I went to Malaysia for lunch.

I took the express bus across the causeway to Johor Bahru (known as JB). This was a short drive on a remarkably verdant freeway to Singapore passport control, at which point we all got off the bus to get out passports stamped, then got on another bus for a five-minute ride to JB. Then through Malaysian passport control, past customs (really, I just walked by it), and into a cavernous bus station with no clear idea of where to go next. I wandered around and around the station and the attached mall, looking for a bus to the center of town, before realizing that the station itself was in the center of town and where I wanted to go was only a few blocks away.

The mall attached to the station is big and new and the equal of anything in the US. Once you walk out the front door, you bump into the third world. Or at least the seedier areas of Los Angeles. It’s as if south-central LA and Beverly Hills were on the same block. I was barely out the door before some sketchy guy tried to sell me an iPhone.

Further on, it’s more of an amalgamation of small shops and restaurants catering to Malaysian, Indian, and Chinese customers. Kind of interesting to walk around and look at, but not something that takes a lot of time. I had lunch (mee mamak and ice kopi) at the Restoran Hua Mui (established 1946), then headed back to the station.

It was pretty much the same process going back. The trip itself is only 10 or 15 minutes, but you have to go through passport control for both Malaysia and Singapore. Nothing complex, but it does require getting off the bus and being routed through a large building, only to come out the other side and get on a different bus.

The walk back to the hotel from the bus station is about a half a mile, and I had only just gotten off the bus when it started to rain. It rained progressively harder, but I was mostly able to stay undercover until I was about four blocks away from the hotel. By that time it was a full-scale cloudburst. I decided to run for it. I sprinted for about a block and a half before I realized that there was no point. I was already as wet as I could possibly be. So I just strolled the rest of the way.

One nice thing about the tropics is that even if you’re drenched, you’re not cold. Not until you enter an air-conditioned building, at any rate.