Malaysia: at first
I’m never a traveler kind. I am that type of a person who stays out of the adventure. So when I decided to move to Malaysia 5 years back, it’s a decision that was equipped with proper calculation and necessary consideration, though the frustration over the traffic jam in Jakarta was admittedly the utmost factor contributing to the decision. The fact that Malaysia is not geographically far from Indonesia, that anytime I have trouble I can always cry for help to my parents gave me some easy feeling over the idea of migrating to Malaysia. Singapore was also an option, but what can I do? I didn’t get the job that I wanted.
When I finally settled myself in Kuala Lumpur, my new colleagues, who came at the same batch with me were practically the first persons I got to spend most of time with. The people in my batch were mostly Spaniards, and also an Indonesian girl from Jakarta which I hesitate to hang out with. I’ve escaped Jakarta, the crazy city that I had been living for years, at which expense do I have to hang around with another Indonesia in this foreign country?
These three Spaniard stooges confirmed what’s always been a rumor about Spaniards, they are life of the party. There wasn’t any single weekend spent without going to party in Changkat, Bukit Bintang. Bukit Bintang itself is one of the most popular touristic places in Malaysia. There, the glittery shopping malls standing side by side with Middle-eastern stalls and also wide pedestrians filled with tourists who probably as curious as I was about Bukit Bintang. Congestion on the road is inevitable as tour bus and private cars are hustling to traverse, while at the same time, crowd of people are crossing the street here and there.
On another side of the main road, still in Bukit Bintang area, there lies a long street where fake Prada, Rayban, and other imitation goods are publicly traded, and a number of homeless people begging for pity on the same the street. Also on this street, the famous chicken rice shop, Chee Meng, always has a long queue of people waiting for their turn to eat. Rumor has it that the owner and most of the staffs are Javanese, hence the trivial name Chee Meng. Only Indonesians will giggle when they find out about the name as it’s pronounced as Cimeng, means ganja in our language.
I can only confirm that most of the staffs are Javanese, as they converse in the Javanese language to others, while serving people with limited English. Jalan Alor is what comes after this road. Jalan Alor is a hawker center street, famous for the variety of Chinese foods though I may beg to differ that the fame of Jalan Alor is mostly contributed by the strategic location. It would be fair to say that most of the tourists will end their Bukit Bintang tour in Jalan Alor and feeding their tummy with local Chinese foods at reasonable price. Just behind Jalan Alor is where Changkat located. For Jakartans, Changkat is comparable to Kemang. It’s a narrow street where small bars are facing each other, with loud music trying to compete for attention. The difference between Kemang and Changkat is the crowd. While Kemang was populous with young teenager who come to taste the indulgence of night life, probably for the first tim ever, Changkat is populous with foreigners, mostly Caucasians, and arguably some lost Indonesians like me, who were new to the city and ended up in the most-talked about area among tourists.
We can’t find something like this in Madrid, especially these many pretty Chinese women. Jamie told me once, after I gave him disgusting look over his cheap flirt with a woman in the bar.
It didn’t take me long to finally fed up with Bukit Bintang. While the collision of hustling street hawkers, loud bars, glamorous shopping malls, crowd of people trying to get the best of Bukit Bintang, and also congestion along the road leaving most of the tourists in awe, I found Bukit Bintang is not that much different from what I encountered in Jakarta. The rather slum area on the back of towering and futuristic-looking buildings with locals hustling to make the ends meet is not a bizarre scene for people from developing country like me. The only additional factor in Kuala Lumpur that makes the city more tolerable was the easy access for public transportation. The public transportation system in Kuala Lumpur is well structured with the options to take Light Rail Train (LRT) and monorail for traveling to places inside the city, Express Rail Link (ERL) to travel to airport and commuter line for intercity and interstate transportation. LRT station is mostly located within 5 minutes walking distance to residential area. The train itself will arrive every 2 minutes during peak hours, and every 4 minutes during usual hours.
For a lazy bum, there’s a bus system to that will take passenger from train station to the nearest residential complex. This kind of comfortable public transportation is a luxury that I can’t afford in my home country. For the first time in my life, I was deliberated from the choice of keeping the skin out of air pollution or taking shorter time to commute.
When the idea of moving back to Jakarta because Bukit Bintang bored me started to pop up in my head, this very luxury of taking public transportation easily saved me from the silly decision. Can’t win everything in life, can we?
