Kuala Lumpur

So time to wrap up our trip to Kuala Lumpur. I’m not sure I even know where to begin….so I’ll do it quickly.

The swealtering heat is one thing. A city that pops and fizzles and tries to sell you stuff at every corner would be another, wanting to buy it but knowing you won’t have enough room in your suitcase. Cheap Tiger beer, staying at the Equator Hostel and drinking Mojitos out of buckets, wanting to shower every ten minutes, being hungry but not wanting to eat, just drink down bottles of water like addiction session homework, eating anyway in food courts where you’re assaulted in the nicest possible way by patchwork of different smells, accents, flavours and ‘oh, not chicken’ moments.

Our gig was in the suburb of Petalang Jaya. We were met from the bus by a girl called Nurul who was working as part of the Happy Unicorn Collective, they would be performing with us at the gig. We were taken to a place called the Dram Project, which was a really cool little black box space, right nice to a beautiful restaurant, where I got the nicest salmon in the world ever ™. We met Daphne and Sharon from the British Council who were the ones hosting the gig. The gig featured a host of local poets, too many for me to name without leaving someone out and offending them! Some performances stood out: Bernice Charley who read a poem in Malay which was beautiful (no idea what it meant though) and Li who did a fantastic poem How To Be A Bed, Reza and his Beware of People You Meet At Poetry Slams and the Happy Unicorns: eat white rice (5 times a day), jet lag, which made us laugh a lot.

It was a really fantastic night and for our first performance of the tour and in Malaysia we were delighted with the response and also the lovely people we met there. Thanks also to Sharon and Daphne who made us feel so welcome. You can check out some responses to the gig and also some pictures and video footage here.