The stories that werent told

On the Sunday night in KL, discovered Nasi Kunyit with green chicken curry (an authentic nonya food)in one of the big shopping centres. Chinese/Malay heritage woman from IPOH struck up conversation. Monday morning in KL I discovered the hotel courtesy buggy to KLCC - KL woman living in England now for 16 yrs. Then ran into her again in Maleka. Good fun. After Selangor visit later on Monday, couldn't get a taxi back to the railway station but spotted an Australian/ Singapore based couple getting on a mini bus. I hurried over. They accepted me. Turns out it was their hotel shuttle bus for them - but they instructed the driver to drop me at the Wangi Maju train station. That was fun. Was starving so looked around the streets near the station for brunch - unnamed chinese food. Plate of rice, lump of soft tofuin vinegar and red onion, green beans, soft mashy pumpkin, wilted asian greens. Very good. This was after a wonderful steaming bun up the street -had meat in sauce inside. No idea what I ate but the dumpling was fine and light, and tasty and wonderful. A little China and very little english spoken. That morning I had discovered the hotel courtesy buggy to KLCC - KL woman living in England now for 16 yrs. Then ran into her again in Maleka. Good fun. But both women urged me to be very careful and both had their stories. The Ipoh woman explained how the trick was for a motorcycle rider to come along and whisk your handbag off and ride away. This worried me because my bag is made of strong metal thread and wouldnt break easily and so I rather feared being dragged along.And since the bag is over my head and under the armpit getting it off in a hurry would be near impossible. So from then on I watched for motorcycles. The London based woman told me that typically snatchers used a machete to cut off any part of you if you didnt hand things over or things were difficult to get off. Shre reckoned that by moving around commonly frequented tourist destinations there would be no problem but if I was to seek that special meal down a side street in one of the non tourist areas, I would have to be very careful. I decided not to be that interested in those suburbs where tourist dont normally go. But this practice was mostly used on locals anyway. Good stuff. Thought I would write this after I returned so as not to worry you.