From where we were it wasn't more than a 5 minute walk to get there, as far as I was concerned it may as well have been on the other side of the city. The heat was getting to me fast and I was jumping between spots of shade like some kind of vampire. It was just the same when I managed to make it to the market, thank merciful heaven for parasols! As I wandered I was struck by the variety, and even more struck by my ability to screen the things I did and didn't want; I felt a milestone had been reached. At the beginning of the holiday I strolled the stalls looking vaguely at the food offered to me having little idea about any of it; now I had a growing database of dishes and vocabulary that would get me by in the wild open expanse that was the market place (to anyone interested I read that last bit in the voice of David Attenborough).
The breakfast cultivated at the market consisted of: Char Siew Pau, one of my favourite dishes here although many consider it a basic item more akin to toast; Nasi Lemak, one of my favourite breakfast dishes, served with a wonderful piece of rendang chicken; Pork pau, it may shock you to learn that those buns come filled with something other than char siew, and they still manage to kick ass; lastly, peanut and sugar pancake, not as good as the first one I ever had something about it just doesn't live up, I blame a lack of sugar.
With breakfast over we were stumped for things to do and ended lazing around the house for a while before the idea of the bird sanctuary was tossed into the air. Its amazing how things you never really consider doing at home suddenly gain traction when placed on foreign soil, oh well! To be honest I think Lena's dad wanted us out of the house for a bit, but I digress :).
With an eventful drive there, we were navigating on some mumbled and vague directions, we made it to the park. Now the one thing that makes this sanctuary stand out is that it is the world's largest open air sanctuary with massive nets suspended over the whole thing; it was visible from KL Tower it was that large. Once inside our first section had vibrant coloured birds fluttering around our heads a few inches from our faces, it was quite fun. After we moved from this section I thought we would get more of the same but ended up finding the truly exotic birds were in cages although looking at their beaks and general demeanour its hard not to support caging them, couple that with a child's enthusiasm to charge headlong at anything shiny and your bound to end up with injuries.
As we strolled around the grounds I found myself getting oddly accustomed to the heat, it may have been that it was a little cooler than usual with a slight threat of rain. Soon after this revelation we stumbled across a little photo taking opportunity with a collection of colourful exotic birds, for a scant RM10 we could take a whole collection of photos with a lot of birds. As we were taking the photos one of the birds spotted the beaded bracelet I got from one of the temples and every time he thought the keepers weren't watching he would try and eat the beads and was getting more and more frustrated as the band pinged them out of his mouth.
Further into the park we stumbled across a chick hatchery with some freshly hatched chicks trying to walk and move, it was so sweet to see, especially since they were less than a few hours old and were noticeably tired. In addition to having the eggs there were also a collection of much fluffier chicks and ducklings to play with, and play I did! I can't remember seeing so many since I was young and it was so fun to relive memories of old, I was kind of amazed at how light they were, it appears as though the fluff makes up a large proportion of their size :).
When we found our way home, an apparently simpler task, we sat down to some good home cooking. Fried chicken was on the menu and it was gorgeous, almost an equal to a certain colonel people are in a flap over...
Once dinner was done and dusted it was time for the evenings activity: fireflies. I've only every seen them in movies, more specifically romantic ones but sadly Lena wasn't able to get us there by ourselves so we were chaperoned by Lena's dad. The trip there was quite long and coupled with it being dark I was starting to feel relieved that I didn't have to help navigate. When we got there we paid our admission threw on some life jackets and waited for our turn in the boats. When I caught first glimpse of one I seriously didn't think it would stay above water, it looked like a row boat if the rower wasn't interesting in rowing from a seated position. Matters weren't made any easier when the thing looked like it had been constructed from leftover pieces of wood. As we set off I was reassured by the life jacket sitting on my shoulders as I felt it may be needed at any second.
As we moved off into the dark I didn't notice any lights and was beginning to wonder if I had just walked into a very well executed scam: give me your money or you go overboard, you know that kind of thing. No sooner as I was groping around trying to find a weapon, I saw it. The bushes were beginning to shimmer, again my bullshit alarm was going off, 'well they have clearly strung out some christmas lights in those trees'. It took a while for that feeling to disappear, it was only once we got close enough and I saw the creatures glowing asses that I genuinely believed I was watching fireflies. The flies were very beautiful and we got close enough for Lena to grab one, we had to do it quickly so no-one else could see as they didn't want tourists to start manhandling them too often. They gave off quite a bit of heat from their asses, Lena was able to notice the heat quite quickly. As quickly as the tour began it was over, with us standing on the jetty watching another family take the plunge.
As we trekked back to the car we stopped off in a shop just as they were closing up shop and came across PvZ plushies! Debating which one of our favourite characters was going to make it back with us we decided on the workhorse of the game: the peashooter. Cheap, reliable and iconic. A no-brainer really...
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