In the morning, we got up and went back to our original hotel for our free breakfast. I used their wireless to Skype call my siblings, and then we left our bags. That will learn them to give away our room! For the rest of the morning, we went shopping. We were staying in Siam Square, the shopping center of Bangkok, so we decided to take advantage of our location to buy some presents for our friend Jee. We spent hours in the BKK shopping center, wandering through stalls and stalls of DVDs, electronics and other legal and sometimes illicit treats.

After lunch at the ritziest food court I have ever seen, we headed to the airport for our flight to Kuala Lumpur. The original guesthouse, which had said they booked us a taxi, did not, and we left completely assured of their incompetence. Once again, the taxi driver tried to trick us into paying him off the meter, and once again I walked away.

We arrived in KL at about 8pm, and were shocked to realize we were not at KLIA, my favorite airport, but at some local one. We called our friend Joy to inform her, but duh, she already knew. We ate dinner at McDonald’s while we waited for her to pick us up, and T had a prosperity meal, which he enjoyed. Joy finally arrived at 10pm—how rude of her to make us wait for two hours for our free ride to the airport and our free accommodation! Some people are just so selfish.

T and I keep going back to KL not because we love it so much (though we do like it a great deal), but for the hospitality. Joy and my friend Hwei Jee (who shall now be known just as Jee) were my roommates in Melbourne in 2000, and they were crazy fun. I liked them so much that now, 8 years later, I am still in touch with them and I can see them as if no time as passed.

This means that they regularly insult and mock me, and I return the favor. T loves coming to KL because the girls treat me as poorly as he does, and I love coming to KL because they drive me around, let me stay at their house for free and even give up their bed, order delicious local food, and don’t let me pay for anything. The girls are the greatest (unless they are reading this, in which case, eh…they’re okay).

The last time we came to town, they took us all over the place in KL, and even drove us to the Batu Caves, where we saw a lot of stairs and monkeys. This time, Joy informed us we would be going to Melaka. Melaka is a Portugese-Dutch-British colony about two hours each way from KL. Joy bought us some nasi lemak for breakfast, which was rice with chili paste, nuts and anchovies inside a banana leaf.  It was spicy and good. We picked up Jee at about 10am and hit the road.

Melaka is really pretty–full of colonial buildings and Chinese houses. The girls made no pretense about why we were there, however; we were there to eat. As Joy put it, a “food fest. “The first place we stopped was a little restaurant known for its chicken rice balls. When Joy told me that was the purpose of the trip, I thought CHICKEN RICE? What’s so great about that? Well dude, let me tell you—chicken rice balls are delish. We got a half a chicken with a bunch of rice balls and some chili-lime sauce. Who would have thought something so simple would be so good? I’ll tell you: the Malaysians. After lunch, we wandered around town and saw a local mosque, bought some local art, checked out the Dutch colony and walked to the top of the hill, where we saw St John’s Church and Fort.

Then it was time for dessert, obviously. I’m not sure what the name of the dish was, but we ended up eating something with crushed ice, noodles, peanuts, corn, kidney beans and some kind of toffee sauce. It sounds completely bizarre, but it was good, yo. We also had two different kinds of laksa. Next, Jee took us to the Baba and Nyonya Peranakan Museum, which was a Peranakan heritage town house with three atriums, multiple bedrooms and really beautiful design. If you’re looking for a nice gift for me, you may buy me this house and thank you very much. Then we got in the car to drive to the beach. We couldn’t find the beach, so we just headed to dinner. Dinner was some local Nyoyan food, with fish cakes, chicken devil, and some greens. Again, delicious.

On the way home, the girls decided to take us to Putrajaya, the new capital of Malaysia. According to Joy and Jee, about 10 years ago the prime minister decided to move the capital from KL to Putrajaya and an entirely new city was built, like Oz. It was really beautiful, especially at night, and was full of families playing with their kids and couples making out. When we got back to Petaling Jaya, we all went straight to bed, completely exhausted from all the driving and eating. Eating is really hard work!

