Everybody who knows me personally must have known by now that I have moved from KL to KK (and I have announced it on Twitter so I assume some of those who know are strangers – who may don’t give a damn about where I am in this wide wide world anyway).
It was supposed to be an easy decision, but it was seriously not. I loved my life back in KL, and I loved the job and all. I stayed in probably one of the most beautiful areas in the whole of Klang Valley and it really is one with a super-great neighborhood. It is an area of neigborhood that I can just go hiking straight away from the house and surrounding myself with greenery and nature in no time at all.
But then it was the house and all the memories that I have had and created while I was there that matter most to me even now. It is a semi-detached house, with the guest room, the kitchen and a spare room at the ground floor while the upper floor contains the master bed room and two smaller rooms that share a toilet. Quite naturally, I stayed at the master bed room that had its own toilet and bathroom, complete with a bath tub, which I only used like a few times all thoughout the 10 years of my stay at the house.
The master bedroom also had its own veranda from where I could see the gate. The front yard is dominated by the existence of two bamboo clusters that obstruct what would have been a whole stretch of wooden fencing and the asphalted road beyond it. I didn’t especially favor the existence of the bamboo clusters especially when they continously smeared up the ground with dry leaves, but they were the landlord’s favorite landscape element so any negotiation of getting rid of them was totally out the question.
The backyard was my favorite spot of the whole compound. I spent quite a significant portion of my times there especially on weekends when I’d pile up the dry leaves and set them on fire while waiting for any of the neighbors to complain. Nobody ever complained, except at one time when one of the neighbors let out an exaggerated cough which I took as a sign of protest. He/she never showed up though.
In the backyard were two rambutan trees, one of mango and another of jack-fruit. And there were the banana trees – those that I never had any chance of having a taste of because they’d either end up in the bellies of monkeys who were frequent visitors or they got stolen by the neighbors, which I did not mind at all anyway.
I had put up a hammock at one of the rambutan trees, so I’d spend my time lying idly on it while reading a book or just browsing through my handphone until it was too dark to stay outside.
The backyard is separated from a mosque compound by a solid 8-feet concrete wall. The mosque was also very much part of my daily life when I was there staying in the neighborhood. I was supposed to have gotten used to the Azan, but somehow towards the end of my stay there it just go too loud I had to close the backdoor so that they would not really sting into my eardrums.
Of all the spots in the house, it was of course the living room that I spent most of my time at. It was supposed to be a dining room, but I had used it to be my work station when I’d spend hours after hours after hours hunching over my laptop while watching Netflix (Astro in the first few years). I spent even more of my time at the table when I was doing my Master in Research and later when I was forced to stay at home due to the damn pandemic.
The house itself is already full of memories – but it was my times with those who had visited me all throughout the 10 years of my stay at the house that make up most of them. Almost all of my siblings had come and stayed at the house when they came to KL for a family trip or something. My mom was a regular guest. She’s spend a couple of weeks or so before she got bored and demanded to be sent home of course. Most of the flower plants at the house were her kind doing and they all survived till the very end of my stay.
Every now and then a friend would come to visit me from Sabah, and I’d offer them a stay at one of the unoccupied rooms. Then of course those drinking and BBQ sessions with friends – there are far too many of them I even lost count. We’d drink and chat and laugh until we are too drunk or sleepy to stay up. The aftermaths, the messy mornings, where I’d have to clean up, happily of course because I had such a fun night with friends.
The other half of the bangalow is occupied by a middle-aged Malay couple – Kamaruddin and his wife Che Tom. They were so kind to me and we’d have a chat every now and then when we happened to see each other on the front yard. I really think I was quite of a loud neighbor, but never did they ever complain of anything, not even once. Being neighbors for 10 years, a strong bond had certainly developed between us. They were there when I boarded the taxi that took me to the airport, and I could see tears welling up in their eyes. Me myself was choking with emotion. There is no way of telling if we would ever see each other again.
The next house (separated from the house by a fence) used to be occupied by an aging Chinese lady, who stayed there with her maid. We did not start off well, and she’d come and complain to me about my overgrowing plants and all. But as more and more conversation ensued, we started to grow soft with each other.
One of the best things about the neighborhood is the easy access to beautiful jogging tracks. I wouldn’t really say they are jogging tracks but more of the roads themselves. They’d take you across the beautiful and quite neigborhood, going uphill to the foot of Bukit Tabur – the scenic greenary of quartz hill that dominates the nature landscape of Taman Melawati where the neigborhood is located in.
I’d usually push my way all the way up, til I reached the spot where further access to the road is restricted by a locked gate. Whatever it was further up the road had remained a mistery to me even until now. I made it a habit to touch the gate before making my way back down, usually on a brisk walk instead of running downhill. Somehow I had this little thought of how running downhill wouldn’t really contribute much to the development of one’s stamina. Heh.
I mean, there are just tons of things that I want to write about my times back in the beautiful valley of Kemensah but of course I’ll spare them for another post.