Friday, April 15, 2005

Lah

One thing you'll notice when you come to Malaysia lah (and to a lesser extent in Singapore and Indonesia as well), is that the people are very friendly. Plus most of them speak English as well lah. The only problem is that they keep adding on "lah"s at the end of everything they say ... lah. OK, I'll stop there. It's really quite endearing though, and I've come to like it, plus it's less grating to the ear than err, umm and ahh. I've begun to use it myself, but it hasn't got the stage where I do it subconsciously, yet. I'm actually rather worried about the state of my own English when I finally get back home; I'm afraid it'll be some strange, bastardised mish-mash and no-one will be able to understand me. Still, I was prepared before I got here as I have some Malaysian friends, and so I wasn't completely confused.

I'm still in KL, though I will be off tomorrow. I suppose you don't feel as rushed when staying put isn't that expensive. Still, I hate to vegetate, and so I will hopefully be off exploring some rainforests. However, I have not spent my time here in KL idly lazing about (except on Wednesday when I was feeling really rough all day, perhaps due to my body's attempts to acclimatise itself with a new diet and climate). Apart from visiting a few museums (of varying quality) and pottering around markets my favourite little side-trip has been to the nearby Batu caves. Apart from being beautiful limestone caves in their own right, the caves also house important Hindu temples (polytheistic religions are much more colourful and fun when compared to the drab monotony of monotheism). But for me that wasn't the main draw. The real reason one should visit the caves is for the monkeys that inhabit them. The light-fingered cheeky little rascals are not averse to pilfering tourists' belongings from under their noses. They weren't doing much of that while I was there as they were too busy engaging in pitched battles between two rival simian factions (quite entertaining to watch as they set up defensive positions on the cliff-sides or tried to outmanoeuvre each other).

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