Malaysia Part 2 or The Window That Wouldn't Budge

Our second day in Malaysia began with an underwear trip to the mall. Well, it really began by us very reluctantly dragging ourselves out of perhaps THE most comfortable bed ever, which got easier after we realized we were seeing sunshine for the first time in four months when looking out the window. We promptly headed down to breakfast, where I discoverd the absolute most incredible piece of edible anything that has ever been invented. And that thing, my friends, is kaya pau. )While there seem to multiple names for it, this was the one on the hotel sign.) However, I preferred to refer to them as "heavenly balls of wonderfulness" throughout the entire trip. Oh yes. We´d walk into a grocery store and the first thing out of my mouth would be "look for the heavenly balls!" I got less evil glares than you´d expect in a land where most people speak perfect English.


The breakfast room looked out onto this fabulous pool and gym (a gym which I gladly did not grace with my vacation-mode presence):

But I did leap into the pool at the first chance I got (when M left me for three minutes to get a newspaper). It was as amazing as it looked, though my poor Germanized pale-ass skin couldn´t handle too much sunshine, sadly. So eventually we did make it to the mall (quite luckily for me). Which was next door to our hotel. As in somewhat connected. It had at least three wings that I know of, each with more levels than I could count. And the levels, besides being overrun by neon signs and squealing teenagers, also contained more American chains than I had seen in almost 2 years! Popeye's, Krispy Kreme, Quiksilver, and most importantly Coffee Bean! My California self was happy. And in awe.

Amazingly enough, we managed to navigate our way through this monstrosity they called a mall and, all in a matter of a rushed 20 minutes before we were to be picked up (with M chiding me the whole time for wasting too much time in the pool), came away with new undies, a red shirt for M for Chinese New Year (we were specifically told to wear "happy colors," no blues, blacks, or browns. His wardrobe was not quite ready for that.), German-traveler-style cargo pants for me for hiking in the Highlands (and to protect against leeches! no way I was leeting those little bastards get to me!), and a new SIM card. Which wouldn't be activated for likely two to three days because the boss of the store, apparently the only one who could activate the card, was on vacation for Chinese New Year. As were most store bosses in the mall. We paid our 10 Ringgits and hoped that, at some point, the card would be activated. There's nothing like blind trust.

This friendly parade greeted us in our hotel lobby.

We packed into a not too tiny car that our friend had borrowed from her friend and set out for Kampar, a good 170km north of Kuala Lumpur.

And then the real fun began. We were driving along merrily, M and I in the backseat, AK shotgun and his adorably preggers wife Lee Wah at the wheel, because AK was entirely to slow and not nearly aggressive enough for the terrifyingly renegade Malaysian streets and freeways. About 20 minutes into the drive, Lee Wah rolled down her window briefly, for a reason I now forget. Perhaps to throw something out. Or perhaps just because the kicking "little gentleman" inside her needed some not-so-fresh air. Who knows. Either way, she accidentally rolled M´s window, behind her´s, down to. Which would have been fine...had it rolled back up. But no, ohhhh no. That thing was down to stay. It was down to heckle us. And not for a lack of trying. M tried feverishly with the button and then did the manly thing and tried to physically pull the perpetrating window back up (guess how well that worked?). Lee Wah called her friend, whose car it was, and she recommended to just "keep pushing the button over and over and over. Eventually that will work." For some crazy reason, the Germans and I were skeptical. But she tried. For 45 minutes. Ever hear a button being pushed for 45 minutes straight? Trust me, you don´t want to. So for the next 45 minutes, we were the only car on the freeway in the middle lane being passed on either side by laughing Malaysians, with one window down in the 40º C (104º F) heat and about 1000% humidity. And three crazy-ass white people sitting inside smiling, because that´s what you do on vacation.

Note to self, manual roll-up windows aren´t that illogical or uncool after all...

(Oh yeah, we did get the window up eventually.)

(And it turns out M´s initial suspicion panned out. It was merely a matter of turning the child safety lock off... But don´t tell him that. He enjoys it way too much when he´s right.)