Friday November 7, 2014
7:45 a.m. Bird Nest Guest House
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Not much happened yesterday. I spent the morning working on the Trangia X2 stove. I got my hands on a long and thin piece of wire and it was small enough to be inserted into the fuel line. The idea was to clean it out if it was clogged with soot. But, if this wire was any indication, the fuel line was clean as a whistle. All the other components were equally clean, but I went over them again just in case and made sure that there wasn’t a single speck of soot or dirt anywhere. Then I tried to light the stove – and failed.

Using logic, I then have to conclude the problem must be the pump. It does hold pressure and it does pump fuel, but I have to conclude that it isn’t creating enough pressure. Therefore, the next step is to replace the seals and gaskets. There is no other possible explanation. So that is what I will do next. I plan to order replacement parts this morning after I have my breakfast. A kit costs about $15. That’s better than the full $250 it would cost to buy a new stove system here in Kuala Lumpur.

I don’t remember doing anything else but that. I chatted with some people in the guest house. I read a book – a thriller. And I fiddled with some other gear. I plan to ship my old tent and sleeping pad and other items back to Sarnia, so I put my tent and tent fly out on the roof to dry in the sun and air it out. I don’t want to pack it up with any moisture at all. And I got another item in the mail. This was a Trangia fuel bottle. I have mixed feelings about this bottle. I wrote about it before and said that considering the amount of alcohol fuel required to cook a meal, it only made sense to buy the one-liter bottle. You don’t need a one-liter bottle for white gas or gasoline. That would last forever. A half-liter bottle is fine. But for alcohol, I need a one-liter bottle. But this bottle turns out be huge. A one-liter Nalgene bottle is somewhat wide, so it isn’t too tall. This Trangia bottle is narrow, so to hold one liter, it has to be quite tall. And then there is a special pouring mechanism on the top, which makes it even taller. The damn thing is huge. I lay awake in my bed last night thinking of ways to now attach it to my bike’s frame to keep it from occupying space in my pannier bags. I’ll have to test various ideas this morning. I think the only option is to use the Bikebuddy MK3 system, but I don’t know if this tall bottle will fit anywhere. It is going to be a struggle. I’m also not thrilled with the idea because the pouring mechanism seems a bit fragile, and I don’t know that I want it exposed to the elements all the time. I’d probably have to cover it up in some fashion. It really should have a protective cover over it.

And that’s it. Nothing else to say.

Saturday November 8, 2014
8:15 a.m. Bird Nest Guest House
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Today’s entry will likely be equally as short as yesterday’s.

Much of the morning yesterday was spent in the Internet café. I was looking into using a Platypus water bag to hold alcohol fuel. I was pleased to learn that it might be possible. So I ordered one from MEC. I can buy them here, but they are twice as expensive. I still would have purchased it here, but I also needed to buy a maintenance and service kit for my stove’s pump. That item cannot be purchased here. I had to buy it from MEC. And since I had that in my shopping basket, I figured I might as well add the Platypus bag. I wonder why I never thought of the Platypus bag for alcohol before.

After the Internet café, I hopped on the local free bus to go downtown and check out computers at the Low Yat electronics mall. Not surprisingly, I got turned around and missed the correct stop for the bus. I ended up getting off the bus practically all the way back in Chinatown and walking most of the way to Low Yat. There is something about Kuala Lumpur that confuses the heck out of me. I’m always lost here.

My walk took me through the true tourist area of Kuala Lumpur. It’s an area around a street called Bukit Bintang. It’s like an upscale version of Khao San Road in Bangkok. There were tons of bars and restaurants filled with tourists. I have no idea why Kuala Lumpur is such a popular tourist destination. It’s a good place to buy camping gear and have your bike fixed, but I don’t see anything of real interest. I also spotted a typical Japanese bicycle tourer. I say he’s typical in that he looked more like a homeless guy on a bike than a traveler. The Japanese have mastered the art of using junk to load their bicycles. As far as I could tell, this guy’s pannier bags consisted of burlap sacks that had been lashed to his bike with rope. There may have been pannier bags under all that garbage somewhere, but it was impossible to tell.

