Last night was an innocent night as any, after a few extra hours at work I stopped by the grocery store to pick up some fruit for the next day, and I couldn’t resist picking up a small tub of Hagen Daz. Though most of the milk products here taste funny, they import the Hagen Daz, and it’s just as creamy and wonderful as it is back home.
Anywhoo…instead of rushing to my apartment to devour, I mean have a small, healthy portion, of my ice cream. I decided to stop at the beach on the bottom of the hill that leads up to my apartment to call my dad.
A bit of background before I begin, Malaysian cell phone reception is not the most reliable; and as I may have written previously, I don’t get reception in my apartment. So at night while 99% of everyone I know is going about there days and is available to talk, I’m in the black hole of reception. There is always my home phone, but I’m pretty sure smoke signals are more effective. When I do try and use it, the battery on the handset usually dies right after I’ve entered the 125 digits needed to complete the call, but if all my years of upper level math classes work out and the hand set has been charging for the past 2 months, I occasionally get to talk to the person. However I still have to deal with less than perfect reception and spend most of the time saying, “Can you hear me” and “What did you say?” To prevent throwing my lousy excuse for a home phone and accidently injuring my hair ball of joy (aka Gidget the biting kitten extraordinaire), I’ve come up with a solution. I will admit it’s not a good one, but I promise it is far less frustrating.
First there’s the cell phone sweet spot in the parking garage that I use for quick calls. Of course it’s located directly under an air conditioning duct, which has a tendency to kick on about 30 seconds after I started the call. That means the person on the other end not only gets to enjoy mediocre reception but the intermittent sound of cars driving by and the air conditioning fan kicking off and on. It’s fun. Just ask any of my family members. For longer calls, I often get in my car and drive down the hill to park at the “beach”, like I did last night.
Now I use the term beach loosely. Granted there is some sand, and you can walk into the sea from the concrete/sand pad. However actually getting to the water requires you to hurdle piles of rubbish, and the water is anything but nice. Apparently the concept of throwing your trash into an actual trash can vs. the sea/beach is completely lost on most of the people who park there. Actually that concept appears to be lost on most Malaysians at all times, but I digress.
During the day my phone booth/landfill/beach is usually full of families and sometimes couples that like to park there and eat. However at night things get interesting and the parking spot becomes a bustle of non-muslim activities. Though most teenagers prefer the nicer beach down the road where you actually have to get out of your car and walk to a dark spot to do things like drugs and fornicate, the lazy or super secretive like to frequent the trash beach because they get darkness and get to stay in their car. In addition to the parked car fornicators, there’s also usually about 4 or 5 wild boar that wander from the jungle to rummage through the trash. Did I mention wild boar scare me? I’m pretty convinced they’re going to charge my little go cart of a car and destroy it every time I see them. My sister thinks it’s hilarious and spent a good hour laughing at me over the phone, while I freaked out about being attacked by a herd of boar. There’s a good $40 wasted. Thank you international calling rates. Anywhoo…the Malaysian police in all their wisdom (note sarcasm) have figured out all those people can’t be at trash beach after midnight looking at the view so they’ve started patrolling. By patrolling I mean they drive by with their lights on. This has apparently been a good deterrent since the number of people has definitely dropped, which is a good thing. I really don’t like being the one to accidently catch two good Muslim girls playing grab ass in the Myvi next to me. Seriously, I’m not a voyeur. Go do that stuff on deserted roads, where there are no witnesses, like good Midwestern kids. So jump back to last night.
I knew that if I went into my apartment with my tub of tastiness there was a low likelihood I was going to come out again before the morning. Instead I parked at trash beach with every intention of having a few bites and then making the much needed call to my dad. Well let’s just say I was more than a few bites in when the Police car came creeping by the beach with its lights on. I laughed,didn’t think anything of it and went back to the ice cream. Then the car turned around and pulled up behind me. I froze. The guilt of a having consumed half a tub of ice cream got to me, and I immediately tossed the container in the bag as Mr. Officer sauntered up to me.
“Good evening officer.” I said as I rolled down my window. I don’t even know if they’re called officers in Malaysia, but I was still full of 1,000 of calories of tasty ice cream guilt.
“Is there a problem?” He asked.
“Nope just eating some dinner and waiting to make a phone call. I live up at Tembeling, and my hand phone doesn’t work there.” I answered hoping all he could see was a plastic bag and not my poor excuse for a meal.
“Okay so where are you from?” He asked. Are you kidding, as if my country of origin had any bearing on the validity of my story?
“America.” I said politely.
“So how long have you been in Malaysia?” He asked. Seriously, homeboy was trying to have a conversation. He asked a few more typical questions; and thankfully went on his way. I then glared at my tub of guilt and called my dad to relay the story to his voicemail.
I think I may start doing all my snacking on trash beach. Getting caught by the police is definitely a great deterrent.
Notice the grey print 
Those are chicken heads, which I didn't realize when I bumped into the table. It took me a few side ways glances for me to figure it out. I then did a heebie-jeebie dance and took a photo. Also note like everything else this is just a stand in the middle of an alley.
They're cutting off the tips of the chicken feet. Yummy, Yummy. Check out the bags of feet on the curb.
Finally a pick and kill. Nothing says fresh like watching them butcher your dinner right in front of you. Though I know we have similar things in NA, I'm pretty sure it's not so close that you run the risk of getting blood splatter.
1 day ago