Eating out, or, why not to blindly follow others...

So tonight I made plans to eat out with some colleagues. This fancy hotel we're staying in includes breakfast and lunch, and I make full use of both, but dinner is on us. Fiona (who will be living in Ranau, like me) and I set off obediently following our colleague, but soon regretted it when, after a 15-minute walk in the evening heat (and I mean it, heat - it's great!) we arrived at a seaside boardwalk lined with identikit tourist-filled restaurants, with names like "O'Connell's Irish Pub" and "John O'Groats Restaurant & British Bar". I held my tongue until I saw the menu, which started at 20 ringgits, when I could hold it no more. Fiona and I made our apologies and walked back along the seaside to the slightly less upmarket market, where we sat at a shared table on the edge of the sea wall, and paid 4 ringgits for a steaming plate of vegetable fried rice. We  overlooked four houseboats; on the edge of one, an ancient man sat and fished with a wire wrapped around his finger. My rice was cooked with amazing finesse in a wok beside the vinyl-covered table, the young boy flipping the wok right into the fire to give the rice a tasty smoky flavour.

Yes, we couldn't have ice in our drinks, and the dishes were being washed in a bucket of water under the table, and yes, I'm the first to admit that at some point I will crave a taste of Western food, but three days into my stay in Malaysia? Give me the street food every time...

On an unrelated note, I think a little fairy lives in my hotel room. The beds are made and the towels replaced every morning, which is expected. What's not expected is that every other time I go out - for instance, for an hour in the evening to eat dinner - when I come back all my artistically-flung clothing has been collected from its position, neatly folded, and placed on the chair. It's really not on, you know...