I didn’t have much success at the Low Yat mall in terms of finding and buying a suitable computer. But I made some steps. You can do all the online research you want, but there is still no substitute for the experience of seeing and holding a computer in your hands. I tracked down a Dell Inspiron 11 3000 and instantly rejected it as being too heavy. On paper, it seemed the perfect computer for me, but holding it was an eye-opening experience. I thought three pounds was acceptable, since this NEO weighs two pounds. But three pounds is too heavy. And the power brick and cord would likely add another pound. And the entire design of the Dell is based on the idea of having both a computer and a tablet. I found that it was uncomfortable holding the thing as a tablet. It was just too heavy.

After rejecting the Dell, I wandered around and looked at any computer that seemed smaller and lighter. There weren’t many in that category unless you wanted to consider the the very expensive ultra-books and the MacBook Air. A budget computer lighter than three pounds limits your options considerably. I saw one of the ten-inch Hewlett Packard Paviliions and, oddly enough, there was a lightweight thirteen-inch Acer. I think the thirteen-inch model managed to be lighter and cheaper because it was not touch screen and had a basic processor. I’ll have to do some more research.

I know weather is a taboo topic, since talking about it is the habit of retired old people, but I don’t think the taboo applies to extreme weather. And the weather here certainly qualifies as extreme. Evidence continues to mount that I am a rain god. The rain follows me everywhere I go. It came down yesterday as if the gods had decided Kuala Lumpur needed to be washed away and/or drowned. It rained hard and it never seemed to stop. Crazy weather. It’s a good thing I’m not doing any cycling here.

And that’s about it for stories. I’m now reading a travel book by Pico Iyer called “Falling Off the Map.” It is boring me silly. It is a collection of his travel essays from around 1990 that he wrote about places like North Korea, Cuba, and Paraguay – countries that he calls Lonely Places. It’s very boring and full of broad generalizations about each country.

I seem to have had enough of the other guests in this hostel. Whether new guests or long-term residents, I now seem to be ignoring them. Our conversations are simply too boring for words. I’m tired of hearing myself when I talk to them. And I’m certainly tired of hearing what they have to say. Most people stay here a very short time.

I mentioned that I finally gave in and have started feeding the rabbit bread every time I am in the kitchen. The rabbit loves the bread and hassles me non-stop for more and more and more. I was wondering if this diet was good for the rabbit, and I got my answer: It isn’t. It leads to explosive diarrhea. Instead of the kitchen floor being covered in hard little shit pellets that the staff can sweep up easily, it is now covered in liquid rabbit shit smeared over everything. It’s disgusting. No more bread for the rabbit, I guess.

Sunday November 9, 2014
6:00 a.m. Bird Nest Guest House
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Back in my room with my coffee and my NEO.

I spent some time in the Internet café yesterday morning doing follow-up research on computers. Even focusing on computers in the two-pound range did not really help me narrow down my options. Other than the Hewlett Packard Pavillion, there weren’t any other budget options. I suppose the Asus T100 is still hanging in there. It seems almost an ideal machine for me. I just can’t get past strong concerns that the hinge will break and the connection between the screen and keyboard will malfunction.

I made a quick return trip to a camping store in the afternoon. I wanted to purchase some extra carabiners for hanging up my mosquito net. I wasn’t pleased with the cheap ones I bought earlier. I decided to bite the bullet and buy quality ones. I discovered, however, that even the quality ones suffer from a design problem. I won’t call it a flaw because carabiners were never meant to be this small. Carabiners are meant specifically for climbing and for climbing ropes. As such, they are quite large and serve their purpose well. It is easy to put a rope into them and they keep the rope firmly in place. Removing the rope is also very easy. However, when you take that large carabiner and shrink it down to keyring size, it doesn’t really work anymore. It’s quite ridiculous, actually. When you press your thumb down on the metal bar to open the carabiner, your thumb is situated in just such a way as to block the opening. So the very act of opening the carabiner to remove the rope blocks the opening through which the rope is supposed to pass. Again, that’s not a design flaw. It’s just the unhappy result of shrinking the carabiner down to a size it was never supposed to be.

While I was at the camping store, I looked at the Platypus bags. They seemed reasonable, and assuming that denatured alcohol doesn’t dissolve the plastic, it should work. I asked the guys at the camping store, but, predictably, they had no idea. They didn’t even understand what I was talking about. They (quite reasonably) assumed I was talking about putting wine in the Platypus bag. What else could “alcohol” mean? Then I wandered around the store and checked out the usual suspects – stoves, sleeping bags, sleeping bag liners, quick-dry clothing. I could easily have filled up a shopping cart, but the prices are far too high for comfortable shopping.

I spent the rest of the day and night reading. I found a new book called “My Place” on the shelf. The title is hardly inspiring and the blurbs on the inside jacket and back cover were not attractive either. However, I found it to be well-written and interesting. According to the front cover, it is an Australian classic.

And that’s it.

Monday November 10, 2014
6:00 a.m. Bird Nest Guest House
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Again, in my room with my coffee.

People continue to flow in and out of the Bird Nest. They appear and then settle down with their smartphones, tablets, iPads, and laptops for the evening. Then they are gone. Last night presented a ridiculous image. Every single person in the guest house was in front of some kind of a screen. Some were in front of three at a time. Couples in rooms had set up their laptops on a pile of books on a stool between their two beds and were watching movies in the dark. Couples in the lounge area were sitting side-by-side on the sofa – each holding a tablet and swiping and swiping and poking. Individuals were everywhere gazing hypnotically at bright screens large and small. It was crazy.

I suppose I can’t be critical. I am just as technology-minded in my way. I just happen to have a low-tech NEO. And I wasn’t interested in talking to other people either. I was reading a book. Is there a large difference between everyone surfing the Internet in silence and reading a book in silence?

My flurry of activity in Kuala Lumpur has definitely run its course. I’m now reduced to waiting for the tent and Kindle and other items. It’s unfortunate that it took me so long to decide to purchase these items. Had I done so right away, I would have had them already. But I dealt with the bike and camera first. And not until the bike was settled did I turn to my camping gear. It was logical, though. My concern with the camping equipment is its weight. And I didn’t become obsessed with weight until I had fixed everything on my bike and came to realize that weight really was a problem – for the bike and for my mental state. Up until that point, I assumed I would continue to use my heavy tent, heavy sleeping pad, heavy sleeping bag, heavy mosquito net, and heavy stove. I think using the Sapim Leader spokes to rebuild my wheels sparked that change. Perhaps if I’d managed to rebuild my wheels with DT Alpine spokes, I’d have felt differently. Probably not, though. My bike really was far too heavy when I was in the Philippines. It preyed on my mind all the time.

It’s astonishing how much I changed, actually. I’d temporarily forgotten that I’ve also gotten a new saddle, new tires, and new stuff sacks. I don’t have a new sleeping bag yet, but I’m fairly certain that I’ll abandon my current one – either leave it here or send it back to Canada. I’ve even been shopping for lighter bungee cords. I never thought of it before, but my bungee cords are far thicker and heavier than they need to be. When I put them all together in a bundle, they are surprisingly heavy and bulky. Not surprisingly, I’ve had very little luck in finding smaller bungee cords with narrow cord and small hooks. But they must be out there somewhere. The bungee cords I’ve been using all these years are designed to be used with cars and trucks to strap down heavy items. I hardly need that kind of brute strapping power for a tent and sleeping bag – certainly not for my new lightweight tent.

