The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
by Mark Haddon

223.  And this is another description because Siobhan said I should do descriptions and it is a description of the advert that was on the wall of the little train station opposite me, but I can’t remember all of it because I thought I was going to die. And the advert said DREAM HOLIDAY - THINK KUONI - IN MALAYSIA, and behind the writing there was a big photograph of 2 orangutans and they were swinging on branches and there were trees behind them but the leaves were blurred because the camera was focusing on the orangutans and not the leaves and the orangutans were moving.

And orangutan comes from the Malaysian word oranghutan , which means man of the woods.

And adverts are pictures or television programs to make you buy things like cars or Snickers or use an Internet Service Provider. But this was an advert to make you go to Malaysia on a holiday.

And Malaysia is in Southeast Asia and it is made up of peninsular Malaysia and Sabah and Sarawak and Labuan and the capital is Kuala Lumpur and the highest mountain is Mount Kinabalu, which is 4,101 meters high, but that wasn’t on the advert.

And Siobhan says people go on holidays to see new things and relax, but it wouldn’t make me relaxed and you can see new things by looking at earth under a microscope or drawing the shape of the solid made when 3 circular rods of equal thickness intersect at right angles. And I think that there are so many things just in one house that it would take years to think about all of them properly. And also, a thing is interesting because of thinking about it and not because of it being new.

For example, Siobhan showed me that you can wet your finger and rub the edge of a thin glass and make a singing noise. And you can put different amounts of water in different glasses and they make different notes because they have what are called different resonant frequencies, and you can play a tune likeThree Blind Mice. And lots of people have thin glasses in their houses and they don’t know you can do this.

And the advert said Malaysia, truly Asia.

Stimulated by the sights and smells, you realise that you have arrived in a land of contrasts. You seek out the traditional, the natural and the cosmopolitan. Your memories stretch from city days to nature reserves to lazy hours on the beach. Prices from £575 per person.

Call us on 01306 747000, see your travel agent or visit the world at www.kuoni.co.uk.

A world of difference.

And there were three other pictures, and they were very small, and they were a palace and a beach and a palace.