Back when my parents came through Singapore they stayed here at the famous Raffles Hotel…

Pretty swank place.  I’d love to have done like them and gotten a room.  I’d also love $550, so I just looked.

Here’s their courtyard bar where everyone comes for the original Singapore Sling…

I was allowed in there but got booted from the lobby–pants only.  Of course, they’re more than happy to let the hoi polloi in shorts to venture into their courtyard of shops selling over-priced Raffles apparell.

According to another of the letters, when they were here in the 60’s, my father had a broken leg.  The cast was hot and itchy so my mom went out to find a scratcher to stick down the cast.  Only, thing is, there was some political upheaval at the time and she got nabbed for being out after curfew.  The cops made her prove the dubious ‘itching stick’ story by coming to the hotel to make sure there was indeed a cast.  And a husband in it.

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I took the train over the border to Malaysia and up to Kuala Lumpur.  Beautiful countryside. The running soundtrack for all this beauty was from the videos blaring from the traincar’s TV.  Only the TV screen didn’t work.  This didn’t stop them from continuing to play just the sound (in English luckily), so for 7 hours I listened to–among other things–Good Will Hunting, Looney Toon videos (which without the videos was a lot of sound effects broken up by the occasional ‘Suffering Succatash’), and a Tony Hawk How-to-Skateboard video.  Even with video this would be an odd one to show on a train, but with just sound it was even more bizarre.  Yet oddly mesmerizing.  I couldn’t not pay attention.  Here I am, with gorgeous Malaysian landscapes going by, and all I can think is…How in the eff do you pull off an ollie?  Push down with the back foot and roll your foot forward as you straighten your knees like Tony says, sure, but that’s not helping me.  I need to see it.  This is going to haunt me through Malaysia.

As for Good Will Hunting…I loved it when I saw it, but now with just the words, I take issue with the “caramel” scene.  Remember when Matt Damon asks Minny Driver out for a bag of caramels cause it’s just as arbitrary as asking for coffee?  This is supposed to show his outside-the-box thinking.  Well, there’s nothing arbitrary about coffee.  And I’m surprised a mensa genius like Will doesn’t see it.  I mean, don’t you want the girl/guy you’re out with on a first date hopped up on caffeine?  Everything’s more interesting when you’ve got those first sips of coffee shooting into your veins.  I figure, I’m probably 30% more interesting to the person across the table than I would be if she were sipping a decaf espresso.  Or gorging on a bag of caramels.  Not only that; if I ask her for caramels, isn’t she going to think, ‘oh real nice, he invited me for candy.  The a-hole thinks I’m fat.’

And I’m supposed to believe Will Hunting is a genius?!  I don’t think so.

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I’ll write more about Kuala Lumpur next time, but right now I want to make sure I touch on Bet #4.

Yesterday, I took a bus out of KL up to the Genting Highlands where you then take a cable car up here:

You can see the casino/resort at the top of this mountain.

One unintended consequence of this betting aspect of the trip is that often I find myself going to places off the tourist track (ie: motorboat races in Japan).

Same thing happened here.  There wasn’t a Westerner to be found up here.  Not only that, when going to oddball places like this, you also get the chance to talk with locals other than just the ones working the tourist circuit.  On the bus up, I had a great conversation with Deed, a cook, and on the way back with Jims, a marketing guy who was up there doing some meetings and was all pumped up because he scored some work.

Think about it another way…wouldn’t a tourist in America get a better idea of the average middle American mindset talking to that salesman at a steamboat casino in Bettendorf, Iowa, than he would talking to the jaded guy driving the Circle Line bus around NYC?

Anyway, the bet.  I kept the it pretty pedestrian.  In and out.  One spin of the Roulette wheel.  Money on the 1-18 line.  A four hour round trip of monorail, bus and cable car for a 10 second bounce of the ball.  Tink, tink, tink…it bounced in and out of a couple false landings and perched itself in Number…

17!

Winnaaaaaa….

Weird looks all around as they watched the lone non-Asian in the room out of a 1000+ scoop up his winning s after a single bet and head off to find strangers to spend it on.  Which, oddly, can be harder than you’d think.  There’s a level of distrust when a total stranger offers to buy you a drink or dinner at a casino.  Or most anywhere, really.  If you’re a girl in a NYC bar, sure; she’s not surprised.  But a young Malaysian couple up in the Highlands for a long weekend?  They’re sitting there wondering if whitey here is looking for a threesome.

Eventually I spent some of it there before heading back to KL to spend the rest.

Limited pictures up there because they made me check my camera at the door of the casino.  Just this one of me outside with my lucky elephant:

“You rub the elephant, Sir Hector, for luck,” I was told by the guy I had been talking with outside the casino.

I didn’t expect to hear that line til Bangkok.

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One change to the rules….

I’d feel like a bit of a heel–given some of the poverty you come across–if I didn’t use some of the winnings for something other than just celebrating, so from here on a portion of it will go toward a local charity or the like.  Don’t worry, I’m not going soft.  I still plan on some completely irredeemable foolish nights out, just consider it a ‘good times’ tithe.  Hopefully I’ll split the difference between being an oblivious jerk and a self-righteous ass.

Back in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, I ended up spending the last of the winnings with this guy…

Bob.  A 65 year old British, ex-car salesman who moved here last year.   Like I was saying, this trip’s ground rules have a way of putting me in contact with an odd mix.

He gave me the heads-up on Kuala Lumpur.  And life.

On the latter, he said, “when I flipped over the ticket I got for this ride, I don’t remember seeing a round trip stamped on the back, so make this one go around mean something.”

Cheers, Bob.