Hap Working The World

I’m standing in the middle of Georgetown, Penang with a toothless Chinaman, he’s laughing and saying OK, Ok, Ok. But I don’t think it is OK. Why? Because a long haired Malaysian guy has just stolen my girlfriend!

It happened in a blurry split second. Long haired Malaysian man appeared out of nowhere, just like the first time we met him when he appeared out of the shadows of a back street to help us find a guest house. He offered to take a photo of Mandy and I in the Trishaw. Then he starts trying to take the trishaw, I felt he was bullying OK man who was reluctant to give it to him, and rightly so as that trishaw was his livelihood. He had probably been pedalling the streets of Penang in that trishaw since he could walk.

Next thing I know, long haired Malaysian guy is pedalling the trishaw into the distant street lights………………………….with Mandy still in there. There’s laughing behind me, I turn and there’s a table full of English fellas, they’re laughing and saying “fuck that was random”, I’m like “what just happen? dude just stole my girlfriend”. I look to OK man for reassurance, he says “ha ha ha, ok ok ok, ha ha ha”, but this is all he had said the whole night. But I suppose if he’s this happy that he’s lost his livelihood with the prospect of living on the street eating scraps, I should be right.

What seemed a lifetime later, long haired Malaysian guy comes pedalling back. All is OK, Mandy’s still smiling and she’s taking a photo of me and OK man (photo below). Pheew, I don’t have to explain to Mandy’s family that she was abducted by a long haired Malaysian guy in a stolen trishaw.

To Mandy’s family, don’t worry I’m taking good care of your Daughter/Sister/Aunty J

Click the link, Malaysia Photos

On our third day in Malaysia we rented a scooter to explore the island of Penang. In true biker fashion I needed a “bikers” meal to start the day, rice or noodles weren’t going to cut it.

I ordered the eggs, sausage and hash browns. What came out was a version of eggs, sausage and hash browns. It looked like what I imagined futuristic food to resemble. Food that started in a powder form, you pop it into a machine that looks like a microwave, press a button and you instantly have a meal. It was colourless; I found it hard to distinguish my meal from the pale brown plate.

I thought maybe it’s like Nana’s casserole and it tastes better than it looks. My first bite of hash brown was met with me gagging it into a serviette. On my second mouthful I ventured into the dwarf sized condom injected with processed meat, apparently known as a sausage in Malaysia. But this tasted exactly the same as the hash brown, I think they just puree up the hash brown and injected it into the sausage condom. The egg I did not even bother with, it was more rubbery than rubber and the yoke was more fried than Ozzy Osbournes brain.

Just to make sure I wasn’t being fussy, I got Mandy to taste the hash brown. Her facial expression said it all. It looked like she had just opened up my dirty laundry bag that housed my four day old underwear. I was convinced now, that if you put this plate in the middle of a Somalian refugee camp, not even the flies would touch it. There was no amount of tomato sauce that could save it. Sorry mum, but on this occasion I had to miss the most important meal of the day.

The island of Penang was our home for our 3 days in Malaysia. Not the type of island living we have been use to. Penang is home to 1.3 million people and is connected to the main land by Malaysia’s answer to the Sydney harbour bridge.

We stayed at a 2 storied guest house in the Georgetown area on Penang. Oh, and did we find a beauty. The over energetic Chinese man with a yellow teeth smile at the reception stole our hearts. Plus his guest house met all our criteria, it was the cheapest.

Firstly, the aroma that lingered throughout the establishment. It smelt like the arm pit of a homeless mans shirt for the whole 3 days, until Mandy purchased some incense for our room.

Secondly, our room. It was partitioned off from the neighbouring rooms by the white fibreboard used in open plan office settings. Great for office use but not really the best bedroom walls.

Thirdly, the clientele. The guest house seemed to be an oasis for long-term staying residents, rotting, decaying men. The type of men that had come to Malaysia looking to buy a mail order bride, but not even enough money in the world could finalise this transaction. Men that looked like Paedophiles, taking advantage of an innocent countries lack of policing. The type of men that were lost, could not fit back into the western society, lost souls

I felt very much unwelcomed, sometimes I felt mocked. I think they found the backpacker type threatening. Backpackers disturbed their little self pitying bubble, a constant reminder of what life should be like, what they missed out on. When walking passed the couch in the tiny foyer where they sat drinking cheap beer all day, they never made eye contact, but you could feel their eyes on your back as you left the building. My hello’s were left hanging uncomfortably, so I just stopped.

As much as their unwelcoming behaviour annoyed me, I felt sorry for them. I wondered how their lives had been, how they ended up here. Did they have family? Did they have loved ones? Did they have anyone at all? Or did they just have their drinking buddies that shared the old couch in the rundown guest house in Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia?