Leaving Malaysia

I fully expected it to be awful, but with the last minute rushes of packing, goodbyes and closing bank accounts I didn't have time to process the enormity of leaving. Equipped with enough hugs from Anna to protect me through the airport and beyond, I left KL. Even in Dubai I felt fine. Just travelling. That universal airport feeling, easy to associate it with good things.

But then, as the hours-to-go counted down on the in-flight info screen, the doom swelled heavily in my stomach. The hours trickled quickly into even more rapidly vanishing minutes. Heathrow in sight, I knew it wouldn't feel any worse if we were falling out of the sky with no engines or wings.

U turns

Some time ago, a British friend commented that a traffic system that relied on U-turns as an essential means of getting from A to B was quite ludicrous. Like anything else, I have got used to the idea that U-turning could be a legitimate and essential manoeuvre. Gone are the days of UK driving where U-turning is rarely legal and often thought of as an amusing way to duck out of a navigational cock-up. Here in Malaysia, U-turn spots are signed all over the place, road signs are adorned with the hitherto humorous symbol of the big U. However, I don’t think I will ever get over the incredulity that hits me every time I come across the great highway U turns that I am obliged to use – or react swiftly to avoid – around KL.

For the uninitiated, let me explain. Sometimes when travelling on a three-lane carriageway, a U-turn is the only way to reach a destination accessible only from the opposite carriageway. Occasionally, someone may have thoughtfully built a special U-turn bridge, linking inside lane to inside lane. More excitingly though, you may find that the outside lane suddenly becomes a turning lane. Yes, the fast lane. So as you slow down or join the queue for the turn you are kept on the edge of your seat by the prospect of another fast moving vehicle piling into the back of your car. Best of all, having squeezed through the gap and made the turn, where do you find yourself? In the fast lane, of course, offering your rear end to unsuspecting high-speed traffic.

My friend's real mistake was in thinking that there was a traffic system at all.

Demonstration for fair elections

At the weekend there was a large rally in Kuala Lumpur. 10 to 30 thousand people took to the streets in a peaceful demonstration demanding fair elections. The rally had been banned by the police (the constitution here forbids gatherings of more than five people without government permission), who had promised to arrest anyone taking part. Obviously it wasn't possible to arrest so many people, but tear gas and water cannons were used to break up the rally.

There have been recent occasions when rallies have been allowed to go ahead, for example anti-war demonstrations in the wake of the attacks on Iraq. So clearly, the government is capable of granting permission when it sees fit. So what message are they sending to their people and the world by banning this one? Malaysia claims that its elections are free and fair, so wouldn't it be better to let it go ahead and state that the demonstrators' concerns are being investigated?

I've talked to a few locals, such as friends and random taxi drivers, about their views. One thing I was told (and I have not investigated the truth of it) is that groups such as the police and armed forces do not get individual votes but are 'block voted' by the authorities. What most non-Malays will really want to talk about is racial discrimination. It is well-known that the various ethnic groups that make up Malaysia have different rights. If you are of Indian or Chinese origin, despite being 5th or 10th generation Malaysian nationals, you do not have the same chances, rights or financial support as the ethnic Malays. Malays get tax breaks, housing benefits, and need lower grades to enter universities, as well as being something of a 'chosen people' when it comes to promotions, selection for teams and so on. Coming from the UK, one of the most ethnically diverse countries around, this is hard to fathom and quite outrageous. Malaysians divide themselves up by race and often seem to have no concept of national identity. They call themselves Malay or Chinese or whatever, not Malaysian. Yet somehow, despite this, at street level there seems to be very little inter-racial tension and different groups work and socialize happily together.

Back to the election, there are plentiful allegations of multiple voting, uncounted votes and so on. The organisers of the protest stated that their goal is a change in the electoral process in order to prevent fraud. If the government really believes that their elections are fair, they should want to ensure that they are. They should want to show the people that they care about this. They definitely want the world to see the country as a forward thinking democracy, but their response to this demonstration has had people likening Malaysia to Burma.

A load of rubbish

To a visitor, probably the worst thing about Malaysia is rubbish. There’s litter in the streets, on the beaches, in the jungle and on every river bank. Waterfalls attract heaps of the stuff, even waterfalls that are two hours' walk from any road. Presumably people go to a waterfall simply because it is so beautiful, so how can they think so little as to leave rubbish behind? And I’m not just talking about a carelessly dropped sweet wrapper – I’m talking about piles of bottles, plastic bags, food-cartons and left-overs.

Out by a swimming spot in a pretty river, a friend of mine encouraged other picnickers to make use of her bin-bag. Grudgingly, they did. Then with a big grin on his face, one man threw the whole bag into the river.

You have to be quite determined here about refusing plastic bags in shops and at stalls. Even a snack like a single doughnut comes in a paper bag which is immediately dropped into a plastic one, even though it is almost certainly for immediate consumption. People don’t say no to this, but the second they walk away, the bag is dropped. Or binned, if in a shopping mall – the one place where people seem to use bins. City streets are kept reasonably clean by an army of sweepers, but in the countryside the rubbish just heaps up.

At the Gap resthouse, on the way up to Fraser’s Hill, I watched a kitchen worker come out of the hotel, cross the road and empty a whole bin of waste into the trees.