As I go through this process, it’s pretty clear that I should have been this concerned with weight when I put together this bike for my trip to Ethiopia. If not then, I should have done it in Taiwan before this trip. But I had other concerns at those times, and I wasn’t concerned with weight.

In other news, I inherited a new book from a fellow Bird Nest resident. I believe the guy’s name is Max. He’s from France and has recently taken a job at an advertising firm here in Kuala Lumpur. He’s a Game of Thrones fan and has been reading the books. (Technically, though, the book series is called “A Song of Fire and Ice.” Only the first book was called “A Game of Thrones.”) He had read the fourth book in the series (A Feast for Crows) and left it on the bookshelves. I read it, and I’ve been waiting for him to finish the next book, called “A Dance with Dragons.” He finished it yesterday, and I set aside “My Place” and started reading it right away. It’s over a thousand pages long, so it should keep me busy for a while as I anxiously await the arrival of the Hubba Hubba. (I’m very excited about that tent.)

Tuesday November 11, 2014
6:45 a.m. Bird Nest Guest House
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Other than a couple of errands, I spent most of yesterday reading “A Dance with Dragons” and listening to podcasts. I ran through a whole bunch of episodes of 99% Invisible and Radiolab, all of them fascinating. I can’t get enough of those guys.

A couple of amusing episodes on my errands. I was on the LRT at one point and a young man sitting opposite me had a terrible case of facial acne. It was the kind that had mainly big red blotches all over his face with a sprinkling of actual white pimples. I felt a lot of sympathy for the poor guy. Acne is not life-threatening. It’s not even life-altering in any physical way. Yet, it’s a pain in the ass. Life can be hard enough in general without having to deal with a facial disfigurement like that. And it would be frustrating when it doesn’t seem to make any sense. His skin in general was fine. There was nothing wrong with the skin elsewhere on his body. It was just on his face. And he must look around at everyone else with their clear skin and wonder what it is about him that causes this terrible acne. I imagined that perhaps he was a shy person and this acne could be socially crippling for him.

Anyway, the point wasn’t really the acne. The point was that I sat there for a very long time just pondering this young man and how this acne could be such a trivial thing and yet such a huge burden. Then, suddenly, I noticed that his left hand was completely deformed. He had toes on his left hand instead of fingers, and stubby, twisted toes at that. This whole time I’d been worried about his acne and I hadn’t even noticed he had a foot for a hand.

The other amusing thing happened at a vending machine. At certain LRT stations there are vending machines that, for some strange reason, dispense cold drinks at half price. In a store, a cold can of Coke might cost 2 or 2.2 ringgits. In these vending machines, drinks are just 1 ringgit. I don’t know why, but I’ve gotten in the habit of getting a cold can of Pepsi from them when I pass them. A bad habit I’ve developed, but the cold drink is so good in this hot climate. Twice, however, at this same vending machine, I’ve inserted my money, pressed the button for Pepsi, and out pops a yellow can of chrysanthemum tea. There are no words for how annoying that is. I’m anticipating that wonderful sensation of a cold, bubbly Pepsi sliding down my throat and I get this strange tea. It struck me that somewhere in Kuala Lumpur there is a man who stocks this machine. And this man has a personality that allows him to do this and not care about it. He’s so careless or lacks pride in his work to such an extent that he can open up a vending machine and fill it with chrysanthemum tea instead of Pepsi and not care at all. He knows that if he puts twenty cans of tea into this machine, there will be twenty angry and disappointed customers, all of whom expected Pepsi, and he simply doesn’t care. He does it anyway. It’s so hard to understand people like that – that such people can even exist.

My entire life has revolved around this kind of idea. I constantly behave on the assumption that people around me are similar to me. How can it be otherwise? I’m a human, and I feel this way and think this way, so I have to act on the assumption that other people (in general) feel and think in a similar way. And this always gets me in trouble. I get things wrong because I fail to understand just how different people can be. People feel utterly differently, and they have to act on those feelings. The feelings are real for them, and so they act accordingly.

