My Malaysian Adventure!

My Malaysian Adventure with Bri
*FYI… this is a long post… There was a lot to see.
**Side note: There are very few pictures because my camera got stolen mid-trip.
No worries, though.

It all began on the flight from Phnom Penh to Kuala Lumpur. I met a cute Malaysia guy who bought me a Pepsi and taught me a bunch of Malay words (Thank you: Terima Kasih. Your Welome: Samua Samua), then just talked with me through my anxiousness on the flight. I’m not scared of flying, or of much, but I realized that it is basically the first trip that I’ve taken that hasn’t been led by anyone but me. Peace Corps is one easy trip, as were all my trips around the States and even my trek to Uganda (I was with Ugandans and didn’t have to figure anything out myself). But this trip is mine, and I made it.

I went on the trip with a gal named Bri, who lives in a different province as me in Cambodia. We have the same adventurous spirit and desire to live cheap and without guides. That may come into play later…we’ll see.

Day 2: Kuala Lumpur.

We woke up and got ready, the Petronas Towers in mind. After looking around the massive place, we finally realized how to go and get tickets, which we did. We took a quick walk through the city over to the other Tower, the KL Tower, which ended up as a massively touristy (Snow Park…?) and very disappointing adventure. We didn’t go up, just walked around, then went over to Chinatown for some hot and sour soup (delicious!!) Back at the towers, we watched a 3D movie (lame, though fortunately there was a pack of cute Uruguayan men who were keeping us entertained), then went up to the archway of the towers for a photo shoot (which meant that Bri was laying down on the carpet a lot). Then we celebrated with Dunkin Donuts. We kept walking, and found ourselves at a mall full of food – the Pavilion. There are 4 floors of food, or at least that is what it seemed – all foods, every kind of food. I ate Subway and tasted my favorite of the 31 Flavors – Chocolate Peanut Butter. And we also went to see “He’s Just Not That Into You,” in a real movie theatre, with real popcorn and soda, and real comfy seats. It was incredible!!

Day 3: Off to the Jungle.

In the morning, we had some of the best coffee I have ever tasted, from a little Indian restaurant – a little sweet, frothy, and lovely. Then we hopped on a bus to a bus to get to a bus to the jungle. While we were waiting for the little bus to the jungle, we indulged with some KFC – and this ended up being more eventful than I had previously expected.

While we were enjoying our delicious fried chicken, we were sitting near these two Malaysian guys, making minimal eye contact for the sheer reason of them being the only other people to look at. We got up to leave, slowed with our backpacks, and they timed their exit to match ours. They made beautiful kissing noises to our backs as we walked away and we thought that they had taken off. But then, after we are seated in our (very old and crappy local) bus, at the very back row, the cuter of the two boys came up to knock on the window and talk to us. We humored him, though he spoke zero English, and he began gesturing to try to get us into their big blue truck. We declined, and he tried a few more times, going back and forth between the truck and the bus to talk to his friend and then back to gesture to us. We once again thought they had gone after they pulled up close to the bus along the side and then peeled out of the parking lot. But, alas, they showed up just after the bus started moving and followed the bus for a good solid half hour, even after the bus stopped twice to let out passengers.

Fortunately, they lost interest and we went on enjoying our hour long bus ride to the jungle. Now, let me set the scene for the rest of this ride. We are sitting in the very back row, our backpacks strewn about the long seat, and the rest of the bus is Malay people of various ages – there is a pack of teenagers, some children running about, an older man who is chatting to the rest of the bus, and a few more scattered here and there. The teens are the closest to us – a bunch of boys and a girl who keep changing their seats. It begins to rain, and the old man motions for us to close our windows. The rain is pouring across the bus away from me, so I don’t bother, but it is hitting Bri directly and her attempts to close the window in front of her fail as it plops down as soon as she lets go of it. She closes it. It falls. She tries. It falls. One of the teens had been paying attention, and with the encouragement of his friends came to sit right in front of us and closed the window. It fell again, still spraying Bri and even me with rain water. So, he closed it again and held it up – and the bus went wild, with some sporadic clapping and cheers. I adore the Malay people.

We ended up in the little village adjacent to the entrance of the jungle and found a cute little hostel with a cool guy named Zeck at the helm. It was nothing special, but we had our own room (with some 8 beds), free breakfast, and lots of Bob Marley music. Plus, one of Zeck’s protégé’s practiced his English with us and let me listen to some cool Malay tunes from his native north.

Day 4: The Jungles at Teman Negara Park.

