Shop Shop Shop

I'm in ecstasy. I think the food currently on my table is the best food I've ever eaten - certainly the best Indian. The naan is smoky from the tandoor, the paneer masala has the perfect level of spice. It's a completely unpretentious cafe/restaurant in a back road of Kuala Lumpur, and I will always remember with deep love the woman that sent me here. I'm kind of glad I don't live in Kuala Lumpur, because if the shops didn't take all my money, this restaurant would. In the hopes that they will also take all of your money (which would admittedly be difficult, as my whole meal cost me about £1.20): Sangeetha Restaurant, on Lebuh Ampang, round the corner from the Masjid Jamek LRT station. Go.

I feel like I've been from one end of the shopping scale to the other today, and walked every inch of it. I've bought a new camera in a Korean-style electronics mart, walked awed through a luxury mall that had an aquarium in the basement and a 5-star hotel in the attic, bartered at a flea market, wandered through a very sedate Central Market (like an over-civilised Grand Bazaar in Istanbul), bought spices and incense using only hand signals from an Indian woman with a cart, and been dressed in a saree by an over-ambitious shop assistant in a fabric shop in Little India (there was a short silence and then he slowly started unwrapping me again.) I'm fairly certain I spent most of my salary in one day, and on return to Sabah will be eating instant noodles until the 27th of April...

But look at where I stayed! Kuala Lumpur is a remarkable city in some ways - the hustling crowds of the cityscape suddenly give way with no warning to quiet streets lined with century-old shophouses. My hostel was in a converted shophouse, the middle one in the picture below; although 'converted' is stretching it a bit. The front was immaculate, the back they had gutted and replaced with some oddly beautiful modern architecture - steel and concrete and brick.

And they had awesome doors on all the rooms too:

Yep, that's me! Emily! My room! (It also really helps for when someone new arrives, tells you their name three times, leaves, and you promptly forget their name and then bump into them at bedtime. Sneaky.) (In case you were my roommate, I totally remember your name, it was that other guy next door I'm talking about.)