The Legend of Funtheque

8:00 pm. Flight KL755 (I made that up) arrives in Kulua Lumpur and my Overseas adventure had finally started. The flight was pretty much as you would expect, got jammed in a window seat, with fuck all room. Watched the Devil Wears Prada, and a delightful Jennifer Aniston movie called The Breakup - I don't recommend either.

I was a little bit disapointed when I realised that KLIA was exactley the same as everyother airport I could remember (Brisbane, Tullamarine, and Sydney...) except for the husslers who were praying on unsuspecting tourists, selling everything from taxi rides into the city, to hotels, to passess to various KL tourists spots.

Minutes later I was in a cab headed to the Malaya hotel studying my new map of KL planning all the touristy things I now had tickets too.

9:00 pm. the Malaya, all 2.5 stars of it is located in the China Town section of KL outside of the more touristy "Golden Triangle" section of town, but thats just how I role.

Now I know beofre I left I made all sorts of claims about the rock n roll nature of not bothering to get a hotel room while I was in KL, but my good friend Harry at the airport had reasoned that I would need somewhere to keep my bags for the day I was in town - good point I thought.

So I arrived at the Hotel and headed down to 'checkout' the local area.

Anyone who has travelled with me in the past will know that I sometimes struggle to keep the surprise off my face when I am presented with new things. Well I like to think that my reaction to the Chinatown markets was pretty reserved, I was taking everything in my stride. However the reception I was recieveing from the street vendors suggests that my eyes may have been a little wider then normal.

I cruised around the markets, quickly snapping up a couple of bargains, a shirt, some sunglassess, and down one extremely dark alley some pirated porn dvd's. It was extremely exciting, lots of colour, lots of people, lots of humidity, and plentiful Tiger's from little stalls.

10:30 pm. I had had enough of the markets- really there are only so many cheap wallets you can look at- so I jumped a cab and told the fellow to take me to the coolest hot spot in town. He looked me up and down and said sure thing, five minutes later he dropped me to one of the most generic Irish Pubs I have ever seen. I was a little disapointed. I decided to start walking around looking for a bit of an unique KL experience.

An hour and a half later I had been to 10 different pubs, eaten a seafood curry from a stall set up actually on the street (although I didn't eat it all as it was too spicy), bartered with a little shopkeeper over the price of a seafood curry, had walked down all sorts of vibrant KL streets watching the locals sit at street resturants eating, and was getting a little drunk. But I still didn't think I had experienced KL culture.

12 am. As luck would have it as I was having these dark thoughts about my experiences I happened to take a random right turn and managed to find a new KL street to adventure on. As I wanded along I noticed that this seemed to be a much more upbeat section of town, more riverside then the old valley style section that I had been in.

and then I found Funtheque, some neon lights announced the name, and I thought to myself, I HAVE to go in here. So up the winding staircase I walked, with each step getting a little more excited by the pumping muzak I could here from above.

When I got there it was as good as I had hoped. Lots of bright lights, lots of hot asian babes, and a staff full of rock n rollers looking to have a good time. I sat down delighted with the whole ambiance of the place, and ordered a drink off the nice fellow who was standing next to me, he turned around and gave me a funny look which made me realise he didn't actually work there. I then found someone to actually get me a drink, when the sound came off. My face fell as I was concerned that it was closing time, but I needn't have worried.

As on stage strode 'Chemistry' - without doubt the greatest the Malay/English covers band I have ever seen. The lead singer was a smooth as glass young fellow, the only thing I can think of to describe him is the cowboy picture of Sanjeev that used to be one the set of the Kumar's at number 47. He was abely supported by two complete hot asian babe back up singers who really made the show. One was a a curvey temptress who you could tell was the more serious musician of the three, the other, made the group. She was a complete hardbody, built for speed as the kapitan would say, wearing a pink holter, a pink cheer leader skirt and the best pair of hot pink fuck me boots ever made. She had it all, watch hollywood in the coming years and I am sure she will be there at some point. They sang a couple of numbers and I was having the time of my life. They could do rock, they could do roll, they could do funk, (for some reason they also did I will survive, but I will forgive them for that), and then, just when I thought it couldn't get any better they slowed it down a little by swinging to the Keyboardist to do a soulfoul number in Malaysian.

1:30 am. With a heavy heart I realised I was running out of ringgits and my hangover from the morning before was beggining to come back, so I left Chemisty and Funtheque, but not before promissing myself one day I would return.

I went down onto the street and decided that it was time to get back to the hotel, I didn't have enough money to get back to the hotel (I thought) so I decided to strike out on a bit of a stroll, it couldn't be that far back to china town... I set off in high spirits, mentally preparing this post in my head, thinking of hilarious ways to tell you all about Funtheque. 1.5 hours later as I walked past FunTheque for the second time I realised that maybe I should be paying less attention to how funny I could be and more attention to where I was walking.

Forty-Five minutes later I had a sinking feeling in my chest, it couldn't be, there was Funtheque again. Where the fuck was chinatown???

Now I am a fairly relaxed fellow, but if you want to find out how to get me worried put me in a asian mega city at 3:15 in the morning, drunk off my tits, with only 13 ringgit in my pocket. My dogs where barking like mad, I still reaked off lasts night rum (which I had been sweating for about 20 hours straight) and I had no idea what to do next. A cabbie pulled over near by and I walked up with some trepidation, could you get me as close to China Town as possible for 13 bucks? Sure he said, two rights and a left and a little under 3 minutes later he pulled up at the Malaya, I was saved. I passed out.

The story of the next day pails into insignificance so I wont bother. I went to petronus towers, I had a walk around, I went to the aquarium (a good aquariaum), I walked around, I headed out to the airport. I sat at the airport for four hours, I chatted to Abbey Lou on the MSN, then I went to my gate.

It seemed like fate, but right next to KL2315 at gate 40 was KL2310 at gate 42. KL2315 was headed to London, KL2310 was heading home. By this time I was over the whole adventure, I could be home by 8 in the morning if I jumped in the queue at gate 42, it would all be fine.

Thankfully I was more worried about the ridicule I would cop if I turned up back at home three days after leaving then what was ahead of me so with a few deep breaths I boarded flight 2315 and headed on to London.