We started off bright and early with the barest of supplies, and with no guide. That’s how we roll. We began trekking around, seeing unusual plants, hearing cool sounds, and just experiencing the awesomeness of the whole thing. We walked around on the longest Canopy Walkway in the world, which was super cool – a bird’s eye view of the whole area. We kept trekking about, and Bri took a dip in the river (which got her a leech bite) and I got a few cuts on my feet (which got me two leech bites). We passed a couple of other people on the trail – we “raced” a group of middle aged tourists to the walkway without them knowing so, of course, and won; we chatted with a few bird-watchers who had very soothing voices and lots of fancy bird watching tools (including a pricey ipod and speakers that played bird noises) and they let me look through their binoculars at the bird that they had found; we had a stare down with a semi-odd fella near one of the hides. Side note: at this point, Bri had taken off her shirt for the heat and the bird watchers had to have noticed that something was amiss as she ties a kroma around herself for some basic modesty… we weren’t expecting to run into anyone in the jungle wilderness. We climbed a mountain in the jungle as well, just a little one, but thrilling nonetheless. The more thrilling part of that adventure was going down the mountain… the descent was pretty brutal.

After a little lunch (where we were tagged as “backpackers,” something I had never considered myself as before then), we went to a cave. It was a good afternoon trek, as we were about exhausted with pushing ourselves so far from before. We went right past a native village on our way and even saw a few people milling about (we didn’t want to disturb anyone there and we weren’t dressed for visiting). We got to the cave and followed a very intelligent rope that made a trail through the steep rocks and bumps of the interior. Did I mention that this was a bat cave? A few of the bigger slabs on the ceiling had hundreds of bats resting in their upside down hang – and it was incredible! Well, not only were there bats, but there was also bat guano, and by the time we emerged from that cave we were covered in all kinds of nasty. It was worth it – there were so many sights and so much to do there.

We finished the evening with some food as we watched a volleyball match in the sand. In the town, all the restaurants are floating and everything is on or near the river – which made for some outstanding views of the area. There was a beautiful bend with some rapids right outside the hostel window, and we listened to that every moment of the day.

Day 5: More traveling…

After a chill morning relaxing by the jungle, we took a slow boat back to the main city. We sat behind a beautiful French family with children that kept getting in trouble for spraying water on us (though we just laughed at it). Then began the long wait for the train to the north. We filled the time by chatting with people – I met a lovely German couple who were traveling for the better part of a year all around Asia. Talk about a dream vacation – they saved money for a few years and quit everything and went. Then there was a great Haitian-American man who was so gentle and sweet, and we talked about life here and there and everywhere. Then a young French/German guy who works for a cigarette company and makes more money than I can fathom, who was headed for the jungle on vaca from his work in Switzerland/Singapore/Malaysia. And a few Eastern European gals who were beyond grateful for the loan of our English People magazine. And finally, in the train station, while we waited for the train the was about 4 hours late, we played Yahtzee with a pair of German gentleman, Thomas and Florian, who we ended up traveling with to the islands.

Day 6 and 7: Palau Perhentians

We took the first speedboat out to the islands, a good half an hour journey, and made it to the most beautiful place I have ever seen. In these islands the water is crystal clear, the sand is soft and white, the view out to the ocean is unmarred and sweetened with green mountainous islands scattered around… the waves are gentle and create lovely white foam as they crash on the beach… and even the cheapest housing on the beach has a five star view of the ocean.

We hopped into the South China Sea and spent the day lazing about and enjoying the sunshine and the company of our new German friends – they are mathematicians, by the way, and they drew a map of Germany in the sand for us to show us where they are from.

The next day we went snorkeling – wow! There were a bunch of us – Thomas and Florian, a Dutch couple, a young British couple, and us. I had never done anything like this before, and it was so incredible! We went to a site with lots of fish in every color and size and shape – then some Malay guys gave me some bread and the fish swarmed up and ate it from my hands. Some of them even bit me, an understandable mistake given how pale I am. Fun fact: the plankton in this particular sea sting your skin for a moment as you swim by – it is a tingly feeling. I saw a little shark in my snorkeling adventure… and I touched one of the giant sea turtles as he came up for air – a little graze on his giant shell before he dove back down to the bottom to eat some more.

After this adventure, we trekked over to the other side of the island to watch the sun set over the sea and ended up chatting with a cool Indian-American guy who works in… Cambodia! I spent my evening chatting with him and a bunch of young Brits and Canadians, a big group of party-goers on vacation from school and life.

Day 8 and 9: More travel and Singapore!

And then the island adventure was over… and we left, meeting a cool French guy and a chill British dude on the way back. We traveled with them (a good choice, I think, because the taxi drivers in the little town ran some sort of cruel monopoly and they tried to involve the public buses as well. Our Frenchman told the bus that he had better let us on… and he did). We went up, hoping to catch a bus to Singapore (though they were all gone) and ended up down in KL again, before we backtracked to Singapore.

We never actually intended on a trip to Singapore, and I do wish I would have had more time there, but because we only wanted to meet up with another group of Peace Corps travelers, we did that and then took off for more adventure elsewhere.

