Malaysia: The Land of Organized Chaos

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It's Dec. the 5th, the plane lands and what do you know, we're in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. We didn't really know what to expect, except what we had read, and heard from some friends. First we jumped on the 'KLIA Ekspres', a super efficient express train that whizzes you along the 50 km distance from the airport to the city in about half an hour. We got off at the KL Sentral station, then hopped into a rickety old taxi cab for a quick ride into the heart of Chinatown.

'No problem, piece of cake', we thought as we got dropped off at the hotel of our choice. It was close to midnight and there was a large gate drawn across the entrance, so we were thinking, 'Is this place actually open or what?'. We rang the doorbell and an old man came down to tell us that they were full. He suggested a hotel just around the corner. We said thanks and made our way there, tired and confused. We found it easily, and noticed that on the front door, there was a price list advertising the rooms by the hour. Obviously 'hourly rates' can mean only one thing, and it's not a place that people go to have a good nights sleep. But as it was now after midnight, dark, and foreign, we didn't really have an option.

We took the room without even bothering to have a look, because sometimes it's better not to know. It turned out to be a musty, windowless cheapie. We weren't sure when the sheets were last changed, let alone washed. Needless to say, out came our sleeping bags because there was no way those sheets were going to touch any part of our bodies. We were so tired that the noisy, chaotic market just across the street didn't even keep us awake. As we double checked the locks on the door, it was time for bed!

We woke up super early the next morning with only one plan in mind, find a new hotel! The one we had originally planned to stay at sounded ok, so we gave it a try. They happened to have one room left, so we quickly moved in, then went out for some food.

Our hotel room window overlooked the bustling Jalan Petaling Night Market. It would start in the late afternoon and go on until the wee hours of the night. We had a great view of all the action below from our window. We would watch traffic barely missing pedestrians, old motorbikes buzzing around like mad, and buses chugging along with thick clouds of diesel spewing out of them. A bit surreal, but great to just sit back and observe. It was strange coming from a more prim and proper place like Sydney, where they cared about the environment a little more, and other small things like running red lights, motorbikes driving on the sidewalk, or people chucking garbage out their apartment windows.

The streets of Kuala Lumpur, or 'KL', as it is commonly known, are uneven, high curbed little numbers that you have to be careful where you step or you might have a bit of a mishap. Crossing the street is difficult, confusing, and actually quite intimidating at first. We figured that the best way to cross is to stand right beside a local person and follow their lead. You know they've been doing it their whole life and they're still ok, so they must be doing something right. But when they run, you definitely run!

KL is hot and humid. You can taste the smog in the air, and the smell of garbage drifts up from the streets. After a while it becomes normal, and endearing, adding to the experience. The price of everything, after being in Australia, is really cheap. We actually had to try to spend our daily budget there. We also sampled some great food such as enormous bowls of spicy coconut laksa and other great spicy noodle dishes with tongue twisting names.

The next day we went to see the Petronas Towers, the tallest twin towers in the world! They are an amazing feat of architecture, recognized around the world. For those who have seen the movie 'Entrapment' with Sean Connery, they are the twin towers featured throughout the movie. To get to them, we had to use the skytrain during rush hour. We wanted to be at the towers early enough to get one of the 1400 free tickets handed out daily to go up to the sky bridge.

The skytrain was so much more efficient than taking public transport in Vancouver. It was jam packed full of locals going about their daily routines. We squished our way in and just enjoyed the ride. Jumping out at the station, we entered the massive shining modern shopping mall located under the towers, known as Suria KLCC. Full of floor after floor of every real designer shop you can think of, it was an oasis of air conditioned coolness in the humid city.

We got in the lineup for the towers. There were already hundreds of people waiting to enjoy the same marvel. The Petronas towers are where the Malaysian oil company 'Petronas' has its headquarters. There are 88 floors, and our tour took us to the 41st story, where the glass skybridge runs from one twin tower to the other. The structure is earthquake proof and is automatically grounded if the towers get hit by lightning.

It was finally our turn to climb into the elevator, which rocketed us up to the 41st floor. From the skybridge, all of the other tall buildings looked small and the cars resembled little toys. After we got over the shock of the height, it was great to walk about and enjoy the view.

