I’ll first start by saying that I wish I had been able to spend some more time in Malaysia because I was limited just to Kuala Lumpur. Kuala Lumpur was ultimately just a big city, but you could spend a day just people watching. Malay, Indonesian, Chinese, Indian, Western-this was definitely one of the most ethnically diverse places I have ever been to. Frankly speaking though, there just wasn’t a lot to do there but party.
As we were walking up to the door of our hostel, my friend, Nate (a Shijiazhuang American student at my school) was in front and I just heard him exclaim, “Noooo way!” I tried to see what he saw inside. From behind, I recognized a familiar head of shaggy, brown hair. We walked through the door and Nate exclaimed again, “Noooo way! What the f--- are YOU doing here?!” Sure enough, the shaggy head of hair turned around and revealed itself to be none other than our Scottish friend, Mike, from Shijiazhuang. Just as surprised as we were, we had to get over the initial shock of seeing each other in the same city in the same hostel when we had parted our separate ways almost a month before. If anyone else has experienced something like this, you know how crazy it can be.
While we were there we smoked a lot of sheesha (flavored tobacco) and drank a lot of mango shakes that were excellent. We went out a couple of nights and one night this guy who was only to us as “Captain L.A.” joined us rather spontaneously. He just sat down next to us outside of our hostel. Now this guy seemed a bit full of himself, but I wasn’t going to pass judgment on him so quickly. However, after hearing him speak at length, I realized he was just some jerk from L.A., hence the title that we bequeathed unto him. The breaking point is when we were all ordering rounds of beers at a club when Captain L.A. ordered a drink that was far more expensive than the beers we had been ordering were…and it wasn’t even his round. So Nate’s friend Sam called it out on him and he compensated him (by buying Sam a similarly priced drink). All the while, our sweet French girl friend was uncomfortably trying to enjoy herself (I can’t remember her name, but she was too much of a sweetheart to be hanging around the likes of Captain L.A….and probably us as well).
Despite what seemed to be the shortcomings of not only Captain L.A., but every person from L.A. that I met abroad, we ended up having a good time in Kuala Lumpur by just walking around and seeing some of the sites. Before becoming autonomous, Malaysia had come under the rule of the British empire for a while (and maybe some others as well), so the mix of architecture was fairly interesting. Again, though, there was not much to do in Kuala Lumpur and I really wish I had had the chance to go elsewhere in Malaysia.
Sadly, the next day Nate and Sam decided to take off for another part of Malaysia while Mike and I decided to go on a Firefly trip. This Firefly trip took us about two hours outside of Kuala Lumpur to a river. We ate a seafood (riverfood?) riverside dinner at sunset and then took a boat tour down a river to see the many thousands of fireflies that lit up the night sky.
That night Mike and I went out on the town and it was the last time I was to see that crazy Scot. The next morning, I woke him up before I had to catch my flight. He turned to me, hair disheveled as if he was doing his best impersonation of a mad scientist, eyes blurry, voice bruised and cracked, and said, “It’s been emotional,” and quickly returned to his drunken slumber.
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