Malaysia
MALAYSIA | Wednesday, 16 April 2008 | Views [62] | Comments [1]
Well I am COMPLETELY in love with Malaysia. all the little stuff that
annoys me in VN, either constantly or only sometimes (people pushing,
rubbish, pollution, transport system, people trying to rip you off,
impoliteness [by our standards], cultural and ethnic monotony [and
especially the judgements on you if you don't belong to this], etc etc)
was completely missing in Malaysia. In KL everyone speaks perfect
english (which makes for a nice change, though i do like the challenge
of it not being so in VN), taxi drivers tell you proper prices and
directions and help for free and with a smile, people randomly walk
past you on the street and smile or say hello, they can queue properly
and understand the concept of personal space (though this was weird for
me cos i was just doing what i do here, bumping into people without a
second thought, but had to stop myself cos i was being rude), and are
even westerner sized (and honestly dont care if you are a midget or a
giant). the multiculturalism, acceptance, tolerance and friendliness is
amazing. its like an ethnic utopia - everyone just does what they want
to do religion/clothes/behaviour-wise, and keep their judgements about
whatever others do to themselves. ahhhhhhhhhh! on the downside, i did
miss motobikes, cars truly suck - traffic jams and exhausts everywhere.
but still 'clean'! reminded me a lot of sydney actually: skyscrapers,
lots of cars and road tunnels - but better. Funnily enough for 3 girls
that can handle Hanoi traffic (that which terrifies most western
road-crossers), we were scared of crossing the big scary roads in KL -
the cars were going a good 60/70km (not the 30/40km we are used to),
and weren't going to swerve around us like they should if we just
stepped in front of them.
Lucy, Yvonne and I arrived Sat lunchtime, and cruised to a friend of
Yvonne's place (he's living there working for DFAT/Aus Embasssy). we
went to the worlds largest open air bird park (a giant net in the sky
keeping them in) then to the national mosque (obviously couldnt go
inside) out to dinner where i had fantastically spicy food (yay! am
missing this!) and then out to a bar where, funnily enough, no police
turned up to be bribed or instill fear in the crowds. we walked home
past the petronas towers (the huge famous double towers with connecting
bridge) to Nigel's place. Sunday morning we got a taxi to the Forestry
Research Institute which was very cool - its an ex-mine site that now
looks to me like primary rainforest (ie stuff thats never been
disturbed) in only 80 years of rehabilitiation. they use it now to find
uses for rainforest plants. you can walk through a path, to a canopy
walk which is literally a ladder with a plank on it hung from tree tops
30m above the ground and look over KL, then down to a waterfall and
picnic area. from there we taxied to Frasers Hill, and ex-British hill
station that, in Von's words, is "a tiny British hamlet, but with
tropical weather and nice people". Was in the middle of the jungle so
we spent 2 days walking through jungle, jogging around the hills, even
went swimming at the base of a 30m high waterfall (this actually really
hurts when it hits you!). Back to KL on Monday night, Tuesday we went
running *shock horror* in the park (which even has a nice bouncy
rubbery track for running), had the best coffees ever (ok possibly
slight exaggeration but still), and then cruised out on the train and a
ferry to Crab Island, a weird fishing town entirely built on stilts on
a mangrove/mud island. Tuesday night we went shopping for electronics
(so now i can backup my photos and stop freaking out i'm going to lose
them) and went up KL tower (not the double petronas towers - it was
closed - but nearly as high). 3:30am brought getting up in order to fly
back to HN, getting me to work by 10:30, determined to get myself a job
in Indonesia (the closest I can get to Malaysia is Borneo I think,
which I would dearly love to go to anyway) as i figure, hey, they are
right next to each other, therefore they must be the same, right!? (Aus
Govt doesnt run any development projects in Malaysia, they've gone and
developed too much, selfish, as it means i cant get an AusAid funded
job there)
Older Story >>
Comments
Add your comments
