The Albatross
Friday 10 May 2024
Ah jet lag, how I loath thee. Coming in last night, we were both shattered and desperately needed sleep, however, we were both awake at 2:00am as it was midday or something in San Fran. I managed to doze for another hour however we gave up pretending at 5am and made a pot of coffee and decided on a course of action for the day. ‘Not much’ was the unanimous choice.
Where we are staying is a few metres down the road to the Maxwell Hawker Centre, stall after stall of delicious cheap steamy goodness. A brilliant fishball soup and a somewhat lacklustre Nasi Lamak, and we had sated our breakfast hunger, having missed dinner last night. I was getting pretty warm and sweaty by the time we left, it is always boiling in these places as every one of the stalls is cooking full pelt.
Just up the road is a Buddhist temple, it’s relatively new, and deliciously air conditioned, and very quiet first thing in the morning, a stroll around the local streets to get the lay of the land and I was sweating volumes and getting very light headed.
By the time we made it the short distance to home, I had drenched myself 3 times over and was struggling to stand. Back to the cool of the hotel room and several litres of water later I was much improved. I really hadn’t had enough water yesterday.
After a couple of hours recovery, I was a lot perkier and decided to venture out to scope lunch, a nice breeze was blowing and it had clouded over, a few spits of rain and a clap of thunder and down it came. That decided the lunch spot instantly as it was the closest restaurant (we had been thinking of eating there anyway). A fantastic Thai lunch watching the rain pelt down for 20 minutes, then the streets fill with people again. The sun had come out in full force again and it was super steamy.
I desperately needed a belt as my pants kept falling down, so off to a shop where two people decided to help me. When your covered in sweat and can’t cool down the last thing you want to do is go clothes shopping with to over eager attendants. Belt found I fled to the refuge of our hotel again, where we began planning Malaysia.
Dinner was a quick curry back at the Hawker, by this time we were flagging rapidly. We had done well to stay awake all day, and bed seemed a very good idea.
