willful nomad

I could see the light from car headlamps reflecting colours onto the street but I couldn't figure out where the colours were coming from. When I looked up from the sms ad my mobile phone was broadcasting they caught my eye: a boy of about five or six was standing in the middle of one of Delhi's busiest streets--Inner Ring Road--holding thirty-odd balloons on a stick.

What I've realized living as an expat is that what was once baffling and strange can become almost common place. Almost.

I'm used to boys and men standing at the car window in the middle of the day hawking the latest issue of The Economist or illegially printed copies of Midnight's Children. That is, when the drivers have decided to obey the traffic signals.

I've seen women selling giant plastic statues of Ganesha covered in a lifetime's supply of glitter, or bowls full of jelly balls that expand in water (the purpose of which is as yet undetermined). My mother even bought sixteen boxes of facial tissue from a boy in the street one afternoon, most of which we still have months later.

But I wasn't ready for this. It's a phrase I've used so many times in Delhi.

He was barely tall enough to see into the sedan window, but there he was, a few cars ahead, peering through the glass with his stick full of colourful balloons.

It was dark.

The street was filled with post-work Delhi traffic (a nightmare by anyone's standards).

And, as far as I could tell, he was alone.

It's not like this lone boy in the street is an unusual sight, either. My heart has made several mad dashes to my throat as I've watched tiny children play in the street, not yet old enough to understand the consequences of being hit by one of those wheeled boxes they've likely never ridden in.

It was something about the balloons. When he finally gave up on that driver in front of us and turned around, all I could see was his silhouette, backlit by the headlamps on the other side of the intersection and holding what are supposed to be symbols of fun and excitement and innocence. But he wasn't at a birthday party or in line to ride an elephant at the circus. He didn't have cotton candy in the other hand. He was out there hawking balloons to passing drivers, hoping for a few rupees that he would likely take back to the pimp/family member who had sent him into the street in the first place.

The light turned green and traffic began to move around the tiny salesman. He ducked through a gap in the cars and perched on the raised median that held the traffic light. I didn't get a good look at his face as we passed, turning right under the flyover and onto the street that would eventually take us home.

As we rounded the corner it became clear to me that he wasn't alone. There, on the median that had been blocked from view by the concrete pillars of the flyover, another fifty people sat, stood, and laid around, many of them carrying similar or larger bunches of balloons.

Sometimes this city is tragic. Sometimes its strength is inspiring. And sometimes it's just downright bizarre. Had I not been in Delhi, the sight of hundreds of balloons being lit by the glare of headlamps and poorly powered incandescent street lights would have convinced me that I had left home for the Twilight Zone.

But no, this is just Delhi, where sometimes, even when you think you've seen it all, you're presented with proof that you really, really haven't.

how tenuous,
these tethers wrapped around our wrists and ankles,
and yet how unforgiving--
the strands that have bound us loosely
have kept us from entirely floating away,
but we have chosen to body them, name them
books and borders.

i got lost somewhere between your jawline and your ear--
that curve your fingers brush past every time you tuck your hair behind your ear--
but only for a moment;

normally i tiptoe into eye contact,
silently padding from your shoulder to your chin,
carefully avoiding any downward glances to ease into your eyes.

but sometimes,
like this time,
that one curve catches me and i'm sure you notice my momentary hesitation
because you drop your eyes a little to find mine,
a smile hedging at one corner of your mouth-
i can't help but see that smile, it's right next to the jawline that caught me-
and i hope you haven't noticed.

but i so hope that you have.

Wanderlust is a double-edged sword.

I love travel. Moreover, I love travelling to a place and staying there long enough to really get a sense of how it works. Granted, dropping in on a city or country for a vacation or just to explore a little is fun in itself. But I find few things as exciting as going to a new city--in Canada or abroad--and figuring it out little by little.

I love mapping the geography.

I love memorizing the street names and the landmarks and deciphering how people drive their cars.

I love figuring out which part of the city was built when and why by looking at the architecture.

And I love meeting new people, hearing stories, laughing, sharing drinks and bitching about whichever place we happen to co-inhabit at the moment.

In a place like Delhi the opportunities to indulge in such investigative work are endless. I still can't quite remember how to get to Khan Market though I stare at every street sign as I pass, but I now have two routes to Defense Colony and several to Siri Fort Auditorium. Expats change over faster than the Leaf's lineup. I even contemplate driving my own scooter because I think I have a chance of surviving the traffic. Maybe.

But sometimes, the pull of home starts to tug at me. These tugs normally occur when I'm sick or tired, like today, because, for some reason, sniffles and body ache seem like they'd suck just a little bit less if I were "home."

The happy, healthy, normal day tugs happen because, damn it, I miss my friends and family.

There's a certain allure to staying in one place for a long time, surrounded by the ones you love and the ones you tolerate because they're familiar and frankly you can't imagine your life without them. You get to watch your neighbours grow up, and then watch their children grow up, see how your parents change and how your siblings mature, watch intimate relationships between your friends evolve or unravel... and you get to participate in all of that, because, while you're out there watching, others are watching you.

Today I miss home. Not that I'm entirely sure where that is anymore, except to say that it's geographically located somewhere in Canada. It's not really Barrie anymore, though I refer to it as such when I'm in Victoria. And it's not Victoria, even though I refer to it as such when I'm in Barrie or abroad.

What I miss, really, are the people who I associate with both Canadian homes. Apparently my heartstrings have no sense of geography. On days like today, I hate that I'm missing first days of school, birthdays, due dates, weddings, house warming parties, careers launching and retirements.

That said, though, I'm still here in Delhi, and aside from my more sentimental moments, I'm loving it (screw you McDonalds). Even on the days when I hate it--and those days occur--I still love the adventure in all of this.

For the millionth time in my life, I wish I could be in several places at once. But for now, I'm stuck in bed with a bad case of sniffles and homesickness.

my head is spinning at the number of beginnings,
so many ships leaving harbour,
setting sail.

You roll over and rub your eyes and wonder for a moment where you are. Your cell phone, in its slightly affected monotone, is announcing that "it is time to get up, it is seven o'clock, it is time to get up…" As you grasp half-asleep for the phone you remember: you've crashed at a friend's house. That would explain why the mattress feels so strange.

You pull yourself up off the spare bed and stretch quietly, hoping not to awaken your friend who is still sound asleep. After staying up late chatting, you decided it would be best to stay put instead of taking a taxi home. Delhi isn't the most forgiving city if you don’t know it well, and you've been given the death speech by enough well-meaning locals and compound-dwellers to be sufficiently freaked out by nighttime travel. Plus, staying over means an extra hour of chat time.

Thankfully your friend's tiny but perfect apartment comes complete with a hidden extra mattress, bedding, and the comfiest tie-dye t-shirt for you to sleep in. Despite the fact that there were only six hours between the time you set the alarm and the time it went off, you're feeling pretty rested.

You tiptoe into the bathroom to change into yesterday's clothes. You can't help but notice that they're of questionable cleanliness after a day spent in 35 degree weather, but at 7am in Delhi no one but you will likely pay any attention.

After a quick hug and directions from your friend you wander out into the early morning sun. After a week of monsoon rain the sun is a welcome sight, and at this time of the day it hasn't yet had a chance to really heat things up. The neighbours glace at you and then at each other as you pass by, going back to whatever it was they were doing before you caught their attention.

Luck is on your side this morning—as soon as you reach the main road you flag an auto wallah who is willing to ferry you all the way back to the compound for only marginally more than your Indian friends would pay. He pulls a u-turn and trundles off toward the diplomatic enclave.

