Malaysia

We managed to take just about every mode of transportation on this vacation. Aeroplanes, taxis, buses, cars, trains, boats, ferries, monorails, subways, elevators AND yes even escalators. The following posts tell a little bit about the REST of our travels after departing Kuala Lumpur. I hope you enjoy.

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I’ll always have a place in my heart for Cambodia. While I really do enjoy it here, despite the hardships I’ve had, and the things we deal with on a daily basis; ... I must say that we most definitely live in the wild, wild, west of SE Asia. Not that’ I’ve seen all there is to see in SE Asia, but I’ve now been to Vietnam, Malaysia & Singapore (and the Thailand Airport, but I know that doesn’t really count) but still, after travelling in and around a few of these other countries, I do feel as though we currently live in the wild, wild west. On this trip we didn’t see a whole lot of motos with 40 chickens hanging upside down, tied onto the back travelling down the road, or huge squealing pigs on the back of a moto, nor tractors carrying a semi-truck load of bamboo shelves tied together cruising slowly down the road, nor people honking their horns as a means of general traffic safety. There just wasn’t a whole lot of that going on.

After a few days in Kuala Lumpur (which like I mentioned in an earlier post, was a city with a bit of some culture shock for us…with all the buildings, transportation, modern amenities etc.)… we headed on a bus to go to the North Eastern part of the country. After a few days in the city it was nice to get into the countryside and see what some of that was like. Some of it was quite rural and somewhat comparable to the Cambodian countryside; although I do have to mention we did see a lot more air conditioning units in some of these smaller houses. (It’s amazing what a little oil off the coast of your country can do for it, ya know?) Also, in much of the countryside there were MANY, many palm oil plantations. They may be one of the top exporting countries of palm oil in the world? Anyways—lots and lots of rows of palm oil trees lined the majority of the countryside that we saw. (There is a bit of controversy on all the palm oil plantations as they have cut down many, many rainforests to make these plantations….so keep that in mind when you enjoy your next bite of Nutella, or use your next product containing palm oil. Nonetheless, it’s a major crop and palm oil is used in many products that are consumed daily by millions of people.) And this is where a lot of it comes from. Anyway….on our bus, we headed up to a bigger town called Kuala Terengganu on the North East coast.

Wait, wait, wait…. let me rewind and go back to our BUS ride. This too was a bit of culture shock. Here we were on this double-decker bus, seemed really quite new and nice; spotlessly clean, air-conditioned with even a garbage can on board. The ride was an 8 hour bus ride; but it was completely quiet; almost everyone slept and there was no annoying karaoke music the entire ride. NOR did the bus driver honk his blaring horn once; not even Once! I do suppose that’s partly because Malaysia has actual traffic rules, and there’s no need to really honk on a divided highway when everyone’s following traffic rules.
Anyhow, it was probably one of the nicest bus rides we had been on in a long time. Quite the contrast from the usual trip in a bus cross country in Cambodia.

We went to one rest stop; (this was before we had figured out that a lot of the people were fasting for Ramadan during the day) and wondered why no one was eating. We wondered if we could eat on the bus (b/c no one else was) – but we did and didn’t get in trouble. Anyway, we got off the bus and I went to find the bathroom. I saw a sign with a woman wearing a headscarf; and figured that’s the way I should go. I walked into this room; that most definitely was not a bathroom. I saw places that you could shower, or wash up and then a large square sort of stage, platform – or maybe altar is the best word. It took me a few moments to realize that I was in a Muslim prayer room. Embarrassed, (luckily no one was in there) I walked out and later found the actual bathroom.

We made it to Kuala Terengganu after about 8 hours. Walked around. It was a pretty decent sized small city. It even had a KFC, McDonalds and Pizza Hut. It had a small strip of a China town, which was the only place you could get a beer (Muslims don’t drink alcohol). It definitely didn’t have many tourists and those that did stop through were mostly on their way to some waterfalls, or to the islands. In the eastern part of the country you’ll find a lot more predominately Muslim communities, and this one lived up to that fact.