It went something like this though… we got in, got lost (because it’s been 9 months since I have seen public transport of any kind), found ourselves in Little India, which was the coolest place ever – so full of life and energy – found some housing, took a shower, went out with the crew, played some pool and got some martinis, got home, and woke up to leave. I did meet a young fella from Colorado who reminded me of my cousin Drew (only with long blond hair and experience in hole-digging in Antarctica) who was sweet enough to buy me a drink and give Dan some much needed bro-time… The other Malaysia crew from Peace Corps was 3 girls and Dan… add 2 more girls and he is severely outnumbered.

Days 10-14: Kuching, Sarawak, Borneo.

Fun fact: Sarawak, which is on the Borneo side of Malaysia, is the only place in Malaysia that is treated like its own county. I have a special passport stamp from it to prove it!

Kuching was by far my favorite place in Malaysia. There was something about the atmosphere of the town – the friendly people, the lack of tourists, the general ambiance of the place – that just made me fall in love. “Kuching” means “cat” in the Malay language, and just to let you know that, the town has three different cat statues, as well as an entire museum devoted to cats. The town also has a cool mix of people, with lots of Chinese, some Malays and Indians, and a ton of native tribes who have assimilated into the Kuching culture. There is a huge mix of religions around as well – we saw a Catholic Church, a Muslim Mosque, and Temples from the Buddhist, Hindu, and Sikh faiths. But it seemed to me that there was no fighting, no animosity or stigma between these different people. It was incredible!

Our first night in Kuching, we walked around the town, finding things to eat and do, getting the lay of the land and chatting with the locals. We watched the sun set on the river as several mosques played their call to evening prayer and the sounds surrounded us. On our way home, we stumbled upon a big party at one of the Chinese temples, and our curious stares drew curious stares back, and then got us an invite to join the party! We accepted, and a lovely fella walked us through the steps of prayer according to the temple, with incense lighting and kneeling, then told us about the history of the temple and the party that we were attending. Then he sat us down at a table, gave us a beer, and introduced us to the man sitting across from us… the mayor of the town! It was here that we saw the first example of mixing cultures --- James, the mayor, is Catholic, his friend was Muslim, and we were all at the Buddhist Temple party with the Chinese crowd. Plus, after our party, we stopped by McDonalds and met up with a few Africans who are studying there. We got home and watched some people play Chinese poker with narrow and colorful cards, then crashed.

The next day, we moved to a different hostel, one that was cheaper and in a better part of town. It is run by a couple of cool guys from the Iban tribe – with a few friends involved. I had so much fun I never wanted to leave… and we didn’t really. We went on a few quests for food (mainly McDonalds or pizza or ice cream) and to a night market (which is just like the Cambodian markets except in the evening and with more unusual fare) and for some shopping and town exploration, but mainly, we had fun with the guys in the hostel. There was quite a crowd there – a cool French lady doing her thing, a brother and sister from mainland Malaysia, another brother/sister pair from Britain, a guy from Australia, and a couple from the Netherlands. All those people, along with the locals, made for a few interesting evenings… One night the local masseuse came around and fixed up my back (After he rubbed my arm for a minute he told me, “There’s something wrong with your stomach; it doesn’t feel good,” and I said, “Wow! How did you know that?). Another night, we watched Stephen King’s “It” and scared ourselves to death. Another evening gave me a fake tattoo on my shoulder – a traditional Iban tattoo of a stylized hornbill for protection – which I want to make permanent.

And… we saw Orang-utans!!!!!!!
Fun fact: The word, “Orang utans,” means “people of the jungle” in Malay.
So we went on a grand excursion to see these cool people. It took a few tries – we had trouble waking up a few mornings, and also we had no clue where we were headed, so it was a little more difficult than we imagined. But then we found the van to take us, for only a few dollars, all the way to the Sanctuary and back, and we found ourselves in this cool place! We also met a neat Aussie lady who had been everywhere and a Finnish couple (I’ve never met a Finlandian before!) We had to walk down a bit of a path, to a little viewing area where they had set some food out, and then we saw them… There was a mom with a little toddler, who amused himself by swinging about with little limbs, another mom with a newborn baby, and a few more animals of different sizes and personalities. They were so amazing! I was so awed by them and how free they seemed, how similar to us they are. I loved it!

We left the next day, with “heavy feet,” as our famous tattoo artist said… (Check out National Geographic Taboo: Tattoos to see the Iban guy we met)… and ended up back in KL for one last McDonalds adventure. We also met a German gal flying solo, a very sweet Swedish family, and a traveling American guy whose leftover soda we took (The airport has expensive things). We also, oddly, met up with an American couple whose roots are in south Cambodia in the nursing field – I say odd because they took the same flight from Phnom Penh to KL as we did and the same flight from KL to Phnom Penh as we did… and we saw them both times!

Phnom Penh was busy, and flooded, and it made me sad for a few minutes, until I realized that I did actually miss some things about this country. I sure missed my host family…