The Orange Pekoe hotel (formerly called The Nest, 1, Jalan Angsoka, 50200 Kuala Lumpur) was stuck down a small alleyway but was remarkable easy to find with the directions the hotel provided me. The rooms, like the backpacker hotel in Beijing were sparse, a bed and a sink, shower and toilet. Once again the shower nozzle was directly over the toilet. The clerk at the front desk was super helpful, quickly presenting a map and answered all my questions on what to eat and where to go.

After a quick and much needed shower I headed out onto the streets of KL. My first impression of the place Kuala Lumpur: It was a phonetic mess of people living in a city that was rapidly out growing itself. It was unbearably hot, and it was electrified with sounds and smells at every turn. It kind of made me dizzy.

I could understand why there were so many shopping malls, after walking a few blocks I was so sweaty that I needed to seek respite within the mall's hallowed halls of air conditioned commerce. Once inside, I was greeted by not just your normal Gaps and Banana Republics, but higher end wears like Gucci, Burberry and Rolex. Someone had money.

The hotel recommended that I eat something on Jalon Alor. In the evening, the street narrowed to allow for tables and different vendors selling Chinese food from brightly lit restaurant fronts. After a few passes up and down the street I followed my nose and sat down to a dinner of grilled chicken satay, barbecued squid and spicy pan fried greens washed down with a bottle of Tiger beer. I left full for only 27 Ringit (less than $10).

On the way back to the hotel I was offered a massage about half a dozen times. On either side of Jalan Bukit Bitang were massage parlors, most offering foot massages at the front of the building, some offered me a lot more than that. I don't know how common it really was but penis massaging or urut batin was a real thing here. From what I read the goal was not a happy ending but increased health and libido. I did not have the cojonas to try it out. The foot massages parlors just look painful but there were places where you stick your feet in fish tanks and the fish would eat away your calluses. I did not have the cojonas for that either.

Walking the streets of KL, Beijing felt so straight forward and clean. KL was a juxtaposition of the senses; a world's reality rolled up in several city blocks. The smells of grilled meat next to the smells of raw sewage, prostitutes, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists and Hindu living under the same skyline. Cramped gray apartment buildings split by dirty alleyways just large enough that with the right turn, your path was lit up by the glow of the ever present Petronius towers. As the song from my childhood goes, "To know Malaysia, was to love Malaysia". It was going to going to take me more than a couple of days to know her and at that point KL seemed more crazy lust than love.