I’ve often thought about this in the past, and my conclusion generally runs along the lines of imagining myself to be of a different species entirely – as different from many other humans as a rabbit is different from a cat or a hippo is different from a robin. It’s important because it gets to the question of values. People behave and act based on what they value, what they think is important. I’ll see someone behaving in a certain way, and I’ll wonder what is wrong with me that I don’t behave that way. To stick with this trivial example, I’m totally confused by this strange man that can put chrysanthemum tea into the Pepsi vending machine and not be bothered by that. What is going on there? To solve the riddle, I try to imagine what it would take to get me to put chrysanthemum tea into a Pepsi vending machine slot. But that’s the wrong approach. It’s assuming that this man is a human just like me when he’s not.

Well, I was walking along yesterday, and it occurred to me that I can take this train of thought one step further and it might help. Instead of just thinking as a joke that I must be from a different species, I can mentally picture all the people around me as different animals and then perhaps I will see them and their odd behaviors more clearly. Right after I had this thought, I spotted a group of four policemen ahead of me. For some reason, they were standing out on the street and inspecting cars as they drove by. In my head, I turned them into foxes – I saw them with the head and snout of a box sticking out of their uniforms. Once I saw them as foxes, I would have no problem accepting any kind of behavior from them as normal. A fox might pounce on a mouse and eat it. Meanwhile, a bear nearby sleeps for four months straight. Under the bear, in the earth, a worm is tunneling through the dirt and imagining that the goo on its body is the greatest thing ever. In the tree above, a bird is tearing apart a worm and feeding it to baby chicks – who think it is delicious. In a cage at the guest house, two iguanas sit on logs and don’t move a muscle, don’t blink, barely even breathe for 23 hours a day. The iguana doesn’t think he is a bad iguana because he doesn’t tunnel through dirt with goo on his body. The worm doesn’t think he is a bad worm because he doesn’t try to eat mice. The robin doesn’t think he is a bad robin because, unlike the hippo, he doesn’t like to submerge himself in river water all day.

It’s an obvious point, of course. I simply accept the behaviors of these animals. Each animal behaves in the way that species of animal behaves. There are no values attached to the behavior that can be applied to other species. The very thought is ridiculous. So it might be helpful to take this idea and use it to try to understand the differences between people. When I see people, I can mentally picture them as an animal species – with a completely alien brain and alien instincts and alien feelings – complete mysteries. This could help in understanding them and seeing them more clearly. It could be a useful tool.

Wednesday November 12, 2014
6:50 a.m. Bird nest guest House
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

It struck me yesterday that Google is a lot like God. People pray to God with random words and phrases to ask for help and advice. That sounds a lot like a Google search to me. If you could tap into the prayers of everyone in the world and list the key word phrases, you would probably get a good sense of what is going on with humanity. You can do the same thing with Google searches.

I thought about this yesterday as I was considering doing a Google search for “extreme fatigue after meals.” I’ve been finding that after lunch, I experience a nearly crushing fatigue. I suppose it’s really just the urge to take a nap, but I’ve never been able to nap, and this feels much stronger than that. So I was wondering, once again, if this is some symptom of a horrible disease developing in my body somewhere. (I appear to be turning into a hypochondriac.) I can imagine people experiencing physical symptoms of an illness also praying about them. Google and God. Same thing?

