5 weeks in Malaysia

So much to write, so little time!!

Okay, done heaps of travelling the last couple of weeks – well, since I arrived, really! I’m DEFINITELY staying in KL the whole of the next month at least, I need some time here to just chill out, and also give my bank account time to recover! :)

Penang. Georgetown, the capital, has a much slower pace of life than KL, the whole island is a really chilled out place. Not as touristy as I had expected either. Great food, as per reputation, and cheaper than in KL. It’s more Chinese than KL, I read it’s the only state in Malaysia where the Chinese are the majority ethnic group, and lots of them speak Mandarin – yay! :) It was nice to hear it again. The Snake temple was a little disappointing. There was a temple. And then there were snakes. Which, despite having been de-venomed, I had no desire to hold to have a picture taken, no matter how smiley the people in the sample shots looked! I guess I expected the snakes to be more a part of the temple itself. Anyway, we also went to the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia, and it was great. Huge, yes. Peaceful, very. It’s on top of a huge mountain, and the view is great – a large part of the island and down to the sea. Walking up to it is a long climb up stairs… that are lined on either side (and covered above with tarps or something) with stalls selling fake brand clothes and bags and various Malaysia souvenirs. Man! Not very inspiring! I’m sure the view on the way up would have been gorgeous too, had we been surrounded with forest rather than stalls! The temple is quite new, lots of it at the top is still being constructed. It was weird for me, I guess most places of worship I’ve visited as a tourist (or otherwise for that matter!) are pretty old. Speaking of old, the hotel that we stayed at was hilarious – like being in a time-warp. The numbers on the elevator buttons were assorted sizes and fonts (obviously had been randomly replaced as required), music played through a speaker on the ceiling, and the doors shut super quick so you had to rush in and out. Décor was quaint, and the air-con (though great to have) was strong and centrally controlled. When we asked the dude about it, he jumped up on a chair and fiddled a little with the ancient looking vent, which couldn’t really be fiddled with at all. Hmm. What did he think would change?! And the arrow on the ceiling pointing towards the window… what the?! But it was clean and cheap, so all was good. Good location too, although the desk staff weren’t much good when we asked them about a market etc. Ugh! So no bargain shopping Saturday evening, but we had a drink in the main nightlife area in Georgetown. Our cocktails came out one at a time (I hear it’s normal in Malaysia) and pretty slowly, but were tasty and fairly cheap compared with KL, although alcohol is super expensive here compared with food. Or most things, for that matter! When the number of rather intoxicated kiwi soldiers at our little table got too large we decided it was time to leave – I guess Penang CAN be a little touristy at times! We could only get an early bus back on Sunday so didn’t have time to do everything, but still a really fun weekend :)

Singapore. I checked Mum and Dad’s itinerary on Thursday arvo to see when they were getting home, and realised that their stop-over in Singapore was on the weekend! It’s not much further from KL than Penang (closer than Adelaide and Melbourne), and the intercity buses here are pretty good (or so I thought – more on that later!), so I decided to surprise them and go and meet up with them! It was great to hear all about their trip and to talk with them about life in KL so far. I stayed with Mel (thanks again!) and was great to catch up with her again, Aditi too! :) Singapore is great for shopping, although with the exchange rate everything (including the shopping) is about twice as expensive as in Malaysia, so… not much incentive to buy anything! The good thing was that Saturday was the start of the Mid-Autumn Festival, so we went to Chinatown in the evening and saw the parade/lights display/fireworks/lanterns. Actually the whole city looks gorgeous at the moment cos of all of the festivals. Chinatown was decorated for the Mid-Autumn festival, Little India for Deepavali, and I saw at least one area near a major mosque that was decorated for Ramadan and Hari Raya. It’s a good time of year to be in this part of the world :)

ETHNICITY
Ethnicity is at the forefront of people’s minds here. You put it on your resume, and tick the box when you sign up for frequent flyers with Malaysian Airlines. You go to a school that teaches in English, Chinese, Malay or Tamil. It influences your chances of getting into university, who you can marry, and which TV shows you understand. It’s hard for me to imagine growing up in a country where you and your family are one of the mainstream races yet you cannot communicate properly with lots of your fellow countrymen. Rafhael commented that people identify more with their ethnicity than with their nationality, its in the way that they introduce themselves. Three cultures are living side by side. Not together. It’s really not as cool as it sounds.

Stay tuned for an update on Ramadan, the Mid-Autumn festival, and inter-city bus travel…

Random stuff:
When you buy your ticket for the movies (after waiting in 1 of 7 lines for over 15 mins!) you get to choose your seat! Cool! Li’er said its cos otherwise everyone will fight over them… hehehe...

