McDonald's
Trip Start
Mar 08, 2010
1
4
Trip End
Apr 25, 2010
Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan, Malaysia
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
I've been stopped by American tourists in London asking directions for the nearest McDonald's. I deliberately sent them in the wrong direction in the hope the surprise would reveal something new. The joke, inevitably, was on me as there are no wrong directions for McDonald's - they'd find one sooner or later.
So, day one Kuala Lumpur - less than a year since last visit. First breakfast is always a mix of feelings - hunger, fatigue, excitement and the unnerving twinge of the unknown. The front desk suggest McDonald's. It's only "4-5 km from here" (?)
The pleasure of going out of your way to find new experiences is what you learn in the process; my first encounter with Malays was during my trek across Indonesia back in the early 90s. As a backpacker you're reliant on directions and the one thing that has stuck with me was how arbitrary Malay directions were - 10 minutes walk could well have been 3 hours and 5km turns out to be 500m. Perhaps it's a cultural thing - more a reflection on mine and its industrial legacy. Time, after all, some wise American wit once said, is money.
The other memory of the Malay diaspora was food. Backpacking through remote hill villages doesn't stand yourself in good stead to dine comfortably and, after all, this wasn't Thailand. From the spicy Sasak cuisine to the fiery Padang tapas style dishes of Sumatra - I tried it all. I sat with tears flowing down my face as I tried to eat a bowl of spicy meatballs in Sumbawa - not tears of joy but tears of pain as the heat was too much for this young boy to handle.
So naturally, when locals suggest McDonald's for breakfast it's easy to opt for the familiar for familiar crap trumps everything when you're feeling unadventurous.
"No, I want to eat what you eat for breakfast" I demanded of the taxi driver as I handed over 5 ringgit for what turned out to be not 4-5 km after all but about a 5 minute walk.
"Nasi Lemak. Coconut rice with spicy sauce. Can eat?" he swivelled round from the driver seat inquisitively.
"I'll see..." and that's how today's breakfast came into being. Less than 100m from the McDonald's was a small dining gem tucked away in a backstreet. The only white face among singular business men reading newspapers and tucking into a variety of dishes from Nasi this to Nasi that. The one with the fried egg on top - can't remember my name but it became my daily routine in the 2 months I spent in Indonesia.
From workers cafes to small hawker joints there is a serenity about the working man's breakfast hangout. A small oasis of calm, time away from the family and the working world. Time to reflect on the bigger questions such as world events and, in the case of wall displays of this cafe, God.
I went with my taxi driver's suggestion: Nasi Lemak washed down with sickly sweet black tea. Ordering tea was a challenge in itself. I knew from my years in Java, that it was something like "Teh" but often it's in the pronounciation. Locals never expect you to speak to them in their own dialect so when they do they're listening out for familiar foreign words. "Big Mac Set" is so much easier. Even in Tokyo it's "Biggu Makku Setto".
3 iterations later, I got black tea but - as it appears the norm - with a least 4 teaspoons of sugar. They can sit there lounging at the bottom of the cup, it gets sweeter with every sip.
Nasi Lemak was coconut rice with dried fish and peanuts alongside two spicy sauces (sambals?) which immediately took me back to my days in Java. How I missed those - dry, salty, spicy. Everyday sauces that lacked the intricacies or pretense of Thai or Indian cooking but excelled in their honesty.
So, today's small victory is a vindication for the brave hearted traveller and life beyond the Golden Arches. There's an adventure just around the corner...
