November 10, 2004
Celebrity Sightings: Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah Al-Mustain Billah ibni Almarhum Sultan Sir Abu Bakar Riayatuddin Al-Muadzam Shah
Ling and I spent the last several days hanging out in Kuala Lumpur at the great Mandarin Oriental hotel. Today when we were checking out, we saw a huge entourage waiting alongside a red carpet rolled out to the door of Mercedes S320. I decided to stick around and see who came out.
A few minutes later out came the Sultan of Pahang. This guy, of course, is opulently wealthy. I had to laugh though, he was wearing a two-piece short-sleeved safari suit the same grayish-green color mechanics' uniforms use to hide grease marks. Ok, fair enough, at least it looked comfortable and stylish in a retro kind of way, but I cackled when I saw he was wearing a wrinkled, faded meshback trucker's hat! It even had 'scrambled eggs' on the brim. I couldn't make out what the logo/embroidery said, but it was scarcely different than Cridland's Trucking! I swear the thing was so faded and abused that it looked like it had spent a long summer sitting on the bottom of some redneck's bass boat out on Lake Denton.
There must have been at least six cops, another half-dozen flunkies, and two dudes who were clearly the Sultan's "hired muscle," sweltering in their black Bell motorcycle jackets as they waited to run escort in their 750 Honda Nighhawk. I had to laugh again, because when the Sultan reached the big Mercedes sedan, he didn't get into the back seat, instead he popped open the front door and rode shotgun, leaving his sycophants and fixers to pile into the back.
Posted by Nils Blutig at November 10, 2004 10:51 PM | TrackBack