I LOVE walks. It’s a compulsory ritual whenever I arrive in a city for the first time. To just walk without a plan or destination in mind.

On top of getting a better feel of the geography of a place, you also see stories in the houses, gardens, bustle, rubbish, and people you pass by. I’ve encountered many interesting enclaves, shops, and quiet spots in busy, teeming cities.

In my two years of living in Melbourne, Australia, a while back – a very walkable city with generous sidewalks, I wore out the soles of my boots twice. I also saved a lot not having to buy tram or bus tickets. I also used these walks to eye busking spots in the city.

On my first trip as an adult to Tokyo, Japan 13 years ago, I stumbled upon a lone saxophonist practising facing a tree in a small lush public park next to my hotel. I could hear him faintly from my room window, providing the soundtrack like some cyberpunk film to my first morning in the megacity.

Just last year, at the start of an Indonesian tour, a friend took me on an afternoon ngopi (coffee drinking) foot tour of old Surabaya – from the maze of houses, lanes, crevices, and markets – sampling cups of coffees in small warkops, or coffee stalls, that dot the city (I was buzzing on caffeine by nightfall).  

Locally, one of my favourite walks in my teens in the 1990s was from my late grandparents’ house (which we visited every weekend) in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. It started southward along Jalan Sultan Yahya Petra (then Jalan Gurney), near the Malaysian Police Training Centre, then southeast left turn into Jalan Tun Razak, crossing it along westward at the Jalan Ampang intersection to the now-demolished Ampang Park Shopping Centre, the nation’s first mall and my usual destination. 

While pavements along most streets of Kuala Lumpur then were hardly what one may call “pavements” to begin with, it was always a leisurely stroll up and down the uneven curbs which sometimes was accompanied by my Walkman.

As the years went by, houses along the streets would magically metamorphose from a domestic abode to an office or whatnot with most eventually being demolished. I observed one corner bungalow that stood at the corner of the Jalan Gurney and Jalan Tun Razak T-junction change from a comfy looking family house with a lush flower garden to a sterile office (the garden paved into a parking lot), then a nightclub and later an abandoned house.

I haven’t followed up in a long while but I’m really curious now to find out what stands in that lot now. Those were old-British style bungalows with air wells and even secret entrances and rooms.

I know this because my uncle had an office in the neighbouring house at one point, facing the relatively serene Jalan Pesiaran Gurney and with a cendol stall right outside – my usual refuelling port on the walk back to my grandparents’.

I walk not necessarily for a healthy pursuit – even though this is a positive side effect save for the traffic smog and dust you may be exposed to.

Aside from being a primitive form of transport, walking is also a great way to be alone with your thoughts and ideas – a prolonged process of rumination with mild movements is sometimes just what the doctor ordered.

If I’m having some trouble with my songwriting, need new ideas, or more often, having an existential crisis, I take a walk. Sometimes in pre-Covid times, if it was raining, I’d swing by the closest mall and walk up and down the complex with my MP3 player or Discman, not buying anything (I’ve always wondered if malls would be open to the idea of hosting a marathon or fun walk).

When walking outdoors like my almost daily ritual of seven kilometres around my hometown (which has a health-based intent), I prefer to not listen to any music nor bring any devices. Just alone with my thoughts and my ears listening to what’s around me, the ambience, which is in its plainness very therapeutic.

I’ve also discovered unique spaces, abandoned houses, hidden fruit orchards, and vantage points in my hometown’s crooks and nannies.  

People in this postmodern day and age often complain about the need to slow down and reflect (Covid-19 kind of forced us into it) and go to great lengths (and costs) to meeting that duty to “slow down” with overseas vacations or without realising that we’ve been literally standing in the perfect slowing-down devices: our legs and feet.

Go ahead, get up and walk around the block. Just do it. You don’t need a destination or even a goal – journeys, even little, bite-sized ones, are underrated and affordable. – December 12, 2020.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.