The next morning, Joy had Muslim Banking class, so Jee came to pick us up to take us shopping. T and I had a list of things we wanted to get before going to India and Africa, so she was the designated driver. And what a driver she was! She started by taking us to a coffee chain for kaya butter toast. Kaya butter toast is officially my new favorite food. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s some kind of Malaysian jam, with butter on toast. I loved it. T and I also tried the white coffee, which I was able to drink WITHOUT SUGAR. This has never happened before, I must say. Of course, it only means that there was already 4 pounds of sugar in the coffee, but that’s entirely beside the point.

Then it was shopping time. Jee took us to an outlet village, where I got a shirt and T got some new jeans (miracle of miracles). Then we went looking for more shopping, but ended up driving around and through KL in search of banana leaf for lunch. After a long drive and a great tour of suburban Kuala Lumpur with Jee sounding exactly like Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda, we found a restaurant with banana leaf. Banana leaf is Indian food, Malaysian-style. They give you a banana leaf and then plop all kinds of dal and rice and different pickle on it, and you scarf it down. Or we did, anyway. It is super delicious, and it restored my faith in Indian food. Thank you, banana leaf!

Then came more shopping. Jee took us to a local shopping center so we could go to Tesco to get another hair dryer (TRAGEDY: mine ate my hair in Phnom Penh and then died a slow and painful death). While Jee and I did girl shopping, T got a 15 ringitt, 15-minute haircut. Then, Jee took us to another shopping mall, next door, but we had to drive 200 miles to get there, around and onto a highway and into the world’s fullest parking garage. We spent about an hour looking for parking and then went inside. I spent about 6 years looking for jeans (note to self: jeans shopping in Asia is a highly humiliating and degrading experience that is never to be repeated), because Jee and I refused to pay for the $100 Gap jeans. I also got some flipflops, some soap, a bunch of shirts at the Malaysian Old Navy, and, finally, some jeans for $15. Jee is a master at budget shopping and should get a medal for her skill at finding deals and her patience for hauling us around all day.

After the shopping, we met Joy and her sister Tricia and brother Joe at a restaurant because obviously, it was time to eat again. The restaurant was packed with people, but we had a reservation, which was lucky because it took us about 20 minutes just to park. Tricia had just arrived from their hometown, and brought with her her fiance, whom we had never met. Michael, the fiance, is English, and a very lovely guy. Once more, we ate and ate and ate. We started with a dish called prosperity, which involved all of us putting our chopsticks into a pile of food and tossing it into the air as we made wishes. Rumor has it that the person who tosses the food the highest has their wish granted, but I tossed it pretty high and I am not yet queen of the world, so I’m not sure how much truth there is in that theory.  The girls ordered tons of food again: shrimp and a whole fish (whose eyes Jee gleefully ate), and a bean curd and some soup.

After dinner, we went back to Joy’s house and talked for ages. T and Michael had English Man Talk, and the girls and I had Girl Talk, mostly about all the men who love Joy, whom she shuns because she is picky. We also played with her little dog, Sebastian, and talked about how he is the perfect man. Tricia had brought some pineapple back from Sarawak and she spent most of the evening trying to make us eat it, despite the fact that we were already stuffed from our 58 meals that day and the one prior. We went to bed at about 2, exhausted and stuffed again (and in T’s case, full of beer).

The next morning, we went back to the coffee chain for more kaya butter toast. I won’t lie: I did the dance of joy. Once again, Tricia showed us her secret identity of food pusher extraordinare, ordering more and more food and trying to force us to eat it. We had our toast and our coffee and talked some more, and then Michael, Tricia and Joy drove us to the airport. Then, they came inside to make sure we were really leaving (I kid you not—Joy actually came up to the check-in counter to insure that we were getting on the plane and not coming back to her house).

These girls clearly don’t realize that if they continue to treat us this well (and feed us this well), and pay for everything, that we will only keep coming back. We have been so lucky on this trip to have such great hosts—in Sydney, Beijing, Shanghai and KL—that now we want to return to all these places to take advantage of our friends hospitality again. Once again, the girls (and Michael) have been spectacular guides, and now they will undoubtedly have to host us again (though they claim they are only this nice because we come every other year). Thanks, girls. We’ll be back in 2010, so look out!