Malaysia in a nutshell... This is a quick summary of what I did, saw, and ate in Malaysia. There were many cultural things to see, but I was most impressed with the outdoors activities and beauty. Malaysia is also full of all kinds of delicious and different types of foods from what we have in the U.S., so I highlighted that as well :-)
Day 1: KL Arrival!
Events/Highlights: After a few hours of napping my friend Miza (my lovely Malaysian friend that was living in the US for years but recently moved back to KL) came to my hotel with her cousin. We spent the day shopping and walking around Bukit Bingtang, the semi-upscale neighborhood where I was staying.
Notables/Random Thoughts: Learned that there are various grades of fake purposes – hello intellectual property infringement! NYC Chinatown is full of fake purses/bags galore, but they are clearly fake and you’d be crazy to pay more than $10 for any of them. But in KL there are actually stores where you can buy purses that are “90%” real and cost about 1/3 of a the real deal’s full price. Who would have known?
Food: Drank unidentifiable fruit juice from the street – at first was delicious but then had a weird aftertaste. Ate delicious chicken and rice for lunch – traditional Malay fast food.
Day 2: Exploring KL
Events/Highlights: Wake up and take a run around Petronas towers (famous architecture and previously the tallest buildings in the world) – run was short b/c it was about 110 and 100% humidity! Visited the following sites: top of KL towers (very tall building), Malaysian National Museum of History, Islamic Center/Museum (AMAZING architecture and exhibit – must see in KL), Central Market (little trinkets), foot massage, and dinner in Chinatown. I also visited the Islam mosque where I had to wear purple robes – check out the photo. The Islam Museum was definitely the highlight of the day – awesome exhibit on the architecture of the famous mosques worldwide, and also exhibits on the practice of Islam in different parts of Asia and the Middle East.
Food Highlights: baby octopus, fried mushrooms, gelfite-fish like slices with veggies in the middle (kind of yucky), dessert of boiled soymilk or something with this caramel sauce. I also discovered a nestle chocolate drink called Milo – kind of like Yohoo, but better!
Day 3: Malacca
Events/Highlights: Malacca is an old colonial town known for its mixing of Chinese and Malay cultures/peoples and also for the mixing of Indian-Malay cultures (to a lesser extent). It is located about 3 hours south of KL and I took a public bus there – which was quite an experience, I was definitely the only white girl at the bus station. The bus was about an hour late and the driver blasted Malaysian pop music the whole ride – loved it! Malacca was beautiful – visited many ruins, a really weird Malaysian culture museum with exhibits on body self mutilation and kites. The highlight was definitely the Baba-Nonya heritage museum. Baba-Nonya is the name given to people of the mixed Chinese-Malaysian descent– the Babas are the men and the Nonyas are the women. With a unique and interesting cultural heritage, they were quite wealthy back in the day; so the part of town where they used to live has elaborate houses and is really very cute! The heritage museum is an old house where a wealthy Baba-Nonya family used to live around the turn of the century and holds various beautiful and elaborate pieces of furniture and art from all over the world. Overall great day, but the bus ride back to KL was kind of crazy – it took under 2 hours to travel the same distance from the morning bus ride of over 3 hours!
Food Notables: Really delicious coconut dessert covered in some sort of sweet dough. Ate mee-siam for lunch (shout out to Dave – your fav dish is Baba-Nonya.
Day 4: Around KL
Events/Highlights: This day was by far the longest and most jam-packed! I started off taking a long public train ride to Batu Caves – my first subway/train experience in KL during which I learned that there are separate cars for women (large Muslim population). Batu Caves are large natural caves that were discovered by the Brits but became a religious site for Muslims about 200 years ago. They were a great workout to see – almost 300 steps to the top! There were goats and cows in the caves, not really sure how they got there... See pic below for goat (just for you Gill!).
Then went hiking in Templar Place for about 2 hours with a nice German couple I met – pretty hike with lots of waterfalls. I also saw a really cute mama monkey with her baby!
We attempted to find another hike that required walking along the highway but the girl fell into a construction site and was covered in mud! So we decided to call it quits and took a public bus back to KL. Once in KL I split from the German couple and walked to the botanical garden, orchid and hibiscus garden, and bird park (Dad – you would have absolutely loved all these places).
Then started to walk back to my hotel, but decided that I had done enough walking for the day so hopped in a cab and got a foot massage on the way home J
Food Notables: Spicy chicken jerky from Chinatown, sweet pancake filled with ground peanuts (amazing), porridge (thick rice soup with fish and fresh ginger), and soup with beef. The last two things I ate with the front desk guy at my hotel – he was getting off work and invited me to dinner. We ate at this roadside place by the guesthouse - so good :-)
Rest of Trip
Events: I spent the next two days in Cherating, which is a small beach town on the east coast of Malaysia. The beach was beautiful but the water was so hot! It was probably around 100 degrees outside and the ocean was the temperature of bath water – so it wasn’t all that refreshing.
I met some people on the bus and they ended up staying at the same little cottage as me – Tanjung Inn. The place is pretty rustic, but was great for 2 nights. The highlight of Cherating was a night firefly tour on the river – it was absolutely amazing, fireflies everywhere and flying all around us! Oh, and there was really amazing grilled fish out there too. Lastly, I am not a cat-lover but there were some really cute kittens at the Inn that loved my backpack!
After 2 days in Cherating I hitched a ride with a Malaysia guy that was staying at the hotel and was passing through Taman Negara – a jungle in the middle of the country. I spent about 2 days hiking in Taman Negara – really beautiful but unbelievably hot!
The hiking was great, but I really enjoyed the boat ride back to the town where I had to catch the bus. The boat was a very basic wooden boat (see pics) with just one motor, and I had it all to myself! So relaxing J
I then took another bus back to KL – this bus ride was one of the worst ever! Well, the driver was playing crazy techno music and blasting the A/C and then the girl next to me decided to pull out her computer and blast Malaysian pop music. Needless to say, I definitely did not sleep.
I arrived in KL around 8 pm and met my friend Miza for dinner. The next morning I walked around a very upscale mall – this mall was nicer than almost any mall in the States, any designer you can imagine. No clue who can afford to shop there! Then it was time to begin my next adventure in India – stay tuned for the India arrival (which was October 20th)!
Food Notables: My last night in Malaysia I finally tried Durian. The durian is famous because it is one of their national fruits - but is a bit controversial because it has a very potent smell that many/most people (including myself) don't like. In fact, some hotels and other public places post signs "No Durian Allowed!" So the verdict is that it tastes ok for one bite, but couldn't handle much more than one or two pieces....
