KUALA KANGSAR, JANUARY 2009

So, here I am back in Kuala Kangsar! Things havn't changed too much in the last 28 years and this small sleepy town still maintains a peaceful charm and sense of tranquility.


The Rumah Rehat has had a face lift and had an extension built but the rooms are still huge and now have the added luxury of air conditioning, which is a just as well as it is extremely hot here compared to Cambodia. After showering I went for a stroll into the town centre and stopped by the roadside for a delicioius guava fruit drink. The kids are just as interested in me as they were back in 1980 and most of them like to stop and say hello or more to practice their English.


Later I had a meal at the Rest House and realised that I must be in the only 'dry' town in Asia!!! The only place to get a beer is in one of the few Chinese restaurants. On reflection and after talking to the local taxi driver I realised that Sultan Idris 11 was a bit of a 'playboy' Sultan and subsequently had a fairly liberal view on the sale of alcohol; a view that the current Sultan, Azlan Shah, obviously does not seem to share! Anyway after a stroll and a cup of tea(!), I decided to have an early night in preparation for the hunt for Shah tomorrow.


It had come to light that Shah was possibly in Ipoh, a town about 25miles from Kuala Kangsar, so that night I got a taxi there and asked many people if they knew him or his whereabouts. I was sat on my own and feeling a bit frustrated at my hapless search for Shah, when a Chinese guy asked me if I wanted a game of pool. Dennis, he was called was five foot nothing with small round glasses and played pool with one hand!. He held the cue like you would hold a dart and was suprisingly good despite this unorthodox style. He seemed to be on a mission to drink the bar dry of whisky and was soon joined by six of his friends. They were all construction workers on the nearby E1 motorway and were out celebrating one of their birthdays. I steered clear of the whisky and had a few games of pool and left to continue my search.


I managed to get a phone number from one of the bar staff next door but unfortunately it was not the Shah I knew! It was now quite late and time to get a taxi back to Kuala Kangsar. The nexy day I tried going to the palace office, the national museum and the tourist information centre but all to no avail and realised that I wasn't going to be able to find my friend after all. I suppose it was a bit of a long shot after all those years but I could not help feeling incredibly upset that I would not see him or any of his family. I hadn't realised that the current Sultan was not infact related to Shah; I had been given some duff information to the contrary which had built my hopes up! Never mind, my stay here has been very relaxing but tinged with a few regrets. Tomorrow I return to Kuala Lumpur and fly back to the UK in the early hours of Friday morning. I can't believe it is three months since I left!!