A "genuine Malay village"

I've only been on one organised "tour" since I've been here, as I've had mixed experiences of those sorts of things. This tour was around the area of Johore Bahru (though not visiting the city itself, which I'm told is a Good Thing.) We visited some truly beautiful stuff - a large mosque and a mausoleum, some old colonial buildings, and the coastline around the Straits of Johore. Then we went to a "Genuine Malay Village".

Now I don't know what they normally get up to in Malaysia, but if this is a genuine village I can't think that most people in this country ever accomplish very much. It also makes Malaysia seem like a sort of giant, Asian version of Beamish. In this Genuine Village, all the trees have signs stuck to them, in both English and Malay, so you can see what they are. "Palm Oil", one proudly proclaims, as he sits side by side "Rubber" and "Pepper". Genuine Malay Village clearly can't decide what its main industry is going to be, so has a bit of everything in one very small space to be on the safe side. This is very handy for the visiting tourist, keen to get a glimpse into Genuine Malaysia.

Inside the Genuine Malay Village the inhabitants are busy at work making Batik, which is rather intricate and very pretty. Fortunately, if you like them, you can go to the Genuine Malay Giftshop at the end and get some. But first, the people of GMV break into a spontaneous dance routine, followed by a little rendition on some wooden musical instruments. I can only assume this happens all the time in GMV, in the same way that we in the UK frequently leap onto our desks for a quick spot of morris dancing to break the monotony of the working day. And how fortunate that, while this is going on, there happen to be some handy benches, arranged in just the right formation for you to sit and take in this spectacle. If this has all made you work up an appetite, well, that's just unfortunate, because they then proffer durian fruit to you, possibly the single most disgusting thing to come out of South East Asia. I'm intrigued to know what possessed the first person to come across a fruit that smells like a sewer and looks like a hedgehog to think "I know, let's see what that tastes like." And I can't really describe what it tastes like. The closest description would perhaps be that it tastes like an extremely artificial, manufactured, sickly-sweet chocolate centre. It's sort of sweet, a bit like custard, with the consitency of over-ripe melon. Am I selling it to you? Fortunately we didn't take any back, since they smell so bad that they're banned from public transport.

The whole thing would be rather like visiting East London and being greeted by a group of men in caps speaking in rhyming slang, banging some dustbin lids together and breaking into the Lambeth Walk before feeding you some jellied eels. Tourists may think they've had a Traditional British Experience, but if you're that gullible I'm not sure how you'd have found yourself to the other side of the world in the first place.

And so we leave GMV, after three pewter shot glasses (which is apparently a local product, which they thus try to sell to us) of sumptuous cold chocolate drink to take the taste of durian away, several dollars lighter (yep, GMV takes dollars as well as the local ringit, which is pretty handy!) and carrying some Genuine Batik Handkerchiefs, with Malaysia written on them just to prove their authenticity. As we leave the Genuine Villagers have returned full circle and are back to their work, costumes at the ready should they suddenly have the urge to break into another dance, which I suspect they will in half an hour or so, as a coachload of Australians has just pulled into the Geniune Carpark.