I sometimes wish for two things in life.  Firstly, that it were actually true that Americans have no sense of irony and secondly, that I had been born American.  The reason for this is that through the years I have cultivated a mild yet infinitely annoying obsession with irony and the part it plays in my life.

Before I regale you with my tales from “far far away”, let me give you an insight into my warped and twisted mind.  My husband Jon had recently been asked to go to his company’s Malaysian office to assess some of their computer equipment (don’t ask…I only do when I forget that I understand hardly anything about computers).  He had the lovely idea to ask me to go with him, turning the three-day trip into something of a holiday.

Most people would jump at the chance of such a wonderful trip, and this time I was determined not to let my lifelong fear of flying get the better of me.  Instead I made a concerted effort to combat it, purchasing a wonderful book and downloading some helpful podcasts that really did seem to allay some of my fears.  Job done, you might think. 

Ah, but it seems that when you spend most of your life as a quivering, worrying wreck, it isn’t possible to turn into Little Miss Confidence overnight and my brain instantly started looking for new things to get all paranoid about, choosing a suitable time (around 1am on the morning we were about to leave) before whispering a sly “Wouldn’t it be ironic if just when you’d got to grips with your fear of flying, you then died in a horrific air crash?”

This is the way I tend to think generally.  Obviously, I do tend to skip over the minor yet vitally important point that you can’t actually cause air crashes with a simple combination of will and irony.  I tell myself that if that truly were the case, terrorists wouldn’t have to spend all that time and money on fancy flying courses, but I conclude that you simply can’t rationalise the irrational.

Anyway, despite all this build-up the real irony of the situation was revealed when I got on the plane and realised that I’d spent so long worrying about crashing that I hadn’t actually considered the excruciating monotony of sitting in Economy class on a plane for just over twelve hours, especially when the plane’s “on-board entertainment system” broke down within the first hour of the flight and I was sitting next to a gigantically fat, smelly man who took up half of my seat as well as his own.  Amazing how irrational and imagined fears can take the place of life’s more humdrum annoyances.  But I digress…onto the story of the trip itself.

Getting off the plane, we found ourselves immediately engulfed in the type of heat that seeps into the skin and heats you up directly from the inside.  Lovely as that is in February, we’re pleased to get into the airport building for a blast of some much-needed air conditioning.  The culture shock of actually receiving a smile and a “Thank you, Nina – enjoy your stay in Malaysia” from the passport control official was almost too much to bear, until I noticed a huge Starbucks, next door to a Tesco Express (Tesco…in Malaysia?) in the airport lounge.  I confess that I usually like seeing familiar sights when I go abroad as they remind me that I’m not too far from home, but in this case I did feel a bit surprised and disappointed that I could travel as far as I had in a smelly, cramped plane for over twelve hours just to see almost exactly what I could have done had I chosen to spend five minutes nipping down to Southend High Street instead. 

Jon’s work colleague Sam came to pick us up from the airport and kindly drove us to our hotel.  When on holiday I always love the drive from the airport to the hotel, looking out of the car window and seeing all the new sights.  I found the natural beauty of Kuala Lumpur absolutely breathtaking.  All around us were waterfalls and beautiful, lush greenery…with large, random chunks gouged out to accommodate the ubiquitous branches of KFC, Starbucks and TGI Friday. Later on, we noted that adjoining our hotel was an enormous shopping centre with seven huge floors of shops, featuring such exotic gems as River Island, TopShop and Miss Selfridge. 

Our first evening in Malaysia was spent with Sam, during which we got a bit of a flavour for the more “authentic” side of life here.  The intense heat and humidity meant that we could start the evening in a tropical styled outdoor bar for some cocktails before finding somewhere to eat.  Now we were really on holiday; this isn’t something you could do at home in February.  Well…you could, but you’d need a heavy coat and more than one bottle of vodka at your side.

The city centre was a lot less Westernised, full of exotic food shops, Indian and Chinese restaurants and their accompanying spicy smells mingling with the heat.  There are countless cheap hair and beauty parlours (these are popular over here; Sam informs me that I could have a “complete makeover” for the equivalent of £25 – I hope he isn’t insinuating anything).  As we walked through the streets I noticed the somewhat alarming amount of cracked, raised paving stones; almost going flying on a couple of occasions.  I shouldn’t have worn high heels; nevertheless Injury Lawyers 4 U would have a field day around here.  As did the local rats, a couple of whom were scurrying merrily up and down restaurant drainpipes, drawing absolutely no attention from the other passers-by.  It was a couple of doors down from the rat sightings that Sam announced that we would be stopping for something to eat, at a nondescript looking Indian restaurant.

The restaurant was in the style of a typical greasy-spoon café – no real décor to speak of, just plain white walls – and it was lively and bustling with huge families of Indians. Everybody in the restaurant, including Sam, ate with their hands, although knives and forks were automatically brought over to Jon and I without question.  No false pleasantries existed; our waiter didn’t raise a smile and banged our plates down on the table after we’d ordered.  Rat worries and typically British service aside, this was far and away the cheapest and best meal I’ve ever had at any restaurant, including a very expensive one at Claridges – eat your heart out, Gordon Ramsay.