The first night, after we found a place to stay, we were able to catch the dusk Ramadan feast that the city had. Food tents were set up everywhere and they had quite the array of things to eat at a really good price. We sampled all kinds of things. They had lots of chicken dishes, some things paired with rice; lots of different types of pastries, and meats and sandwiches with many different types of sauces. A lot of them had a bit more of a sweet quality than we’re used to, but for the most part everything was pretty good. We picked up a few items that they bagged up for us to take over to the park and enjoy. We chose a bench by a tree and ate up and enjoyed. It was interesting to observe this type of a community gathering. At least compared to what we’re used to in the states; if there’s a gathering with food tents in the park… I guess we’re used to some sort of entertainment, or music or something going on…but here everyone just had their food – and sat quietly and ate it in the park. There was little to no commotion, just everyone enjoying their dinner on a peaceful evening.

I guess that night was the most that I had felt out of place on the entire trip… being it was a predominantly Muslim town; nearly ALL the women were wearing head scarves, and I also noticed that they all their limbs were covered with long pants and long sleeves. While I felt as though I was dressed pretty conservatively (at least it’s good enough for in Cambodia) I had capri’s on and my knees were covered, and my shoulders were covered as well;…but I did feel different having my neck and collar bone showing, my hair, and even the small part of my leg that was exposed. It was such a different feeling and it did make me feel a bit self conscious. Later that night I read in our tour guide book, that in some of the north eastern parts of the country, women should take note of what the locals are wearing, and dress conservatively and when appropriate have all limbs covered. It was such a different feeling, and I guess was the first time I had been in a place or situation that made me feel like that.

On that note, despite the very conservative dress that women wear; it Also was interesting to observe their fashions and trends. Even though they’re very much covered up in cloth, it doesn’t mean that they don’t get to make their outfits look pretty. I noticed many different patterns and colors of headscarves and robes that they wore, and in the local pharmacy shops they sold many of the same brands of makeup you could find back home. There were LOTS of different shoe stores with tons of different fashionable shoes available. So despite the very traditional ways of dress they had, it was interesting to see that the women still had many ways of expressing themselves in what they wear.

We spent two nights in Kuala Terengganu. The city had a trolly-sort of tour bus that’d take you to points of interest in the town for free. We went to the National Museum which had quite a display of things in regards to country’s history, as well as a very nice garden and landscape area and a maritime section dedicated to traditional boats on display. The next stop was the Masjid Kristal (Crystal Mosque) but actually, that was around lunch time and I think that the bus driver had just stopped there only to pray. Regardless, it was an interesting structure made of steel and glass, near the river. After that we just strolled around. We went to China town for dinner the 2nd night and then just relaxed in our hotel room as the next day we were off to the Kuala Besut Jetty by bus to catch a ferry to Perhentian Kecil Island.

On a side note….one of the reasons we left Cambodia during this time period was because Pchum Ben, a 15 day religious festival was taking place at that time. Not that we have anything against the religious festivals in Cambodia (or anywhere really); but it just so happens that our house is 50m from a Pagoda; and during any sort of festival they tend to blast music out of about 14 loudspeakers stacked on top of each other starting at 4am until late into the night. Anyhow- in an effort to avoid that and get some extra sleep we thought it’d be great to schedule our vacation over that time.

Well, turns out that in the Muslim religion in Malaysia, during Ramadan, it is also customary to broadcast over loudspeakers chants and songs in the early morning and late in the evening. While we thought we were escaping such customs, it turns out it was quite similar in Malaysia. (Except for the fact that they had better quality loudspeakers, so the sound was a little more crisp. Again, it’s amazing what a little oil of the coast of your country will do for it.) Oh well. For the most part we were staying in places that were fairly well enclosed, so the volume of it all wasn’t too much of a bother.