Some of you may be familiar with the British comedy “The League of Gentleman” which tells the story of a small rural town advertised with the sign “Welcome to Royston Vasey. You'll never leave”. The show follows the day to day lives of the locals, the outsiders prevented from leaving (or killed) and an addiction to human flesh sold by the town butcher.
This leads me to discuss our stay in the town of Tulok Bahang on the Malaysian island of Penang. Arriving by ferry in Georgetown we spent a few nights before crossing to the east to hike in the coastal primary jungle. Consulting the guidebook we decided to check out Miss Loh's.
The guesthouse was located outside the town centre in a residential area, with neighbouring mosque and high school. Set well back from the road with no signs, it was difficult to find and the greeting by the dogs was not welcoming. Consisting of several wooden buildings divided into a number of rooms, it had seen better days. There was a large communal kitchen with plastic plates dotted with dried gecko poo, a lounge occupied mostly by dogs with ticks, shared bathrooms with green algae round the edges, and loads of unused stacked garden furniture.
After 120 days on the move, however, we're through with hunting down the best place on day one, so despite this we decided to give it a try.
It seemed Miss Loh's was a place where you came to disappear. She asked for no passport ID, and charged only a few dollars a night for her regulars. There was no onsite staff and she herself only visited for an hour a day, leaving the guests undisturbed.
All were long term residents, up to 18 years. Some stayed permanently, others wandered through Asia but always came back. They were men ranging from their 30s to 60s, all but one was a westerner and each of these were recluses who initiated no conversation other than phatic grunts and when asked, had sometimes interesting but usually semi-cohesive life stories.
One British guy talked about using fake passports so he still received his benefits and could stay in Malaysia beyond his visa expiry. At almost fifty, he hated the UK government (that supported him) and was traveling with his four-year-old daughter, the product of a failed marriage with a young Indonesian woman. Once his wife's residency was complete she had rejected them both.
Or so he claimed. As Miss Loh said, whilst chuckling (as she did frequently)...
“There's something not quite right in his head”
He talked about having to take responsibility for his mistakes and look after the girl the best he could, then out of the blue told me to be careful when buying drugs...
“See I've been doing it for years. Know what I'm doing and always looking out for myself, so I won't get caught. In fact I've got a load stashed in the ceiling around the light socket in a another room in town. If they ever do try and get me, I'll just go to America. I've got friends in Chicago and can just disappear”.
In my mind risking life imprisonment or death for using drugs in Malaysia is not exactly taking your role as sole parent seriously.
In addition to their sketchy backgrounds, the men shared another thing in common. They hung around during the day with nothing to do, lazying in the heat and eating durian. You see, much of the land owned by Miss Loh was uncleared forest and populated by durian trees. The hour each evening when she visited she'd sell fruit by the side of the road and many locals stopped by to collect some.
In fact everyone we met in town knew Miss Loh and the durian she sold. She was generous too, selling it by item rather than by weight and cheaply (there are just three or four foul tasting seeds inside each fruit, which weigh at least a few kilos).
To her guests she gave durian freely, though like the butcher in “The League of Gentlemen” and his addicted customers, there was never enough. One German called Peter bought an additional supply which he kept by the toilet next to his sandals (making for an extra potent smell). He gorged himself in the afternoon and walked around with green jelly drips at the corners of his mouth.
This guy in particular had been there too long. His hatred of the local kids playing on their scooters was disturbing and he cursed at the barking dogs. He seemed tired of life, spending one afternoon (post durian feast for one) playing solitaire on his mobile phone. Don't get me wrong, solitaire is a great game (Mum taught me with real cards long before Microsoft popularised it) but it is not my idea of retirement material.
Having tried our first durian we went out for dinner only to be stopped by Miss Loh and the Malay guest Kenny, who both offered us more.
Kenny: “Not many people like it at first, then it grows on you and before you know it you're addicted to the stuff”
Miss Loh: “Are you staying long?”
Fayette: 'We think one more day”
Miss Loh: “Stay as long as you want dear. [Chuckle] You sure you don't want anymore? I'll leave one out on the table for you in case.”
Poor Kenny. The one non-westerner, apparently with a flat in New York, he'd come to the guesthouse to escape “the cruel world” and get some down time from the corruption he dealt with daily whilst running his orphanage in Cambodia. Having learnt a bit of meditation in Thailand he now wanted to practice in peace and quiet. Of all the guests, this is the one I believed the most. Our knowledge of Cambodia was fresh and seemed to fit. He joked with us about marking our eggs so others wouldn't take them and told us about his mistake in offering assistance to Miss Loh.
Kenny was now the unpaid caretaker, yet still had a higher rent than some of the long timers. Things had also just taken a turn for the worse. Local kids were coming each night to the durian field to poach fruit and now Kenny was paying for a room, but living in a iron shack at the edge of the field, waking up five times a night to scare them away with his knife.
Kenny: “When it's windy and rainy you have to move your stuff around inside to stay dry, but it's quiet and I get to practice my meditation. When I'm not chasing away the thieves that is.”
Intending to stay only one night, we tasted durian and stayed for five. Fortunately we had plans to meet with Ez and Sarah in the Perinthians so had cause to leave. However, even as we left we were talking about returning.
Peter: “I'm sad to be leaving. You know that durian doesn't smell so bad after all.”
Fayette: “I could definitely work on my book here. Nice and quiet and cheap! I wonder what sort of deal Miss Loh would give us on the room.”
Peter: “I'll ask when I see her.“
Fortunately I didn't.
-Peter (Malaysia - May 2008)
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