We’re Ultimate players and Ultimate players never travel without an Ultimate disc. When you’re traveling, it’s not just a disc, it’s a friend-making tool – friends of the disc.

Having said that, Ultimate players never travel without cleats either, but here we are in KL and neither Julia nor myself have cleats. Perhaps we’re not such hardcore Ultimate players yet. Or perhaps we’ve foregone the 2kg in cleats because Tour D’ Tom Yum is supposed to feature lost and lost of beach sand.

Our compromise was bringing trainers for the two Ultimate sessions we planned – the first one is here in KL and the second we’re aiming for is Soidawgs in Bangkok. Our Sabah Ultimate Guru, Ken Kassim, is now based here in KL, so he invited us out for a game over at KBU. The 3rd taxi we flagged agreed to use the meter and we set off.

We saw the discs flying long before we knew where we where, so it was an easy find. We proceeded to reacquaint ourselves with Ultimate players we previously met at the Malaysian Ultimate Open and also to meet new ones. Of course, their level of play is beyond anything we have in Sabah, so we really appreciated the opportunity.

Ken quickly dismissed Julia’s sneakers as unsuitable to play in and when I took mine out of the bag the gaping soles dismissed mine too. So barefoot we played, which turned out detrimental to Julia, as in one of the first point she managed to stub her foot against the heal of a cleated player, instantly rendering 3 of her toes swollen and red. She would hobble for the rest of the game.

Other than that incident it was a great game in very hot weather and we worked up a suitable appetite, which is just as well, because Ken then carted us off to his usually post-ultimate grazing grounds – banana leaf at Kana Curry House.

Where is Kana Curry House? I have no idea – the road there winded left and right and I don’t know KL that well, so I might well never find the place again. Section 14, says Julia, but what do I know.

Anyway, the size of the banana leaf they placed in front of me was a prelude to how much food was to come. And come it did. For the next 20 minutes people came past with all sorts of food items and if you do anything that looks like a nod you get a portion on your leaf. I appeared to be nodding quite a bit, so before I knew it my banana leaf was stacked. So ate. And ate and ate and ate until I could no more – then I ate some more to clear my leaf, because it’s rude to leave food on your leaf.

Kana Curry House became the second place on Tour D’ Tom Yum where I would pick up weight. This banana leaf was also hands the most expensive banana leaf I will ever have, but I believe it was the large, nearly-half-a-chicken piece that I had that pushed up the price. But good stuff. Burp!

Take me away to Out of Africa

Luckily this was very early on in the day and we had been quite active, because we had Out Of Africa, that fabulous South African restaurant in Petaling Jaya, lined up for dinner. And Ian and Eve were joining, so we knew lots of food and fun was to be had.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. I think Julia went shopping, I can’t remember what I did – I might have been nursing my bloated stomach. Near the evening we met up with I and E and set off to Out of Africa. We repeated a class act similar to our previous time there (except less Vodka).

We started off with biltong and chicken liver pate – it would be rude not to. We followed it up with with pap-en-wors, venison pie and Ian had the ox-tail potjie – trust him to have something of an animal other than meat. For desert we shared a portion each of Cape Brandy pudding and Lemon Meringue pie between the four of us. As usual, everything was outstanding.

We were in time to catch the LRT home and because Ian wanted to take us for one of his action packed activities – which supposedly started quite early – for convenience sake we stayed over at theirs. Again there was some walking involved to get home, but it was all for the greater good as we were stuffed yet again.

Tour D’ Tom Yum is certainly looking like it’s going to leave a few fat people in its wake.