It's actually a really nice morning. There's been a lot of haze lately but today is crystal clear. Those big puffy clouds won't be threatening until they reach somewhere closer to the mountains in the north, and they're sweeping away some of the grime that's been hanging in the air. The traffic is comparatively light on account of the hour, but the rickshaw is one of those older slow ones; you get a leisurely and almost unobstructed view of the chai wallahs and construction sites, the kids in their school uniforms, sleepy dogs and the odd cow.

The rains have wreaked havoc on the roads so the rickshaw has to bump over the pockmarked surfaces. As you navigate a particularly rough patch, a newer rickshaw pulls up beside you to say hello. The drivers are friends, apparently, and yours can't help but beam a little at the catch he has in his back seat. You spend most of your time with expats so you forget that, of the tens of thousands of rickshaw drivers, there must be many to whom foreigners are still novel. You nod and wave to the mother and daughter in the scooter beside you and they smile and wave back.

Maybe it's the early sun, or the lack of traffic, or the smiling women in the neighbouring rickshaw, but this morning Delhi's almost pleasant. It's likely that at this rate you'll be late for work, but somehow that isn't really a concern. How many Delhi Mondays start off like this?

It's amazing how quickly things can change.

Saturday, the spouse of a long-serving employee of the High Commission passed away in his sleep. In his mid-forties, he hadn't, as far as I know, displayed any signs of illness or distress. He just went to sleep on Friday night and never woke up. For religious and practical reasons, in India, Sikhs who have died are cremated by their families on the day of their death, preferably before sundown.

We found out Saturday afternoon; Dan received an email on his blackberry informing those who checked their messages that the funeral would be conducted at 6pm at Lodhi Road Crematorium. I had driven past the place a few weeks ago with Jason and commented on the large sign outside: Lodhi Road Electric Crematorium. I had asked him about it at the time, confused over the specificity of the sign: why is it so important that it's electric? I had thought to return to the place; this is a practice I’m unfamiliar with having grown up in a largely Christian setting. I never dreamed I'd be there for any reason other than curiosity.

However, by 5:45 my family and I had joined other members of the High Commission at the Crematorium to pay respects and support someone who has helped to support us.

The first person we encountered was the High Commission's nurse who helped guide those of us who had never attended a Sikh funeral. We gathered around a neem tree in an open area outside the crematorium chamber, unsure of what to do next.

I'm always fascinated by what people talk about in situations like this. Some groups chatted about the weather, their day, jewelry, food, anything to absorb them while they waited. Some talked about the times they had met the now-deceased individual, marveling over how something like this could happen to someone so young. Others stood silent.

At 6:15, people began to question why we were still waiting; in 35 degree weather on the day of a funeral, the wife and immediate family were held up in a traffic jam on the other side of the city.

But the family arrived and the covered body was carried from the vehicle on a lashed wooden stretcher to the raised platform under the neem tree. The pandit recited prayers and the family cried silently over a flower-laden body that had, until yesterday, been a living, breathing, planning person. Many of the people I knew at the ceremony were tearing up despite not having known the deceased very well, silently relating to what it must feel like to lose someone so close so suddenly, or maybe remembering loses of their own.

Despite the solemnity of the occasion we all still had to cope with the daily considerations you just can't escape in India. The heat was oppressive, flies and mosquitoes had to be shooed away, cell phones rang mid-prayer, and the crows that had made a home of the neem tree refused to remain silent despite half-hearted protests from some of the observers.

At one point, an older man who looked as if he'd worked at the crematorium his whole life limped up to the platform to pay his respects to the patron. He was casual but composed, dignified despite being dirty around the edges and a complete stranger to the family. This ceremony saddened but didn't phase him; after all, he sees this every day.

Once the final flowers had been laid, the body was carried by a group of men to the crematorium chamber itself. As we made our way toward the chamber I heard a friend of the deceased say "just yesterday they were discussing how he was going to…" but I couldn't bear to hear the rest. We stood outside while the family entered, listening to the last prayers. I stood next to Brandy, arm to arm, watching the other High Commission visitors who had chosen to remain outside the chamber. The chamber emitted four loud clangs. Smoke started to lift from the chimney.

