Formula One

Arriving in Kuala Lumpur was a sudden rush back into modernism. It was a rush from the airplane, a rush from the baggage claim and a rush down the highway to a country of high rises (two of the tallest in the world now) and shopping malls. A lightening storm greeted us as the taxi sped out of the arrival gate. "We get storm every afternoon," the driver told us. "About one hour, it will all be gone."

"How long before we get to China Town," I asked.

"About one hour."

But as soon as we entered the highway, I wondered whether we would last that one hour. The rain was pulling in sheets across the windshield and not only was the sky crackling with lightening, but we were driving as fast as those streaks as well. "Do we have to drive so fast," I said. At the airport the driver had insisted that one of us sit up front. I was the chosen one, and I felt like I could at any moment catapult to my death.

The driver cracked his lips into a wide smile. "Oh, don't worry Ma'am. I Formula One driver." Then he turned to John in the back seat and smiled again.

His speed kept increasing and I kept asking him to slow down. I wondered after a while if perhaps I should be keeping my mouth shut. Maybe now he was compelled to prove himself as the all daring, I can stop on a dime while hydroplaning on a sheet of water, speed racer. He sped up to cars and pulled to their side inches before bumpers kissed. He removed himself from one lane of traffic with a jerk to the right and reinserted himself one car length up with a jerk to his left. Every time he made a successful pass, he turned to me and then to John and showed off his pearly whites.

"How much further is it?" I asked almost afraid of the answer.

"If you in a hurry, I can do in less than an hour."

"No, no, please - no hurry." I said. I pushed my hand behind the seat and grabbed at John's leg.

We were eventually deposited in China Town. I forced my knees not to buckle as I stood on the sidewalk and hoisted my pack onto my shoulders. "That ranks up there as a ride from hell," I muttered as we surveyed our surroundings. I pulled the business card we'd been given from a traveler in Indonesia from my pocket. "Twin Happiness, " I read. "Guess we can double our pleasure. It should be right...," I looked up to the sign we were directly under, 'here."

Our double dose of hotel joy was a bit less than we had expected. The rooms were small, and the one we were shown, tucked down one long corridor and around another, opened it's windows to the noisy street. (Other rooms had no windows.) The sparse furnishings (one metal table and two beds) were old and worn and we wondered whether we would be relaxing here or planning our escape. But, after running around the corner to check out The Moon Lodge (twice the price and completely unlivable) we concluded that the recommended Twin Happiness brimmed with pleasantness after all and we took the room.

After tossing our packs on the bed (there, we're unpacked), John and I locked fingers and stepped from the stale but cool air of the hotel lobby onto the crowded, hot streets of China Town. From where we stood the sky was almost obliterated with glass, bricks and metal; high rise department stores, hotels and malls. Street level was obliterated with bodies. There appeared to be more people than sidewalk to hold them. They walked shoulder to shoulder, almost on top of each other. At the bus stops, the crowds stood four or five rows deep and on the buses it seemed almost impossible to breath.

The noise level put the final touch to the feeling of claustrophobia I felt. There seemed to be no end to the blaring of horns. Hundreds at a time were battling for a chance to drum at my ears. People yelled, buses squealed to halts at corners. The bursts of black diesel soot that accompanied every stop brought choruses of acapella choking. Air quality in Kuala Lumpur didn't appear to exist. I was surprised that so many people did.

"Don't let go of this hand," I said to John. I clenched tightly onto his and we stepped into the confusion.

We visited Central Market. It too was a confusion of people. Stalls sold everything from food to hand painted silk, to cameras and shoe repairs. The MetroJaya was a stacked salt tower filled with cubby-hole after cubby-hole of shops. Pertama Complex was an endless assortment of stores and between them all were street-side restaurants, book stores, camera stores, shoe repairs and jewelers. 'For sale' burst forth everywhere.

In Malaysia, we've concluded you can buy anything. It is a country made for selling and buying. It is also a country where the phrase "meet me at the mall" can have no meaning; there are just too many to chose from. In the streets in and around Chinatown, we've counted over ten shopping plazas and markets, and we're not counting any of the ones called complex, center or square. Entire maps here are devoted to listing shopping malls. One grid map shows eight shopping plazas in a three block area, another lists nine department stores. In total I have counted 32 mall-like places to shop, one with an indoor Starlight Express theme park, one with an entire floor devoted to an amusement park, one with six floors set in marble, one with a London floor and a toy land floor and one with over 500 boutiques. The two malls that we walked into were gorgeous. One had indoor rivers moving between the escalators that took us from the first to the second floor. Plants and flowers decorated the railings. In the other we watched on the sixth floor as a waterfall plunged down two-stories.

Where do you begin? With all the stores selling electronics, cameras, shoes, clothing, music, jewelry (this list could go on forever) we were almost afraid to shop. We did have on our Malaysia shopping list a camera lense and with John's usual tactic of pricing out every store in town, I feared we might be spending our entire trip on one city block.

We found our camera lense during our second night in the city. We bought it at the second store we came to; the choices of places to look beyond that being too overwhelming to bother. We ate a fabulous Thai dinner that night at the Soho Mall and wandered around the evening street market. But when markets and malls and complexes and squares all began to meld into a blur of 'for sale' signs and street noise we picked up a phone and made a booking to bus to the Taman Negara National Park. Two days of caotic city life was enough for us. When we hung up we concentrated our efforts on finding our hotel again. In the cool, stale air of the Twin Happiness Hotel we called it a night.