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The 6 hour bus trip from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur goes through a fair amount of southern peninsular Malaysia. Aside from the occasional village tucked underneath the acres and acres of palm plantations, there’s not much change to the landscape. The bus stopped for us at the border for customs (more police and security wandering around with rifles) where we could stand between Singapore and Malaysia looking ahead to all the mosques and back to the Singapore skyscrapers. The bus trip was our first ‘encounter’ of the trip; as the booking on the net had said 1000 o’clock departure (presumably 10am) but upon arriving at 10am for check in we were told that it was a 10pm journey. So we argued with the ticket lady who was a hard, old lady who apparently ‘give no refunds’. With that ticket down the drain (an all night bus trip is not really on Matt’s agenda) we spent the next couple of hours running around Singapore in the crazy heat trying to find another bus trip. People came out of their shops to watch us run (they have probably never seen a girl running ever) and smile at how stupidly hot we were getting.
We were fortunate to score another ticket that day and got there late afternoon.
Kuala Lumpur is a whole different story to Singapore. The bus driver kicked us off in central Kuala Lumpur and we soon realized our written directions were going to be pretty dodgy. Stepping off the bus we found the heat to be almost as bad as Singapore, but with the added bonus of people everywhere and clouds of smog. Walking down that first street we walked past about 30 ‘teksi’ with the drivers yelling in our faces to get into their taxis. ‘So much bag you need taxi,’ ‘my friend don’t let your lovely wife carry her bag’ ‘I take you to hotel,’ etc etc. A few hours later the hostel was found (after large cracks and rips in the luggage from dragging along the wonderful streets..) in a nice and quiet central area. Our hosts were great and gave us unlimited wireless for the duration of our stay, which is pretty great for a NZD25 p/night room.
Islam is the country’s official religion and it seems about 70% of the people here in KL are Muslim. Some of the rules that entails include
no holding hands, using your right hand for giving and receiving things, no pointing (so hard to get used to). The city is very ethnically diverse, mostly Malay, Chinese and Indian, with very few white tourists. The city is very pushy and chaotic; road signals are more of a suggestion and pedestrians have to sprint across the roads in groups to avoid the motorbikes. There are hawkers everywhere including taxi drivers, bus drivers, shop assistants, etc. It seems strange to be walking down the road with a bus boy screaming in your face ‘number 11, go to batu caves’ or wherever they are driving to as if you would suddenly decide to go with them after being screamed at. It is also strange going into international shops like Esprit where the assistants stand at the door and start screaming prices at you. But of course there are great things here, like the Ringgit! As soon as you cross the border into Malaysia, everything is instantly cheaper. Cokes are RM1.50 (50c), Big Mac combos are RM8 (about $2.70) and if you want a full Malaysian meal (rice, meat, soup) it will cost RM5 ($1.70NZD). We have also met some great people,
most of whom are shy and sweet; although the real ‘winners’ of the city tend to be more confident, pushy and loud (survival of the fittest). The women are differently less prominent than men, and are seen on the streets far less. Malays have warmer, rounder faces than those in Singapore, although the obsession with white skin seems to still be strong here. Going into chemists the most common item for sale is whitening cream, not anti-aging cream. The most fashionable girls here have the whitest faces (and usually the most makeup) although the Malaysians are far more traditional than the Chinese, and rarely wear makeup. Quite a few of the famous girls here have contact lenses and dyed their hair lighter, will looks pretty interesting.
The language is great and sometimes very funny. There are many similarities with English (maybe translliterations?) such as motosikal (motorcycle), polis (police), ais krim (ice cream), etc. Our hostel was located right next to the central market which has been in the city for over 120 years. Kuala Lumpur is definitely behind Singapore when it comes to shopping malls and food courts. So with less choice we made the central market food court
our home. For breakfast, lunch and dinner we have full meals with frozen milos, watermelon, pineapple or starfruit juices and coconut gelatin (agar agar) for desert. We tend to spend around $NZD10 a day on all food.