The family exited the chamber and stood in a receiving line as visitors passed to say their goodbyes. The wife, head covered and in a white suit, stood silently and nodded goodbye to everyone in the line. In Sikhism it's prohibited to show excessive grief at a funeral; death is a natural process in the soul's progression toward reunification with God. As I watched her, though, and got closer to saying my own goodbye, I couldn't help but wonder how it must feel to silently endure so private and immediate a loss in such a public way.

Those of us from the High Commission separated ourselves from the deceased's closer friends and family. We slowly made our way back toward our vehicles, mostly quiet. The sky was a surprising blue and several kites were flying from neighbouring rooftops.

This evening I drank a little too much red wine at cocktail hour, seeing as it was my last chance to take advantage of such things, and came back to my room to try on the day's loot. I couldn't help but laugh at myself when I realized I'd bought the very jeans I've told everyone not to buy--you know, those jeans that make your legs look like they're in sausage casing--but at least the process of buying them was fun. I haggled for them in this street stall in China Town this afternoon from an impossibly skinny and way too hip Malaysian kid, and only after he'd led me through a maze of racks and shoes to the tiny corner fitting room in someone else's store.

Now I'm back in my hotel room clad in a bathrobe and sitting down to write the last note from KL. I'll likely have a digest post when I get home, but till then this'll have to do. Sad to think about going home, really, when you've got this view out your window.

It's funny, I always find myself getting a feel for a place right before I leave. At least that's how it goes with the places I only stay in for a few days. I'm realizing more and more that I'm not the one-stop-shop type traveller; I like having a chance to really get to know a place and hate having to pack the highlight reel into a time quantified in hours. So far KL's highlights have only made me want to stay longer, immerse myself, try to figure out what the hell is really going on here.

Maybe I feel that way because of today's completely unplanned adventure. I was in the Central Market/China Town area again, picking up a few choice items that I'd had my eye on, when I found myself without much to do. I wandered back to that little art studio that I'd found the other day to see if Donald was around. I'd promised him that day that I'd come back and visit but hadn't yet. I wandered in. He was painting. I think he was miffed that I'd taken so long to return, but all he did was say "I can teach you to paint, you know." What? Teach me to paint?

I put my loot in the corner and sat in the chair that normally accommodates aspiring artists of the five-year-old variety. Donald suited me up with a kitty cat apron and then brought out what felt like a very large canvas. I have to say, I find painting incredibly intimidating. I can stare at the blank page and blinking cursor of any computer screen and feel more than confident that I can come up with some kind of drivel to fill it. A canvas, however, is an entirely different universe. I tried painting once in an old boyfriend's backyard when I was fifteen. It didn't go well.

But Donald felt like teaching me and I felt like I had a few days' debts to make up for. First he asked me what I wanted to paint. "What's in your mind?" he asked. "What kind of animals do you like?" I'm so bad at this... "I had two pet rats that I really liked?" For not the first time since I'd met him, he looked shocked. "Flowers," I said, "I like trees and flowers." Donald appeared relieved.

We started off with a skyline and background. He applied the first few strokes, and at first I was happy to just let him paint the whole damned thing for me. But as the colour took shape I found myself wanting to carefully remove the paintbrush from his hand and start in on it myself... maybe if I go really slow he won't notice... But then he handed me the brush and said "now you try."

So there I went, brushing blue and white paint into a skyline and green into what now looks like grass if I squint hard enough. The same Malaysian power ballad had been playing on repeat for a while when Auntie and her family came in to watch the grand daughter paint. I, being the anomaly in the room, was of instant curiosity to Auntie, so as I etched trees onto the canvas she and I talked about her kids and her English language skills and her lifelong dream to emigrate to Canada. Her big eyes had teared over a little from under her glasses and rose-coloured hijab when I talked about the cities I'd lived in in Canada. She said she's always wanted to move there, but her husband didn't want to go any further than inside his own cocount shell.