After such an interesting morning, we figured we'd hit the mall and look around a bit. The first thing we noticed was that there were Christmas tunes playing everywhere and a big huge Christmas tree in the middle of the building. Apparently Christmas is well known and pretty popular there too. There were even Malaysian guys dressed as Santa. Also surprisingly, almost everyone we met spoke English, something we had not expected. It sure made things easier for us. Simple things like getting a room, ordering in a restaurant, and getting bus tickets are much simplified when you're speaking in the same tongue.

After a huge mall crawl, we left and explored the streets of KL. We walked down the cracked and crumbling sidewalks, dodging buses, cars, and motorbikes with 3 or more people on them. The smells of food stalls and incence filled the hot air. We arrived at a different sort of mall near Jalan Bukit Bintang, not as westernised as the previous one. It was lined with small hawker stalls along the outside, and tones of different little shops inside. There were very few, if any travellers to be seen there.

Also the mall was equipped with squat toilets, which are interesting if you've never seen them before. They are tiled holes with an attached hose for when you are finished. Not so easy to use, if you haven't done so before. By this point, we were completely malled and shopped out, so it was time to catch the sky train home and relax.

That evening we checked out the Night Market across from our hotel. It had rows and rows of outdoor stalls, with people trying to sell you everything, especially watches, pirated DVDs, fake designer bags and clothes, along with wallets and sunglasses. It is expected that one haggles for everything. The vendors would try to get you to look at their stuff, whether you were interested or not. It was actually pretty funny until the 20th guy was saying the same spiel. The market was packed solid with people, all pushing and squished together like a can of sardines. Add a whole bunch of food vendors into the mix to feed the masses, and there you have it, the Night Market, an amazing experience.

One evening we couldn't decide where to eat, even though there was really no shortage of food stalls. The problem was having too much selection. We randomly picked an interesting little Indian food stall on the side of a busy street. It was full of local patrons, so we decided to give it a try. The cook was a huge Indian guy who dished up our meal. Then we were led to plastic lawn chair seats by his tall, skinny helper.

We each had a huge portion of lamb curry with some other stuff which resembled some sort of curried food. The server could speak little, if any English, and we spoke no Malay, or Hindi for that matter. Andy ordered a Sprite, which was quickly brought to the table. The server then looked at Christine, waiting for her to place her order. She pointed to the drink, and he mumbled something in return while Christine just kind of nodded and smiled. A minute later he arrived back at the table with the fattest whole green coconut and a straw. It was pretty funny; the last thing we suspected was that he had said 'Would you like to drink the hugest coconut that we have in the building, ma'am?'. We swore we were going to get our first dose of food poisoning, especially after we saw the king cockroach of Kuala Lumpur sitting at the table next to us. However we woke up feeling fine the next day, so no harm done, and a great story to remember.

While in KL, we also visited the Central Market, a short walk away from our hotel. It was stocked full of Malaysian handicrafts along with Indian handicrafts and a big indoor food court. There we enjoyed numerous pressed sugar cane juices. There were so many beautiful items to admire and purchase, it was hard to choose a favorite piece.

We decided to find the bus station so that we could buy tickets for our next destination the following morning. The station was a confusing, crowded, exhaust filled area, where guys shouted out destinations in a sing song chant and tried to get you to purchase a ticket from their company, and not their competitions. We walked past them, figured out our destination, and left with the knowledge of what to do and where to go in the morning.

Kuala Lumpur is somewhere one could spend two weeks and still find things to do, but since we had only two weeks in Malaysia altogether, it was time to grab a couple bus tickets at the sweaty bus station and make our way to the historical town of Melaka!

Our bus was a great, air conditioned beauty that was comparable with the efficient and luxurious buses we had enjoyed on our previous adventures in Mexico. Not at all what you would expect after seeing the chaotic bus station. The long distance buses in Malaysia rule the roads, tailgating and honking at everything in their paths. Before we knew it, the 4 and a bit hour ride was over and we had arrived in Melaka.

During a quick cab ride we entered narrow, cobbled roads, passing little motorbikes with families of four on them, and old bicycles ridden by elderly Malaysian men and women slowly peddling along, all just missing each other as they cross paths. We ended up staying at a little hotel in the heart of Melaka, right across from a Mosque. The funny thing about this was that several times a day, including sunrise, the call to prayer was blasted from a loud speaker. Then incredible chanting would follow. A beautiful, haunting sound, except not at 6 am in the morning. Though as loud as it was, it was pretty cool as well.

