Month: February 2005

After several days of haggling and waiting, we finally moved into our new apartment last night.  It’s pretty nice as far as these things go.  First off, the rent is $470 a month.  That alone is enough to make us smile.  More importantly, $470 a month goes a lot further in KL than it does in New Haven, or even in Jakarta for that matter.  In addition to the big bedrooms and bathrooms that we mentioned in our earlier post, we also have a washer and a dryer in the apartment.  That is so nice.  That means we don’t have to dry out clothes outside in the smog, thereby getting them dirty again.

We have also developed a new relationship with the mall.  We don’t really like malls that much in the United States.  Yes, they are convenient, but there’s something icky about the unrestrained display of consumerism, in our minds.  It has all the negative connotations of tract housing in the suburbs–think "Edward Scissorhands."  We have already mentioned that we spend a lot of time at malls here because they are hugely popular in both Indonesia and Malaysia.  Well, our latest find has been a gigantic health club running a special promotion this week, meaning that we have bought a six month membership for two for under $600.  Seems pretty steep when you put it in those terms, but given that we go every day, it’s worth every penny.  Plus, it’s usually pretty empty, meaning that we get to have all the machines that we want, and the machines are of better quality than anything we’ve ever experienced at home.  We’re going to be spoiled.

Last night we went shopping at the local pasar malam, or night market, that gets set up near our apartment every Monday and Friday night.  The quality of the produce was really high, enough so that we thought it looked better than the store.  The quality of the meat and fish was pretty low, so we skipped that.  We also tried all sorts of food from the stands.  First we had sate ayam, delicious chicken satay with peanut sauce.  Then we had apam balik, which is some sort of thin fried pancake, folded like a taco and filled with some sugar and something that tasted like durian, and was delicious.  We concluded with murtabak ayam, a doughy Indian-inspired bread fried on a griddle and filled with ground chicken, onions, and other tasty bits.  We could do this every day, but fortunately it’s not possible except for Mondays and Fridays.  There were literally dozens of other foods to try, and we’ll be going back to try them.

We have had very delicious Indian food twice in the past two days.  It’s different than Indian food that you get in the US, which is almost entirely northern Indian.  (We of course had no idea until we got here that there was much of a difference.)  So we haven’t had any chicken tikka masala, lamb vindaloo, mulligatawny soup, palak paneer, naan, or anything like that.  Instead, Saturday night we had a bread-y dinner, and last night we had a rice-y dinner.  The bread-y dinner featured all sorts of different breads–chapati, paper dosa, and others that we can no longer remember–served with curried lentils and a coconut-y sauce.  Very spicy and good, but thinner than the type of Indian food that we are used to.  Some of the breads were fried, some seemed to have been griddled or grilled, and at least one rice cake bread seems to have been steamed.  Last night we had banana leaf food.  We’re not sure if this is a method of eating particular to this restaurant, to Malaysia, or if this is something that you could find in southern India or Sri Lanka too.  No matter, it was awesome.  You get a big banana leaf, and then guys start coming by with all sorts of things.  We had a big pile of rice, some cucumber/yogurt salad, sauteed cabbage, deep fried yummy vegetable bits, pickle, dal, fish curry, chicken curry, and salted fried chili peppers.  This all came with the standard package.  Then we added a chili chicken, some other kind of chicken, and some mutton.  Mmmm, mutton!  It was really really good.  For all you can eat, with two drinks each, the total came to $6.  You can’t beat that.

Saturday night we went out with our friend, a Malaysian guy, and his friend visiting from Singapore to a party hosted by the online newspaper Malaysiakini, which means Malaysia Right Now or Contemporary Malaysia.  It is known for being relatively independent from the regime here, and has a big following among the Anwar Ibrahim crowd.  (We’ll have to discuss Anwar Ibrahim some other time, but suffice it to say he was the old dictator Mahathir’s number 2 henchman until he had the gall to gainsay Mahathir’s policy choices, at which time he was sacked and placed in jail for six years for sodomy.  As long as you’re making up charges, you might as well have fun with it.)  For all of you who have been to a crowded college party, you know how hot and smoky such gatherings can be.  From our experiences, this takes the cake.  It was on the fifth floor of some industrial/artist space with one ceiling fan and probably a hundred people squeezed into a small room.  This group represented the free spirits, hippies, and the anti-establishment crowd.  Lots of dreadlocks and two guys playing experimental rock on their guitars.  We stayed for two beers and then hightailed it out of there.

Instead of going home, we went to an “Irish Bar” called, yes, Finnegan’s.  For a mere US$7 plus 15% service charge, you can have a fairly decent Beamish Stout and the always tasty Strongbow Extra Dry Cider.  Were it not for the prices and the overabundance of Westerners jamming to a terrible DJ, this could be fun.  Well, it was a nice time anyway.

You can now look at our first pictures from KL and our last pictures from Jakarta.

Starting tomorrow, free high-speed internet access at our friends’ apartment will be done.  Hopefully we’ll figure out how to have it installed in our new apartment two floors up, but if not, we’ll try to find a good internet cafe from which to continue our ramblings.