Taking a brisk walk in Kuala Lumpur is like chewing cotton wool, with medicinal hints and an after-taste of open drain. In fact, the next time you are kept waiting at the doctor's, why not walk casually over to the garbage bin and pick out the bits of discarded cotton wool. Jam this between your gum and your jaw like a middle reliever, chew twelve times, then move the wad onto your tongue, open your lips slightly and breath through your mouth. This is a close approximation of taking a walk in Kuala Lumpur.

The used newspaper man came around in his little van. He plays a singsong tape ("surat khabar lama -- sau gao bo chi -- siu gu bo chua -- ole news paypah") in Malay, Cantonese, Hokkien, English. Frances noticed he was a small man, so she opened the gate. Used newspapers go for 5 ringgit per hand (not bad), and this man obviously had small hands. Some more he offered 6 (almost $2) per hand -- bonus! Also threw in a few extra ringgit for some other broken junk that was lying around. Now the squirrels and stray cats have nothing to pee on.

Ramadan: A ruling has come down that if you live above the 18th floor you must wait two minutes longer to break your fast. On the roads, somewhat less traffic than usual during the day, and markedly less just after sunset. There are food stalls in the SS18 neighbourhood that set up before sunset each day. It's a 15-minute walk from where we stay in SS19. Today we bought some briyani, nasi kerabu and murtabak and packed it back.

Sometimes I walk down to the SS19 shops, a 6-minute walk, to buy a newspaper, some bread and fruit, and for something to do. I know people who have lived this close to the shops for years and have never walked there. They drive, which requires a longer route and takes about the same amount of time. I think it's about appearances. Middle-class people will jog or walk, moving their arms in a way that shows they are taking exercise, not going somewhere. Walking to the shops is what the maid does. (But I've been corrected on this point: I'm told that I'm thinking too much, it's just too hot, that's all).

It never gets as hot here as it has been this summer in Toronto. Mid-30s is the maximum in Kuala Lumpur, but it gets into the 30s every day of the year, and it's humid and polluted, and it doesn't cool off much at night. Somehow it seems even worse than that sounds, and I'm not sure if it's partly psychological (absence of sidewalks and parks and space around the houses), but when I walk down the road I have a sense that something is burning, maybe my shoes.

I bought a hand of two dozen small but very tasty bananas for 4 ringgit (just over a dollar). Although they would have cost that much per banana in Australia, my extravagance was considered disturbing. It is useless to mention down-under: "Cannot compare one!"  I am compelled to prove that my soul is worthy of salvation by eschewing the 5-cent banana in the hope of, later, chewing the 4-cent one.

One thing you can say for Malaysian schools, they engender long-term friendships -- most of Frances' friends are her ex-schoolmates. We joined some of them for dinner (wild boar curry, crab, frogs' legs with crispy ginger flakes) after one of them picked us up at Midvalley shopping centre. The restaurant was located on the other side of one of the innumerable KL freeways, but within walking distance, if there had been any way to walk there. The driver, an intelligent person, has many years of experience in KL, as does Frances.

The challenge was thought to be finding a way over the freeway, but we managed to find an overpass right away. But then we couldn't avoid a ramp that took us back onto the freeway again. By the time we had escaped via several more ramps and access roads, none of us knew where we were or which way we were heading. The driver proposed a strategy that I've heard before from a veteran KL driver: If I keep going, I'll eventually see something I recognize, and then I'll at least have a chance to get to a place from which I know how to reach my destination. But after a couple of phone calls and a couple of U-turns (common practice in Malaysia) we arrived.

I've also heard this more than once: I know how to get from A to B, and I know how to get from B to C, and I know that A is closer to C than B is to either of them, but I have no idea how to get from A to C. So I'll drive from A to B and then from B back to C. It's like (on a different scale), I know how to get from San Francisco to Denver, and from Denver to Los Angeles, but I don't know how to get from San Francisco to LA. So what I'll do is drive from San Francisco to LA via Denver.

KL may be the world's most difficult city to navigate in a car. I've been here a year and I've never heard anyone use a compass direction to describe the relationship between two places, nor are any roads named according to the compass. Nor have I seen anyone use that other fine invention, a map. All the streets have names, but many of the major roads and highways don't seem to have names at all. When you enter one of them you might (possibly) just see the names of parts of town you are currently heading for, and some of the off-ramps will tell you what neighbourhood you have reached. Each neighbourhood is densely populated, yet they seem to be scattered over a large area, linked by a network of dozens of limited-access roads and flyovers, with no long streets at all.

When Frances and her mother came to Toronto they expressed admiration at the ease with which I could find places I hadn't been to before, but they were giving me way too much credit. You only need to memorize a few north-south streets and a few east-west ones, and if you want to get to a point two blocks north of Eglinton and a block east of Keele, it explains itself. Even if you forget whether Warden or Woodbine is farther west, just drive until you reach one of them.

Even Los Angeles, which is spread out and dissected by freeways, is simplicity compared with KL. We rented a car for a few days five years ago, and we were able to get around easily. Dozens of times I've entered a new city, and within a couple of days I could walk from any landmark or major street to any other with scarcely a look at a map. I've spent nearly a year in KL, putting it all together, and I still can't do that here. Partly it's a result of being guided around, which makes you less sensitive to how you are getting where you're going, but mainly, I think, it's the city.