Going into the posh shopping centre near our place, they gave us a plastic cover to slip the umbrella into so it didn’t drip everywhere. Nice… :)

This week:
This week is a healthy week. Swimming every morning when I get up. It feels so luxurious, living in a place with a pool! And there’s hardly ever anyone using it. Ever. THEN I eat muesli and fruit. Rather than buying fried rice, fried noodles, doughnuts or other assorted fried stuff from the lady who sets up a stall just downstairs from our office! I love buying from her, she has a slightly different assortment of stuff each day, its really cheap and really tasty, and she’s so sweet! But... it's not really a long-term breakfast solution :)

Still trying to get the internet at home re-connected...

Update

Random observations:
-Eating is done with hands, chopsticks, or fork and spoon. Knives seem to be only for food preparation
-Pink dragonflies! Plus a frog and more squirrels. Huge cockroaches - think the old AIESEC AU office! Though only seen one in our apartment so far, and it was normal sized thank goodness!
-The government gets a squad around every so often to shoot the crows that flock in this row of trees next to a major road. I hope I’ve never around when they do it!
-Lots of customs re what you can and can’t do/eat/drink when you’re sick (I had a cold this week, too much aircon!)

Travel
Went to Ipoh last week with Farah from work, since there was a National Day holiday on Thursday. It’s about 200km North of KL and maybe the 3rd largest city in Malaysia. We stayed with her grandpa and visited limestone caves, temples, an old castle, shops, the salon (manicures and pedicures – cheaper than in KL!) and ate SO much Ipoh food!

This weekend I’m going to Penang with Carrey-Anne (South Africa) Li’er (Singapore) and Sharmini (Malaysia/Aust). It’s about 5 hours by bus, which seems to be the best way to travel inter-city here – cheap, clean, fairly fast. Seriously, nowhere on the peninsula is further from KL than Adelaide-Melbourne!! :)

Laundry Saga
We don’t have a machine so we have to take our washing out. The place Jeff was going to wasn’t so good, so I took my stuff to the laundry in our apartment. It’s only open 9-5 on weekdays, but it’s also open Saturdays, so I took the opportunity.
Saturday: Dropped it off, organised to pick it up on Sunday morning, all smiles.
Sunday: When I went down there it was shut and locked, and I was going out all day so I couldn’t go back later!
Monday: Monday’s our office doesn’t open till 9:30, so I went down just after 9 to get it – shut still! Running out of clean clothing…
Wednesday: I was going to Ipoh at lunchtime, so I organised to come home first and collect it. A note was on the door with a phone number. I couldn’t find my mobile at that moment and in any case only had 5 mins to change and pack before meeting Farah at the station. Took dirty clothes to Ipoh to wash at Farah’s grandpa’s place – no other option!
In the end Jeff collected it one day while I was away (he also had stuff there) and I was so relived. I was half expecting to see people walking around our complex in my clothing!!! Never again…

Sightseeing
Totally impressed with the public transport in KL! The city itself isn’t that big, it’s quite compact, so if you take the LRT (light rail) it’s cheap and fast to get around. Nothing like the nightmare of Beijing.

Saturday was my first time sightseeing in KL! I started with the National Museum. The most interesting part was the major display for Merdeka – Independence, since Independence day was the other week. The story of independence I’d read a bit about before, so no major surprises there, only that the way that it was described reminded me a bit of China and the Summer Palace etc. Stuff along the lines of hidden agendas of the west in profiting from their colonies. I didn’t think it was particularly hidden – why else do countries colonise?! But more interesting was the stuff about the future. Malaysia’s Vision 2020 includes becoming a developed nation. The ‘Malaysia Boleh’ slogan (Malaysia Can), getting past “First World Infrastructure, Third World Mentality”, and playing a larger role in world organisations and politics. KLCC was cool, yeah there’s lots of ridiculous brand label shops, but also Kinokuniya (my favourite Japanese bookshop!)and another good bookshop, ESPRIT, food court, etc etc. Chinatown was pretty touristy, full of fake stuff, got a couple of DVDs, one of them works okay!

Found a place to live! Will be moving to another AIESEC trainee apartment in the same complex – perfect! :)

Things I miss so far:
My cat
Sunday morning breaky with the girls
Plain food - and fresh vegetables!! It's all about the spices and the meat!
Wearing trackies
Internet at home
The West Wing

Getting the internet at home this week - more updates to come! :)