The worst day to forget your camera

The Lake Gardens are circled by a long stretch of road lined with epic sprawling trees with gigantic concertina leaves like corrugated cardboard. The vegetation is so lush and gorgeous I want to eat it, but settle for a handful of dates and a salak, which is fruit covered in snakeskin.

In the butterfly garden, the angry bat-sized inhabitants hurl themselves in my face and perch delicately on the fingers of the braver patrons. There are demonic horned beetles in tanks, and teeny tiny baby turtles all stacked up motionless on top of each other.
The Bird Park is a huge open air aviary, full of peacocks strutting around "presenting" themselves at no one in particular. A mynah bird wishes me an Ohayo Gozaimasu, which makes me feel right at home. There are skinny neon pink flamingos and an owl who, when threatened, turns its eyes to slits in hope of "emanating a block of wood." Natural Selection gets us all in the end.
In the Orchid Garden, a wedding is being dismantled by some disgruntled Malayan slaves. I sit under a massive waterfall and read a 3-year-old Booker Prize Winnah. Another take on the Indian underclass I would have dismissed by now if I were home, but here I devour it like the Kit Kat Chunky I found in a 7-11 this morning. A year and a half since such beauty has graced my lips.
Glossy silver monkeys playfight and squawk and eat bananas. Other sounds: the cicadas that sound like bells ringing on the breeze when the wind changes their note. The strange, melodic call to prayer, every few hours, hypnotic and beautiful. The sound of my stomach, rumbling.

An unmixed, unwrapped nasi lemak In the Botanic Gardens, I eat nasi lemak: coconut rice with spicy sambal, dried anchovies and egg slices, wrapped in a banana leaf pyramid. It's a common breakfast food and annoyingly filling. I glory in eating yet another meal not made from Japanese sticky rice.
I sit in a beautiful trellised summer house. Trailing vines drop from the ceiling and there are huge plants with foamy explosions of star-shaped leaves. Tree trunks comprise of a million interlocking roots. The leaves shut out the light. If Miss Havisham had a summer house, this would be it.
My solitude is shattered when an old man enters and starts barking questions/orders at me. I am 27. I should be married by now. What do I think I am doing? He himself was wedded at 16, and sees no reason why I should not follow suit. Food for thought indeed.