Next stop was a few drinks at a “private club” Sam knew.  I was slightly concerned about the “private club” connotations, picturing a seedy bar of some description, until we got there and I could hear some screeching masquerading as singing floating out through the open window as we arrived.  “Oh good, it’s karaoke…” enthused Jon.  Alas, karaoke it wasn’t – the singing was instead courtesy of the club’s bizarre cabaret act, a man and a woman inexplicably dressed in Hawaiian holiday wear, singing Eighties’ love songs accompanied by a Bontempi electronic organ.  A sign above them strictly proclaimed ‘No Guest Singers’ – presumably just in case any of the guests found themselves gripped with the desire to join the group on stage (I know I had to be held back on a few occasions).

The venue reminded me of the Southend Conservative Club, at which my Dad has been a regular for over twenty years.  That isn’t meant to sound at all disparaging – just like the Con Club it was a friendly place with peeling paint and Seventies décor, full of eccentric elderly people just enjoying an evening out, getting a few drinks and having a dance (Chris de Burgh’s ‘Lady in Red’ never sounded better).

On the subject of the lovely Chris de Burgh, it seems he really is truly loved by the good people of Malaysia.  On the following morning I went for a wander around the shopping centre, only to be faced with a life-sized poster of him outside a record shop, and a medley of his “hits” played gently in the background as I browsed in and out of the shops.

(As an aside, the music played on the radio stations here, as well as the background music you hear in public places in general is bizarre to say the least.  While relaxing in the hotel bar I heard the song ‘It’s A Jolly Holiday with Mary’ from the film Mary Poppins, swiftly followed by the theme tune from the popular Aussie soap Home and Away).

The shopping centre itself was, as I previously mentioned, huge – Bluewater could have fitted in there twice over.  Despite the Western style shops, English visitors would not mistake their surroundings for somewhere closer to home.  This was mainly due to the fact that the place was immaculately clean, and featured a beautiful baby grand piano in the middle of one of the floors – completely devoid of graffiti, wheels still fully intact and no children crawling all over it and tinkling the keys, with their Croydon facelift-ponytailed teenage mums vainly scolding them in the background.

Ladies, let me tell you now that if you aren’t exceptionally petite, you will find clothes shopping in Malaysia an excruciating experience.  Asian ladies are usually a lot smaller than Westerners, a fact designers take into account when they make their clothes.  And the shop assistants, whilst exceedingly and almost frighteningly clinically polite and efficient, are also brutally honest about what will suit their customers.  One studies me intently as I browse the racks and pick out a dress to try on.

Her: “You want to try on?”

Me: (embarrassed, in that pathetic English way, to be putting her out) “Errr…yes, please, if that’s OK.”

Her: (looking at the ‘Medium’ sized dress I am holding, then looking pointedly at me) “You need Extra Large.”

Me: (as my self esteem oozes out through the door) “Oh right, thanks…”

The clothes are made for women who are short as well as tiny, and being on the taller side, I feel as Elle MacPherson might when trying on Kylie’s hotpants.  (OK – maybe that analogy is a little too flattering – I now ask that you replace the images in your head of Elle and Kylie with Zoë Ball and Jeanette Krankie).

The shop assistant frequently interrupts me while I am changing, bringing in other outfits she has chosen for me…all in Extra Large, of course.  Obviously, I don’t buy anything (although I seriously contemplate it, if only just to compensate for the poor shop assistant’s time) and I leave the store apologetically, venturing outside into the searing heat for a nose around the local area.

Malaysia is a Muslim country, and therefore a lot of the women are walking around in burqas.  Excuse my naïve ignorance when I say this, but whilst I support the fact that people should wear entirely whatever they like, I can’t work out whether it’s flattering for the women to be considered so desirable that they have to cover themselves up, or unflattering that the men obviously aren’t considered at all desirable to anyone, swaggering around next to their burqa-clad wives in their vests and shorts.

To them I probably looked like a kind of giant stripogram, seeing as a) I towered over most of them, and b) I was wearing the risqué combination of a T-shirt and a skirt with sandals.  Let me say here and now that my style of dress isn’t exactly avant-garde…in fact a friend of mine once described it as “lamb dressed as mutton”.  I was therefore perplexed at the amount of stares I attracted from passers-by and felt like grabbing a tablecloth from the nearest Starbucks and covering myself in it as I wandered round…even though the shopping centre I’d just exited was full to the brim with outfits of this type, with mannequins modelling them in the windows.  I found it an interesting paradox that there seemed to be so much demand for Western-style clothes and commodities here, yet it seemed out of the ordinary for an actual Westerner to be out wearing them. 

Anyway, our stay was over in a flash, it seemed – Jon finished his work and it was time to head back home.  Not to sound like a bad travel guide, but from the short time I spent there I found Kuala Lumpur to be a really curious, interesting paradox of East-meets-West with some truly wonderful eccentricities and I would really like to visit again one day.  It isn’t quite on Southend’s level just yet, but to my mind a city must always have something to aspire to.