Auntie got wrapped up her grand daughter's handy work, so Donald took the opportunity to engage in some conversation about anything but painting. He asked if I'd been to Jakarta and was a little disappointed when I said no. "I'd love to go to Jakarta," he sighed heavily. He spoke of Jakarta with the same reverence as those who speak of Greenwich Village or Commerial Drive, young artists dreaming of a bohemian life of paint and cigarettes and cheap rent. "I wouldn't want to work there, though," he added.

It turns out he spends all day every day at the studio. He opens it at 10 am and closes it at 9 pm, Sunday through Saturday. He said his boss asks him to take breaks, but he always replies with "I would take a break, but I wouldn't know where else to go." The studio has become his home.

At some point during the afternoon I must have started to wind down. "Are you enjoying?" he asked. I realized I hadn't had any lunch aside from the third bowl of soy bean pudding in as many days from China Town. I headed back to the food court in Central Market for a late lunch and wound up eating some deep fried Thai amazingness at a table in the corner. Beside me sat a trio of gay, deaf Malaysian men signing animatedly over their lunch. I wanted desperately to be able to communicate with them, but I didn't recognize their sign. Not that it matters, the only sign language I remember is "I forget how to sign," but it didn't mean I wanted it any less. So I sat and ate and tried not to stare too obviously.

The studio was full when I got back--Auntie's whole family had arrived to watch the grand daughter paint. Sisters and brother wandered around me in circles while I added more detail to my painting, but because none of them spoke English we couldn't exchange much more information than names and countries. One tiny girl, Ayesha, looked like she wanted more than anything to paint with me, but when I offered her the brush and pointed to a fish that needed filling she blushed and shied away. I sat and painted while Donald and his friend of a name I never got watched and commented on how I should come back and paint more often.

I finished up the last edges of the painting I'd made only to find that Donald was missing. Auntie said she, too, was waiting for Donald, who'd gone off for lunch, so in the meantime she told me stories about how she'd finally gotten a chance to travel abroad. Her cocounut shell husband heard the first few strings of this long wornout story and made himself scarce, so I remained Auntie's sole audience member. She fed me traditional Malaysian cakes baked into fish shapes and told me how, six years ago, she'd been on a bus through France on her birthday and how the whole international bus tour sang her the American Happy Birthday song. More tear-glazed eyes as she recounted that she spent her birthday evening atop the Eiffel Tower. Then she told me that the train she had taken in Bali while she'd been there had been bombed two days after she'd left. "Praise God for long life," she said, and offered me more cake.

Donald returned as the painting finished drying, so showed me how to autograph it and bagged it up for me. Auntie took advantage of the lull in conversation to point out that I was a "soft-spoken Canadian" with nice clean cheeks... "Auntie, are you playing matchmaker?" Donald blushed, but I have to say, he's pretty cute if a bit young! I've promised to return on my last day, tomorrow, to say goodbye and maybe paint some more if I have time.

I'll have to juice up my camera and take a few photos of my teacher.

Afternoon Adventure

Friday afternoon was cloudy and muggy, but it didn't stop me from taking a few hours out in the afternoon to explore Central Market. It was actually quite nice, actually, taking a walk sans Delhi heat and sun. After spending so much time walking everywhere in Victoria, it's been hard adjusting to the feet-free Delhe lifestyle. So Friday I took advantage.

Central Market is this two-storey open concept building full of shops and handicrafts that I think was conceived as an indigenous souveneirs shop. It's since been taken over slightly by plastic shops that sell your standard made-in-china fare. But if you can get past the sparkles and the lit-up Hello Kitties, you can actually find some pretty spectacular stuff. Gorgeous Malaysian batiks, woven bamboo mats, South Indian textiles... again, though, the soundtrack was quite disconcerting; I was shopping to the "Life in a Metro" soundtrack.

