Malaysia Times

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For the past week or two we've been in Malaysia, battling against the daily rain and stuffing ourselves with huge amounts of food. The cuisine here is so varied because Malaysians on the whole are split into three groups - Chinese-Malay, Malay-Malay and Indian-Malay, so food from all three is readily available from pretty much anywhere.
We've enjoyed the fun of a Dim Sum restaurant, where we picked the dishes we wanted from a trolley of treats and it was cut up with scissors before we tried to use the chopsticks on it. We've had naan breads and 'roti canai' with curries and tandoori, and munched on Indian sweets of all kinds. And we've also had Baba Nyonya (malay-malay) food of laksa and sweet potatoes. And all of it has been thoroughly tasty!

Our stint in Malaysia started in Penang, where we celebrated Thaipusam with the locals, and were rewarded with free food, drink and dancing. Thaipusam is a Hindu festival where devotees who have had ryers answered, or hope to, show their gratitude with masochistic displays of piercings - walking on shoes of nails; having hooks skewered through the back and chest, and carrrying huge metal structures with peacock feathers and decorations, secured onto the back with more hooks. It was pretty intense, but a lot of fun all the same. So many people turned up though that we retreated soon after lunch and went for a relaxing stroll around colonial Georgetown - took a ride in a trishaw and went to visit Fort Cornwallis where Francis Light set up a British fort on Penang island.

From Penang we took a ferry and then a very bumpy bus ride to the Cameron Highlands, after our plans to go to the east coast were scuppered by the monsoon rains. The highlands are beautiful and covered in tea plantations; so we had cream tea, and took in some of the jungle that surrounded the town where we stayed.

From the highlands we went to Kuala Lumpur, where we stayed for almost a week. It was not half as chaotic as Bangkok, and was far more cosmopolitan, and we made sure to check out all the most famous sights (Merdeka Square, the Petronas towers and the KLCC) as well as the little stalls of Chinatown and Petaling market. A day trip to the Batu caves meant climbing hundreds of steps (lined with greedy monkeys) to get to a sacred Hindu spot and a pretty good view.

As we get further down the country and closer to Singapore, we see more and more decorations fro Chinese New Year, which is on Thursday this week. Some of the displays are pretty impressive, and here in Melaka they have whole streets covered in red laterns and banners!
So Malaysia has been a lot of fun so far and a night market and bbq this evening ensure that it will continue to be.
Next stop is Singapore, where we will be to celebrate Chinese New Year...


Malaysia Photos 😊

More pics 😊

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