Postcard from Sepang

The name on everybody's lips is Chinatown, or to be more specific, a small section of Petaling Street. This is the site of a hustling, bustling market where foreign visitors stock up on highly dodgy copies of luxury goods at rock bottom prices. Rolex watches, Burberry handbags, Mont Blanc pens, even replica F1 team shirts... all are available and openly on sale with no apparent interest from the authorities.

Word soon got round the paddock, and since the first Malaysian GP in 1999 it's been a must for many members of the paddock, despite the fact that it's quite trek from the big hotels where F1 folk stay to downtown. It's a wonderful place, and pure entertainment, even if you're not buying.

Wander around in the evening and you'll bump into dozens of team members, who are instantly recognisable as they generally hunt in packs. And it's not just the foot soldiers. A certain Eddie Jordan is a market regular, and one watch dealer even has a catalogue signed by the team boss.

EJ always has an eye for a bargain, and quite rightly he knows that he can get away with it. You or I might look silly trying to pass off a Gucci briefcase or £10,000 watch as the real thing, but if it's attached to a multi millionaire like Eddie, everyone sitting alongside him up in first class will assume that it's genuine...

The authorities have finally latched on to the tourist appeal of the place, and since last year the whole street has been covered by a brand new roof. It's not a tatty old piece of canvas, but an amazing metal and glass contraption that looks like it's been borrowed from the Athens Olympic stadium. Malaysia's monsoon afternoon rain, which used to rather spoil trading, now runs straight down its huge support posts and into the drains.

It's impressive, but detracts a little from the ragged ambience of the place. Another attempt at cleaning things up has also backfired. Until this year the market was a hotbed for anything flat, round and silver, namely DVDs, CDs, software and video games. Anything you wanted was freely available, at a fraction of the price of original copies. Last year I even saw a senior Ferrari team member picking up some handy CAD/CAM programmes...

However, a recent change of prime minister has rather spoiled the fun. Apparently pressure from US copyright interests caused him to send in the cops and clean things up. The whole business has now gone underground, at least to a degree.

Quality software has all but disappeared, and instead of proper stalls selling stacks of boxed DVDs, we now have folding tables displaying booklets of covers. Choose the one you want, and a little guy disappears for five minutes, and comes back with the disc. This way if there's a police raid they have no real product on view, and if they have to do a runner, they leave only the worthless paperwork behind.

If the sellers think you're a serious punter, and judge that you're not working for the FBI, they might even take you back to their base. Thus through the past week little gangs of F1 mechanics have been led through the dingy backs alleys and up dark staircases to anonymous rooms where the stock is stashed. The guys make their selection, do a deal, and leave happy.

Trouble is most are going to be disappointed when they get home. In the past if you knew what you were doing you could get perfect copies of genuine DVDs, with all the extras intact and even, for the connoisseur of these things, DTS sound. A pretty good deal at about £2 a hit, and absolutely as good as what you'd buy back home.

There was always some rubbish on sale too, but now 99% of what's sold in the market as 'DVDs' are actually highly dodgy copies of copies of murky videos, sometimes shot with a camcorder from the back of the cinema. That's if you can get them to work at all.

Of course the good stuff is - umm, so I'm told - still available, but it's not under the nose of the punters in Petaling Street market. You just have to know where to look...