The place has an awesome food court as well, especially for those like myself who are inexplicably drawn to shoddy Asian fast food. I had Chinese at a place called Mama's Kitchen that was staffed by these two young, round women with gigantic smiles. They must have thought I was pretty funny, not knowing how things worked and being adamant about eating vegetarian food (being a strict veg here would be so frustrating!).

I had originally come out to visit the National History Museum, but according to a sign posted on its front door it's been closed since November 07. Hm. And I even braved traffic to cross the street to get it!

Luckily the Museum looks out onto the Independence Lawn, or Dataran Merdeka. It's marked by an enormous flag that was raised on August 31st 1957, the day Malaysia declared independence from Great Britain. The flag--and a row of about a hundred of its smaller counterparts--stands in defiance across the street from the old British administrative buildings. The buildings themselves are quite beautiful, topped by a Big Ben-style clock, but the flags make a real mockery of them now.

Masjid Jamek, one of the most prominent mosques in the area, hides in a corner behind Central Market and the British buildings at the point where Kuala Lumpur's two major rivers join. It was prayer time while I was practicing my hack-job photography, so I heard the mosque before I ever saw it. After braving traffic a bit more, I happened upon its backside with a street and the two rivers between myself and the mosque's lawns. I sat and listened to prayers for a while, took some long-distance photos, and wandered on my way.

Tucked somehow between the Market and the Mosque is a tall indie art gallery and annexe that housed some of the most interesting new art and artists I've seen in a while. The place that caught my attention the most was this small store and studio called Gajah Gajah Gallery. The owner, a famous Malaysian illustrator, uses the facility to promote "Naive Art," and he's loud and proud about it. At first I thought he meant "native," but no, it's "naive." He aims to foster artistic creativity in old and young people alike despite their exposure to art or their lack thereof. Donald, one of eight young (or young at heart) artists-in-residence, showed me around the tiny spot, pointed out his peers' work, and quoted me prices for some of the pieces I liked. They were all super bright and colourful, and each student had a different subject--Donald painted dogs, one student painted cats, another city scapes, and the oldest painted close-ups of nature settings. I bought a few paintings of monsters, tucked my wares under my arm, and headed back to the hotel on the monorail.

Batu Caves

This morning I crawled out of the hotel for some coffee and ran square into two women doing the same thing. They'd just gotten off the plane from Sydney, Australia, but within two minutes I'd discovered that one had actually grown up in Orillia, Ontario. It is a small world, my friends, a truly small world.

After breakfast I dragged my still-tired body into a tour car to go to Malaysia's most famous Hindu temple at Batu Caves.

Hindu faithfuls flock to the location in January to perform masochistic rituals under the watchful eye of a giant gold Murugan, Ganesha's younger and much-slighted brother. According to legend, Murugan got upset after losing yet another bet to Ganesha, hopped on the back of his trusty peacock, and took off for the top of a hill to start his own following. Thus, his temple is nestled in the hollow of a large cave at the top of a 242-step staircase. Stairmaster, eat your heart out.

I stepped out of the car and straight back into India--hot, sticky, and colourful. Up the stairs I went with barefooted men and high-heeled women, past the head of the giant Murugan, and into the high-arched moss and limestone.

The temple and statues were interesting; they were colourful and like many of the temples I'd been in with Gowry last summer, but for some reason I had a hard time deciphering what kind of story the place was trying to tell. I've taken a pile of photos, particularly of Murugan and his peacock, so hopefully going through those will give me more of a clue. It had an anticipatory feeling, like it was waiting for the real action to start. I guess carved and painted gods can't replace the spectacle of flesh and blood being pierced and stretched to its maximum capacity.

Berjaya Times Square

Malaysia is making itself famous for its shopping. And I say that quite seriuosly--it wages its own campaign 24/7/365 advertising to itself and to the world that KL is THE place to shop. So Mom and Dan and I decided to check some of it out today.

