Do people see dirty old man when they see me, or is it just an assumption that gets made about all white guys in certain parts of KL? I’m asking the question because my office is just off Bukit Bintang so, when I’m wandering around to do some banking, find somewhere to eat and all the normal daily escapee-the-office stuff, I have to walk past some of the ‘massage’ establishments that litter the sidewalk of this most salubrious parts of the city.

After a while you just tune it out but even after the same girls see you pass and ignore them day-after-day for weeks they still shout at you across the pavement. And shout is the operative word. With buses and taxis parking and pulling off by the side of the road there’s no room for subtlety. It takes a thick skin to scream ‘You want young girl?’ at a never-ending stream of strangers. It’s also extremely disconcerting to have it yelled at you in front of 50 or so people waiting for their bus home.

What do they expect? That in front of this huge audience I’m going to stop and walk over and negotiate the rates for sex with an underage girl? I guess some people must do exactly that. And the weirdest thing is that they seem to be more wary of DBKL than the cops. It’s only when the DBKL enforcement vans come around that the girls disappear for a couple of hours. The best one is the madam who sits directly behind the tourist police post on BB; she once yelled at me ‘You want fuck’ outside the door of McDonalds. At 10am. On a Monday morning.

I guess that would have been the ideal time to discuss an off-peak discount. But the fact remains that I’m not into buying what they’re offering. Don’t get me wrong, I love red light districts: Soho is my favourite part of London. And I spent three months in Paris living just off Pigalle. These areas have their own special energy, and it’s always interesting to watch people emerge from the brothel doorways, scanning the street with more than a hint of embarrassment before surreptitiously rejoining the pavement traffic and blending back in.

But the action on BB is loud, blatant and distasteful. And that it happens in one of the city’s supposedly flagship shopping locations makes it all the stranger. Pick up some Prada at Pavilion and get your shank shined a two minute walk away. Go figure.