreds of feet high, dips and swirls spiraling up to tunneled light high above.

Later I meet up with Catherine in Little India, wandering though shops filled with tens of thousands of bangles and aisle upon aisle of sari fabric and eating piles of veggies and rice off of massive banana leaves.

We return to the apartment in the evening, finding our way to the 40^th floor rooftop infinity pool and Jacuzzis to watch the sun set over Kuala Lumpur’s skyline one final time.