I'm really not a mall person. I wandered around for two hours and bought two things. But it was kind of cool none the less, watching people wander through the shops that all sell the same things, toting bags and laughing, scarfing down more bad food court fare. At one point I wound up in the fray around the 10 ringit per item bin at some teeny bop store, but I pulled out after taking a good hard look at the shrieking Asian teenagers I had to contend with. Ten years ago when I, too, was a shrieking teenager I may have had a chance; today, I was a goner before I even started.

I'm so tired and I haven't even gotten to China Town yet. But I'm going back again tomorrow, so there will likely be more updates than I have already.

Oh, KL. You're a strange little town, but I think I like you.

So Mom and I have done some damage. We decided that, since we have this vacation to ourselves for the first few days, we'd take advantage of the situation and shop just us girls.

Luckily KL is more than happy to accommmodate.

Yesterday evening we headed out the door to look for Jakel's, a famous fabric store, despite having only been here for a few hours and not having gotten much in the way of directions. But, as I mentioned, KL is more than happy to accommodate: Jakel's has a giant balloon with it's name and the word "sale" emblazoned boldly on both sides floating two storeys above the store. We hit up the silk section, joked around with the staff, and left with enough fabric to keep Mr. Alam the tailor busy for weeks.

Today, after being disappointed at the Petronas Twin Towers (more on that later), we taxied over to Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman to do some more exploring. Mom found a shoe store with a section that catered to women with larger feet (or men with large feet who dress as women, you decide), and after some hemming, some hawing, some water and some smarties, we made a few key purchases.

In both cases, Mom found the shop's only pregnant sales woman and paid for the unborn child's first year of life in commission.

The markets we explored this afternoon mainly sold the floral fabric Malay women wear. Most Malay women are Muslim and dress conservatively, long sleeves, long hemlines, and headscarves. Having grown up in a really waspy town in Central Ontario, I'm still not quite used to hijabs and headcoverings, so I was surprised to see row upon row of shops dedicated to designer headscarves where women could buy the newest designs from Turkey and Dubai.

Sixty percent of the Malaysian population is Malay; the other forty is made up of thirty percent Chinese and ten percent Indian. This last statistic explains the sari shops interspersed between the Malaysian florals, and why this afternoon you could have found me bopping along to Salam-e-Ishq as it blared out of a cd shop on the street. Oh, and since I've been here, I've had three random men smile and say "Hello Madame" for no reason. They've all been Indian. I'm beginning to believe that you can leave India, but India never truly leaves you.

This evening, however, a local woman showed us parts of the Chinese thirty percent that we likely never would have encountered without her help. Cheryl works at the Canadian High Commission here in KL; she's a tiny woman with a big smile, high cheekbones, and perfect posture, and, until 10pm at least, seemingly boundless energy. She took us into China Town a few metro stops from our hotel and my goodness this was the shopping I was looking for. Give me knock-offs. Give me oddities. Give me hot-off-the-back-of-the-truck export madness. We wandered the stalls, being hooted and hollered at and "Hello Madamed" for an hour and I bought nothing but some dried ginger and coconut. It was amazing. Now that I have a sense of the place I can go back and see if my Delhi-trained bargaining skills will work in KL. I've already discovered that the Indian nod I've whole-hearteldy adopted doesn't translate here. At all.

Then she took us for Chinese at a flourescent restaurant near Central Station. Despite being full from the half a bag of dried ginger I'd consumed in China Town, and the bowl of soya pudding she bought me, I stuffed myself silly on fried chicken, pork ribs, rice, and some tiny eight-legged seafood friends in a dish I can't name to save my life. She must think I'm crazy, going on and on about how much I love the food. Then again, she had us bring twenty pounds of food with us from Delhi, sweets and snacks she fell in love with while she was there but couldn't get here in Malaysia, so I suppose I must not seem that crazy afterall.

Food and shopping. That's pretty much all we've done so far. And so far I have to say, I'm really okay with it. I have some trips of the more cultural variety planned for tomorrow, but we'll have to see if Central Market doesn't distract me along the way.