Kung hai fat choi!

That's Happy Chinese New Year - as our man discovers in Malaysia

It couldn't have been more ironic. In my overnight case was a certificate that proclaimed me a 'Friend of Malaysia,' personally signed by the honourable minister of culture and tourism.

And here I was, at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, holding in my hands the mangled, mortal remains of a Sanyo microwave, probably the most important purchase in my life. And I had to go back home to a wife whose birthday I had missed a week or so ago. Shopping at Kuala Lumpur?

Cheap, dirt cheap, especially during the Chinese New Year sale... and I had painstakingly haggled a 50 per cent off on the original price of the gizmo to arrive at the deal of a lifetime.

I wanted to strangle someone. I was particularly vexed by the beatific, smiling Malay official before me who was trying to explain that for claims arising out of mishandled baggage, I must travel to Malaysian Air's city office an hour away.

That I had a flight to catch back to Delhi a couple of hours later and didn't have the necessary equivalent of 800 rupees it would take to travel the distance by cab didn't lighten the air either.

Welcome to Malaysia. Truly Asia. The telly image that had captivated me for over a year, of a smiling Michelle Yeoh, had suddenly gained a subversive meaning.

But what on earth was I doing in Malaysia, you might ask. The purpose of the week-long visit was quite simple, really. I had been extended an invite to the country, courtesy Tourism Malaysia and JK Tyre.

The occasion was the Chinese New Year celebrations, the focus two-fold "� Malaysia as a tourism destination and Malaysia as a kind of affordable motorsport Mecca for Indian nitroheads.

Fellow travellers in the group included half a dozen journalists from other publications and a two-person telly crew, which included the rather delectable anchor, Perizad Kohla. Team JK's Karun Chandhok, the media-savvy, affable and outgoing 20-year old F3 racer, was going to play team leader.

Local reinforcement for our party joined us when we first landed at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, in the form of Jefri, an Egyptian-Pakistani tour guide and 'Captain,' our Malay tour bus driver "� the latter didn't speak much English, we found, and while the former spoke it, we couldn't understand most of what he said.

As long as it's not official business, the people are affable enough and welcoming, even though one might just about understand snatches of the English they speak "� it's like a traffic pile up where the first word manages to sprint away and stay unharmed, but subsequent words kind of rear-end each other in quick-fire succession until the full stop finally and thankfully blows the whistle on the sequence. Then it dawned on me "� using Malay with English might just be the ticket to effective communication, especially since its script is the English alphabet and many words are simply mis-spelt renditions.

I got into the flow soon enough, mixing up the languages in a way that made interaction a lark, both in spoken and written Malay and English at one go.

For instance, travelling in a bas as I was, it might not have been too surprising to see an ambulans pulling up rapidly in the rear-view mirror. Maybe it was hurrying to the klinik carrying an eksekutif, who, after coming out of a restoran, got hit by a speeding teksi.

Must be a polis case... Eksklusif, true-blue Malay words that are quite nifty when bandied about include 'keluar,' meaning 'exit,' and 'tandas,' alter-ego for 'loo,' useful vocabulary when desperately lost somewhere in the one of KL's many air-conditioned, labyrinthine shopping malls. And if you are looking for the Orchid hotel in Johor, don't. Because it's spelt Orkid.

Now, even though I digress, a bit about the airport itself. The KLIA is composed of massive sheet after sheet of squeaky-clean plate glass, supported by an equally shiny trelliswork of brushed stainless steel "� a bit of watch-the-innards-work neo-futurism, also found in Pop Swatch and the Apple iMac.

There's something we could learn from that, and try improving our shabby, clapped-out gateways to the world, especially those at Delhi and Mumbai.

Pride of place at the KLIA belongs to an automated, (and unfortunately bilingual) shuttle train a la Frankfurt, that takes you from one terminal to another. International arrivals, third floor, departures, two more stories up.

And for a touch of justified arrogance, there apparently exists a taxiway that leads off the runway to the race track at Sepang, a short distance away, to allow the airlifted motorhomes, cars and kit of the likes of Michael Schumacher and Bernie Ecclestone to reach without much ado.

Chandrababu, add a new airport, a railway station and air-conditioned autorickshaws to that F1 shopping list of yours "� when we finally get round to it, we've got to out-swank the Malaysians who simply have the best F1 package available in the world today.

Speaking of racing, I did my two-bits worth a few days later, driving for India in a 90cc four stroke go-kart at the Elite Go-karting Track outside Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia, I found out, is quite the place for motorsport.

Little race tracks dot the countryside like flies on a buffalo, and then of course, there's F1-spec Sepang, the buffalo itself. The biggie tracks at Johor (where MotoGPs used to race until about 1998) and Shah Alam (closed now for a while) also provide the populace with enough tarmac to vent their need for speed without killing anyone.

There are regular weekend track days at Johor, for instance, and these can be accessed with minimal money spent. And, informed Karun, Malaysia also has a growing culture of 'car park rallies,' taking after Singapore where this particular kind of sport is religion.

There has to be motive for this motorhead mentality, and the answer lies in Malaysia's Rs 13 (equivalent) per litre of premium, 97 octane unleaded.

Fuel economy? What's that? As if to demonstrate the point, somewhere in my aural background, an engine burbles to a start, followed by impressive growling exhaust tones as the car moves through the gears and into conscious focus. A body kitted, modded machine, complete with lowered suspension, fat alloy wheels and waif-like rubber swims into my peripheral vision.

Finally, taking visual centrestage, tra la laaa, is a diminutive Perodua Kelisa "� the Maruti 800 to you and me. Malaysia's full of these souped up numbers "� fat chrome exhausts showing exactly where the emissions, economy and the catalytic converter left off and the adrenaline began.

While about 99.99 per cent of these cars are either government-built Protons or smaller Peroduas, or from the latest local manufacturer to get into the act "� Naza "� there are the Hondas and the Toyotas, the occasional 911 or the Scooby WRX or classics like a Lambo Urraco or a Caddy Eldorado around.

There are Hyundais aplenty too, but peculiarly enough, I could have sworn their showrooms outnumbered their cars in KL, unless of course our bus driver had finally succumbed to the tradition of confusion... and was driving around the block in inventive circles.

Even through the overall confusion that reigned throughout our trip, one thing was very clear "� Malaysia is a must-see. And I think I'll do a trip again, wife in tow, to experience a lot of things I missed "� the museums in Malacca, a tour of the Petronas Twin Towers, the forest areas and sanctuaries in and around Sabah... and a day of macho F1 at Sepang. Two things are clear though "� I'll steer clear of shopping.

And I'm flying Indian Airlines.