Snippets Of A Sunday Morning Stroll

 I am on my morning stroll in the Kiara hills adjacent to the golf course on one side and the Taman Tun Park on the other.

It's called Taman Arboratum and shaped like a Q - the tail is a long uphill walk, a challenge in itself especially in the mornings when the muscles are still sleeping.


At the top, the road declines sharply ahead. It's a welcome respite after battling the tail but a hundred metres on it's mainly uphill all the way back.

I decide to turn left against the mainstream.

I'm still warming up, I argue. I'll go downhill this round, and turn back the other way the next.

The people walking up is like an exodus of refugees escaping tyranny. Most are panting hard - some of them very hard indeed, because they are jogging!

Hah! You do your thing, I'll do mine.

I stroll.

And I eavesdrop on what Malaysians are up to in their lives.


 "Ser-tee-ya Ah-lam Semee-dee, ngor low koong lorr"

This lady has a semi-detached house in Setia Alam, I surmise. Probably bought by her husband.

That's quite a distance from here, I doubt she came all that way. I've forgotten my cantonese to understand the conversation.

Yup, there are many people doing the Arboratum on Sunday mornings: fat ones, thin ones, toddlers, the elderly. There are  young cyclists as well, huffing and puffing up-slope and racing like the blazes down. The older walkers are like me, in our fifty's perhaps and a sizable few who look like young upcoming professionals.

"Aku suka bagi gripe-water".

"Gripe-water? Ada lagi ke?"

"Ada... "

Young mums. Isn't that the colic medicine for babies, it has some alcoholic content if I'm not mistaken. Thank God none of my babies were colicky.

I walk on. The road levels out.

"So what you do is... take the average and then..."

These two girls are walking too fast for me to catch the magic formula. Ah well, never mind.

The road slopes down and curves slightly. Two men in late-forty's brisk-walking uphill, and a thirty plus jogging a few metres behind.

"Cannot.... stroke-lah", one man says loudly to the young friend.

 "Problem is," says the young guy as he catches up, "the toilet is locked lah"


 Aiit, is there a toilet around here, I wonder. And what has a stroke got to do with the toilet?

Hahaha, the mind starts to imagine.

Coming up look like lecturer types. I may not be far wrong.

"Dia ada buat ceramah di Universiti Malaya. Dia kata kalau anak kita berlaku tak elok, jangan terus tuduh dia penzina...."

That startles me. Ya Allah, lindungilah anak-anak ku dari syaitan yang direjam.

I recite a quranic verse as I walk on.


"I'll ask my remisier" someone says.

Yeah do that, hope you profit much hehe. Is it bearish or bullish now, I wonder. Been a while since I had any interest in the market.


Young people yapping away about exams. Hmph, also not interesting.

Further on, I plod along not bothering to look at people anymore. There are some monkeys to avoid.

"You leave them alone then they'll leave you alone", says a Mum to her little kids.

Dad quips, "If not they AT-TACK you one". Kiddies walk closely to Mum and Dad while eyeing the monkeys with their own babies clinging to them.

I stay close to them too and eventually pass the danger.

I'm approaching the sharp incline.

"This place is not as interesting as Gasing, you think so or not?"

Maybe not, but it's very safe. I had heard of muggings up in the Gasing hills.

Halfway up a seven year old kid is squatting to rest while Mummy walks on ahead.

He then gets up and begins to run up to her, but loses one slipper.

"Mummy, mummy my croc!"

Mums should make kids wear proper shoes in these kind of places. But what the heck, what's a scraped knee or two once in a while?

I stretch at the top of the hill and then proceed down the "normal" way.

I'm lost in my own thoughts.

After three rounds, I walk down the tail.

A young lady with two male companions enjoys their attention.

"Kau rasa tak tadi macam mendaki bukit?"

"Tak lah, kalau dengan kau berdua orang gila, tak terasa langsung"

 "Tengok ni" one of them inspecting a bush plant, "yang ni jantan, yang ni betina"

"Mana kau tahu?"

"Yang ni busuk, yang ni wangi"

"Kepala hotak kau, hahaha"


My left hip seems jammed. I sit at the guardhouse and stretch,  especially my left glute.

The man  who was feeding the monkeys with bananas comes up to me asking, "Mau lipat tak Kak?"

"Lipat apa?"

"Ini ubat Cina punya"

"Massage kah?"

"Tak, ini lipat"

"Tak apa, saya stretching sudah cukup"

He spots a fifty-year old. "Hello Uncle..."

He's selling something. But I only lipat in private, sorry.

I eat a tub of  taufoo far and chat with the seller.

"Not many people today har?"

"Now it's ten o'clock, the peak is over. Six o' clock people start coming already"

"Today I didn't see that old man, the one who does the qi gong walk"

"You mean that eighty-year old down there in the park? He passed away last week lah"

"Wah, pass away already ah that man. But not that one, this one always qi gong walk same-side arm same-side leg, same speed uphill-downhill, quite funny. I saw him last week"

A lady customer explains "There are many kinds of qi gong walks, all using inner core strength. Ya lorr, that man not here today"

"Hope he's OK"

The taufoo far man says "Last week also a 53-year old man had a heart attack up the hill. He's the youngest so far. Usually seventy-year olds, sixty year olds get heart attack. I do business here eight years already, I know the goings-on lah"

"Waah, so young, 53 years old!"

"Yeah, he was on a challenge - ten rounds!"

"Wow, I one round also flat already"

I finish my delicious taufoo far and paid him.

"Thank you, bye, take care" he says.

And I'm off to an early lunch at Restoran Sambal Hijau in Sungai Penchala.
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Just wondering, where do the politicians exercise?