Not much else on my mind this morning other than the whole Google/God thing. I was sick to my stomach yesterday, and so I wasn’t able to go out. I spent the day reading “A Dance with Dragons” and listening to MMA podcasts. I’ve been largely ignoring the other residents of the Bird Nest. Conversation with them has begun to bore me intensely, and I avoid them when I can. The question “How long have you been traveling?” comes up first thing in every conversation, and I can’t imagine a more inane question. It’s understandable, though. People are trying to place each other in some sort of context they can understand and in this world, the length of time you’ve been “traveling” is one of your defining attributes. I suppose I hate the question because I don’t fit into any neat categories. For most of the guest house residents, working and living in Taiwan would count as a type of traveling. So do I mention that or not? And what was I doing in the Philippines? I wasn’t traveling all the time. I was just hanging out. I haven’t even been traveling in Malaysia. So the answer to their question can be that I haven’t been traveling at all, that I’ve been traveling for two years, or that I’ve been traveling for twenty years. No matter what I answer, it leads to more questions – about Taiwan, about the bike, and I don’t want to talk about any of that. I want to talk about normal stuff – the stuff that you and I would talk about if we were out for coffee.

I did chat with one couple from the UK yesterday. They happened to be working on small laptop computers, and I asked them about their computers. The woman’s computer was an Acer C720 Chromebook. I find that despite doing a lot of reading, I still don’t fully understand chromebooks. Of course, I know what they are and how they work, but I’m not entirely sure about their limitations. My sense is that I would run into many more problems and limitations than I anticipated. Better to get a normal computer. I was also surprised at how heavy it was. I expected it to be as light or lighter than the NEO, but it was close to three pounds – the same weight as the Asus laptops I was looking at.

The guy had an older Lenova Thinkpad. It was heavy and outdated, so I didn’t really ask about that. I noticed that these two were very busy on their computers. They set them up on the table in the reception area and they were there for the entire day and long into the night. I heard snatches of their conversation, and I got the impression that they were working on a small business of some sort. The truth was quite funny: they were simply working on getting a tourist visa for Indonesia. It seems that all the embassies in Kuala Lumpur have become very strict. It’s gotten so bad that many embassies simply will not give out tourist visas. People have tried to get visas for India and Bangladesh and simply been turned away. They won’t issue them, period. The Indonesian embassy still issues tourist visas, apparently, but only if you have an official sponsor from Indonesia. This couple was trying to set that up with an agent in Bali. It’s typical that a government puts rules in place, and then local people turn it into a business. The rule is intended to control visitors to the country and make sure that they have a good reason to visit the country and that local people take responsibility for them and sponsor them. The result is simply that people stop visiting the country and that a new industry springs up with agents faking all the necessary paperwork for a fee. I was amused when once again I was referred to as an “old” guy. I was chatting with the British guy about getting a tourist visa at the Indonesian embassy in Kuala Lumpur, and he said that it might be easier for an old guy like me. They might think that since I’m old, I’m more respectable. It’s funny how many times my “old man” status comes up. And it’s never related to anything. It’s not like we’re talking about age or birthdays or anything. We can be talking about anything, and I just get referred to as old. I admit I do have old man habits. I stick to myself and don’t socialize much. I wake up early. And now I wear reading glasses and peer over the top of them at people. On that note, there is another depressing trend. When I bought these reading glasses a few months ago in the Philippines, they were very strong. But my eyesight has worsened so much since then that they don’t work very well anymore. I already need stronger glasses. I’ve done Google searches about that, too, and I even asked the doctors in the Philippines about this, but, typically, I haven’t been able to find an answer. The question is a simple one. I just want to know how quickly eyesight worsens under normal circumstances. It just seems to me that my eyesight has been worsening at an abnormally fast pace. But I don’t know. Perhaps this is normal. My Google searches have come up with no answers, so far. I suppose that is another parallel beween prayer and Google searches: both generally return nothing useful or helpful.

It’s amusing and frustrating that I always seem to be searching for difficult information. Yesterday, for example, I wanted to know about the threads on the Ortlieb water bags. I was curious if my Sawyer water filter could be screwed directly onto the Ortlieb water bag nozzle. It seemed a reasonable thing to want to know, but I could not find an answer. That is generally want happens to me. I always have difficult questions. The information I want generally seems reasonable to me, but the rest of the world has no interest in or need for that information.

Tags: bike, Dell Inspiron 11 3000, Falling Off the Map, Google God, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia