Kuala Lumpur

From the Plane

At dawn the city looks like an open cast mine, rising from the sea of jungle. Halogen-lit roads flow outwards, glistening rivers of coursing, molten neon.

Dinner at the Diesel Garage

Jet lag and late supper at Suzie’s, a roadside restaurant with a cracked concrete floor, and wonky plastic tables, lit by humming beams of halogen light. The place looks dirty and unhygienic as a diesel garage forecourt, but the food is spicy and delicious.

Awake and Dreaming

In the morning, the landscape’s a saturated Polaroid of roiling green jungle, punctuated by apartment blocks perches on soaring hills, like feta chunks in green salad. The slabs of tower blocks are daubed with greying streaks of mildew. There’s an unreality to this juxtaposition, like a surreal trompe l'ouille set design from a dream.

Crows in the Traffic

The rush-hour of sluggish cars is veined with swarms of mopeds, that course through the gaps like adrenaline, bursting from the green traffic lights like buzzing flocks of startled crows. Book ended building facades look on, damp mildew stains smudged down from their windows, like streaked mascara.

Exploding Mirror Balls

Shopping malls in downtown KL are not subtle. People shoulder past like shoals of fish, through kaleidoscope halls of warm glows and squinting, shrieking neon: like a mirror ball exploding in a lava lamp shop. Ten minutes of this and your aching eyes feel like a chameleon trying to play twister under a strobe light.