Snorkelling off Perhentian, I started to dive down to pick up drinks cans. I tossed them into our boat. As we moved around the island to different snorkelling spots, my pile grew. Returning to the boat after a swim, I noticed that they had all gone. Either they had vaporized or our boatman had chucked them back into the sea. This is one of Malaysia’s most gorgeous islands, it relies heavily on tourism, yet people are happy to spoil it.

Everywhere you go, you see people simply dropping rubbish where they stand, even when there is a bin nearby. They toss it out of car windows. My polite “Excuse me, I think you’ve dropped something,” only receives a reply along the lines of, “I don’t need it,” or “It’s finished.”

In the UK, only louts and children do this. In Malaysia, it’s the norm. And almost nobody seems to mind. This year is ‘Visit Malaysia Year’. There is a huge awareness campaign, sponsorship abounds and no doubt the budget is huge. I can’t help feeling that what they really need is a public education drive along the lines of a ‘Keep Malaysia worth visiting’ campaign.

Kuala Lumpur

Stepping out of the airport building, the hot thick air hit me. It always does, without fail, wherever you have come from. I find it at once both stifling and comforting.

All week I enjoyed being back, pottering about and spending time with the friends I have missed. On Sunday evening I stood at the edge of the night-market, watching. And the sensation that had been nudging at me all week became clear, a reality: this is no longer my home. What made me see this was the other matsallehs, the expats. How they, despite being as foreign as me, belong here. There was a purpose and certainty in the mundaneness of their evening that I will never have again.

Funny

Wouldn't it be funny if, having diced with death on buses, matatus and boda-bodas, at the edge of Vic Falls, in the face of lions, on the end of a bungee cord, the streets of Jo'burg and the waters of the Zambezi, wouldn't it be funny if my nice safe clean British aeroplane fell out of the sky tomorrow? Just a thought.

The End is Nigh

Once the flight was booked, a couple of weeks ago, the clock was ticking on this trip. It got louder and louder until the thought of using a washing machine suddenly seemed little recompense for leaving Africa. But I'm sure spending time with friends and family will be. This last week, time has hurtled towards me, thrusting at me an unknown expanse of future, rippng from me all the things not done.

It's been so long, but gone so quickly. I feel as if I've barely started but always been here, I feel tired and energized, worn and elated by the journey, journeys.

"Give me money"

This phrase is so common in this area that I am beginning to think that maybe it just means hello. But for the tell-tale outstretched palm. I cannot believe how often I hear this here. Occasionally it is interspersed with the odd, "Give me sweet," or the more eloquent, "Please assist me one thousand to buy book," and I can only presume that this is the legacy of tourists who have in the past given money or sweets. Yet I wonder, how often are these requests granted? I suppose even if it is only once in a blue moon, it is still worth asking. I noticed that the children never asked when there were adults nearby and never when they were in school, so clearly it is not wholely acceptable.

It is so sad that this behaviour has been learned and, probably, encouraged. By people who get a kick out of seeing children fight each other for hand-outs, love the attention of being the giver, feel guilty, or think they are helping? I don't know.

This area, a scattering of small villages, is not wealthy by any stretch of the European or 'Western' imagination, but compared to other places, it is much better off. Three rafting companies employ guides, cooks, drivers. As do quad bike operators and horse riding outfits.There are numerous campsites, guesthouses and cafes all bringing in the tourist dollar, each employing dozens of locals. Softpower has built two schools, an education centre and has refurbished numerous other schools. Boda-boda drivers shuttle tourists and their kayaks round the countryside, women sell crafts and jewellery, villagers take tourists on guided walks. A similar village, or string of villages, elsewhere in the country, away from tourist spots and glorious rivers would have none of this. Employment would be rare, money much harder to come by and life would mostly be lived off the land. Yet visit these places, where mzungus rarely tread, where need is so much greater, and nobody will ask you for money.

In Rwanda, I was never asked for money, but over and over I was asked for my address or phone number. I was touched by these people, so eager to make friends, asking me please to tell them about my country and about my experience of theirs. How different.

At the education centre here, as well as teaching children, lessons in cooking, art, craft, pottery and I.T. give adults the chance to learn skills that will enable them to get dollars from mzungus from their work - this strikes me as a much healthier handout than money. Adults here never beg, nor are the knick-knack sellers and boda-boda drivers pushy. Who taught the children to beg? And who will teach them to stop? There are many ways, good ways, we can contibute to improving the lives of people in places such as this, but none of them involve giving coins to small children.

No Husband, No God

There's a nice guy who works at the kayak school who I chat to most days. In the course of our conversations he was amazed to learn that I was thirty-nine and have no husband or children. Cassius himself is forty and a grandfather, like most people his age. It is incomprehensible to him, and many others, that I could be so old and still single. Hardly surprising in a country where, according to yesterday's paper, 70% of girls are mothers by the age of 18. Life expectancy here is about 50, so it made little sense for me to be brushing off his horror with comments about being young and having plenty of time for that later. The WHO says 'healthy life exectancy' is only about 42.

In another conversation, while sipping tea on a bench in the mud behind a tiny restaurant shack, I answered no to so many religion questions that I was left with no choice but to admit the truth, that I don't believe in a God. Poor Cassius nearly choked on his tea, but was too polite to make a scene.

Thereafter, he introduced me to anyone he knew by saying,
"This is Zoe, she's thirty-nine and has no husband and no god."
Thus began my career as a freak-show exhibit...