Arrival

I woke up to an unfamiliar surroundings today. Entering KL while peacefully comatosed, the federal city of Malaysia was still shrouded underneath the blankets of the night. It was a peaceful yet nostalgic journey. Not merely a journey of distance but that of time as well. The previous times I had been to Malaysia, all but one trip was made with my mother. The exception was when I visited Chuantin and Anand. That bus journey was largely forgettable and for that reason I cannot really recall details of it. The other parts of the sojourn was better preserved in memories though.
It is the remembrance of my childhood busrides along the highways of Malaysia that still lingers on. Together with the expressways they were revisited. So it was in a largely reflective mood that I set off from Singapore. The Tuas causeway which the driver took to access Malaysia was something novel. It was a largely forlorn entrypoint with only 2 or 3 officers idling around. Our arrival gave their night some significance at least.
As a child, I would always fear an inadvertant separation from my mother when the bus makes a stop at one of those megamarts along the highway. There were always so many people despite the defunct hours. I guess most of them welcome the stopover as a merry alternative to being cramped up in those tuna-cans of buses they were in. Once my mother moved to the back of the bus where there were otiose sleeping space, so to free up more room for me. I woke up in pusanillanimity, thinking that I had been abandoned. A thorough search through the bus eventually reunited me with the assuring sight of my mother. Not to mention the rest of the miffed awakened passengers. I was not being subtle in my expiscatory.
Those days, I can just stare out of the tainted windows of the bus, absorbing the moving greyscale landscape. They flash past me like faded polaroids of nature. Like a broken down antique telly. Images from my nightmares would play in my imagination. Perhaps the aversion was borne out of an primal detestation and fascination with the jungles draped with the lowlying nightsky.
This time my phone radio and the coach's small screen personal TV took over my cognizance and the sights from outside the windows went largely unnoticed. The radio has the DJ telling ghost stories. There were canards about a female headless body or bodyless head depending on your intepretation, and a long dead child whose noddle was preserved and stitched to a ragged doll. Then I turned my assiduity to the miniature tv and watched Vacancy and Disturbia. The ensuing sleep was surprisingly free of phantoms and ghouls.
So I had no idea when the bus reached my destination. Having no ideas do not bother me, not reaching my terminus ad quem irks me alot. Rising with gratitude for an uneventful and comfortable jaunt, I finally stepped onto the modern boulevards of KL. Truth be told, the streets were no less ravishing than our Orchard Road at 5am. My hotel The Ancasa would hold its hold against Meritus or Marriot. HOwever there was a quirkiness about my lodging. There is no direct path leading to the entrance. You have to make your way from the sides, following the driveway that rims the front of the hotel. The guards were sleeping and I can only check in at 10am.
There were two Macdonalds in sight and 20 taxis yearning for lost tourists. Add another 200 locals and sightseers scattered randomly around the tendrilic streets, you have the official figures at 5.30am. The roads were easy to cross at leisure for cars were far and few in between. Entering my first Macdonalds, there were not many people. Yet there were no place for me as these brokes took up at least 2 tables each. One even laid supine across a long bench, clearly a big exhausted journeyman. There were people like me: one glance and you can tell they are foreign to this land, the other group being students burning the midnight or pre-dawn oil at this outlet.
I took a leak and it is the customary scent of micturition that greeted me at the toilet. Pee smells the same in Malaysia too. The latrines just as grubby. Relieved, I left the place and headed over to my current location. They have 24-hour internet cafes over here as well. I suspect it would not be hard work for me to get around this place too.
My stomach is now annoucing its awakening and I shall make for the other Macdonalds at the end of this street.
To be continued.