In KL we had a look around the central city, went on a day trip to the batu caves (north of KL), saw the Petronas towers at night, went to the national mosque, butterfly park, parliament, Chinatown, central market and hung out around the many hawker stalls. The batu caves were a great trip, although have been altered from their natural state with many Hindu shrines throughout the caves. The 272 steps take you to the entrance of the caves, with many monkeys playing around eating coconuts and bananas all over the steps. Inside the caves the steep limestone cliffs are amazing, although the Hindu processions, offerings, incense and souvenir stalls inside the caves take away from their natural beauty and prove to be quite distracting. Something that amazes us throughout these ‘tourist’ sites is that they are not very touristy at all. Instead 99% of the people visiting the caves were Hindus making their routine journey up. The ‘non-touristyness’ can be
good and bad; good in that there are few crowds, bad in that we get stared at so much and find it can be hard to have good conversations with people (without them trying to sell us everything). I made the mistake of wearing a thick-strapped singlet top the night we arrived (it was over 30c) and got so many stares (of every type) that I decided it’s better to sweat than to be stared at all night.
From Kuala Lumpur we got a bus to the Cameron Highlands, which is a few hours north-east of KL. We had heard that the highlands were cooler, and so were very hopeful. Thankfully they were and for the first time in weeks we didn’t need aircon! During the bus trip we concluded that our bus driver had to be a) on drugs, b) ‘simple’, c) suicidal or d) paid by how quickly he gets here (possibly all four). The drive is notoriously narrow and steep but we weren’t too excited when he stopped the bus before we ascended and handed out large sick bags to everyone before we continued. The girl behind us had been spewing already for about an hour
and needed at least 3 bags on the journey. We have roads similar to these in NZ but no-one would dare take them at that speed, and never pass trucks on corners. When we ascended to flatter parts of the journey we could look at the beautiful aboriginal villages on stilt houses, tea plantations, watercress farms and other agricultural fields that were stunning. The highlands were very high (duh) and had beautiful fog in the valleys, very picturesque. Our hostel was great and cheap ($12 p/night) with large double beds in tin sheds (better than it sounds!). They play movies all night (on request) and have their own chef for late night snacks and meals. We met some great people here from Canada, England and a Belgium missionary (as well as many locals).
We took a trip to a native Chinese aboriginal tribe called the Orang Asli (original people) in the centre of the highlands. This was awesome! After driving for about an hour through the crazy roads with numerous slips we came to this great village, with bamboo houses on stilts. We walked past a river and saw about 5 little boys swimming naked in the river and
pushing each other off a bridge. The whole tribe was so cute and absolutely loved Matt. They are quite a short tribe and must have been fascinated by his height because the little kids wouldn’t leave him alone! They lined up (and some just pushed) to get him to swing them around. After about 40 minutes of this Matt was sweating and puffed out, but they didn’t really care! We also had turns at using a blowpipe which is their ancient method of hunting (using a bamboo pipe and blowing a spike they could hunt animals). We then were welcomed by the very short chief into his hut where we had tea and tapioca, some of their main food. They used to have a lifespan of 45 years, and therefore would get married around age 13, but with the addition of some western food into their diets they are taller and living to ages of 90+. The numerous children running around is due to the lack of entertainment says our guide, with each family having around 6 children!
We also went for a tour around the various farms throughout the highlands. Farms in the highlands include watercress, tea, strawberries, honey,
roses, orchids and various vegetable farms. There are many farmers in the area, of mostly Chinese and Indian origin. We went to one small farm village where there was a Buddhist temple, Hindu temple and a church, which kind of exemplifies Malaysia. Next we are heading to Penang and Langkawi on Malaysia’s west coast before Thailand. Fun fun!
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marg
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Fun!
Loved reading this. Great to see you are having the real cultural experiences - the people contact memories are the ones that you won't forget. They don't cost money but they are the most valuable.