We noticed right away that Melaka was mellower than KL. The feeling was slow paced and kicked back. Before we arrived, we had read about one mode of transportation there called a tri-shaw, basically a three wheel peddle bike attached to a cart. The tri-shaws in Melaka are decorated with colourful plastic flowers and loud speakers that crank out local tunes, Abba, techno, pop music, Madonna, and other strange ones. Some also had tiny lights all over them that lit up at night. There were a bunch of them all through town, hauling tourists around to the sights and pounding out music. A hilarious and incredible sight.

One thing that we realized about Malaysia was that the public phone system is brutal. Honestly. It is next to impossible to try and phone your loved ones from Malaysia with phonecards. We spent literally hours one day, determined to make it work, but to no avail. The tourist office gave us very vague directions to the one mystery phone in Melaka that we were supposed to use.

We finally ended up at an Indian corner store. There we were led to an ancient old phone attached to some sort of fax, in an area where the whole family was watching a Bollywood flick. One little boy was so excited to see Andy that he started bouncing up and down while saying 'White boy, white boy, white boy...' in Malay, until his mother shushed him! Although we were totally frustrated with the phone, we had to laugh. Needless to say the phone did not work AGAIN! Soon after that the security woman who was 'guarding' the other public phones we checked out started asking us for a 'donation'. We finally decided to give up. We eventually ended up giving our almost full card away at the airport, and good luck to that person!

In the heart of Melaka there is a great fountain where everyone gathers to beat the heat in the shade and take photos of each other in front of the misty fountain. One day while we were there, we noticed a guy charging people a few ringgit to get their picture taken with his pet iguana and giant boa constrictor. We watched and laughed as various people did this while onlookers gasped in shock. First a young boy, then a man, then a well dressed young Malaysian girl in a skirt and high heels took turns posing with the bored looking snake. No one seemed very interested in the poor iguana, who sat watching from the side lines. After observing the fanfare for about half an hour, we decided that we would have a go too. Christine held the huge snake first, then it was hoisted up onto both our shoulders. Everyone gasped, pointed and took pictures; we felt like celebrities. The snake however, being used to all the attention, just looked cool, collected, and quietly struck a pose.

One evening we checked out the outdoor Melaka 'Sound and Light' show, which took place at the ruined Portuguese Fort A Famosa. It was informative, but also a bit dull, telling the history of Melaka while about five lights lit up various different ruins, a bit lacking in action. The funniest part of it was when it started pouring rain for the last 10 minutes, then the CD started skipping. The ten or so tourists seated in the large stands looked around at each other in disbelief. A strange end to a strange show.

The last thing we wanted to do was take a cruise of the Melaka river that wound through the city. The tour was an hour long; we cruised through the canals while our guide chatted about the surrounding buildings, history and other funny tidbits. He was an amazing wealth of information, and very funny and entertaining too. He told us that the government is planning to invest 50 million into historic canal buildings over the next few years, in order to make Melaka a huge tourist mecca. We liked the old run down look of the buildings just fine, but it will be amazing to see the Dutch style, 100 year old houses in a few years compared to when we saw them. We also saw huge lizards swimming along in the water, and sunning themselves on the rocks. The guide had named the biggest one Sean Connery, as he had filmed part of 'Entrapment' there a decade earlier. He finished the ride off by saying thank you in a hundred different languages, pretty funny and impressive as well.

Melaka was great; we had totally enjoyed our visit there. Great food, relaxed, interesting people, amazing history and a beautiful location.
We really loved Malaysia with its two sides, the organized transport, buildings, and modern shopping malls, but also the terrible phones, chaotic markets and wild crumbling streets. As usual it was time to grab our backpacks, hop on a bus and move on, to a more westernized version of Malaysia. The country down south, the beautiful Singapore!

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Photos

Kuala Lumpur
Detail of ceramic figures on a Chinese Temple

Kuala Lumpur
Anybody for a squat?

Kuala Lumpur
The Petronas Towers with the Malaysian flag

Kuala Lumpur
They're ready for Christmas on the streets of KL

Kuala Lumpur
Giant Christmas tree in the KL mall

Jalan Petaling, Kuala Lumpur
The bustling night market in Chinatown

Central Market, Kuala Lumpur
Rows of necklaces for sale

Melaka
Kampung Kling Mosque, Chinatown

Melaka
Tri-shaw driver waiting for his next victim...

Melaka
So cute we wish we could take him home, but what would his fans say?

Melaka
Dutch architecture along the Melaka river

Melaka
Christ Church, Dutch Architecture

Melaka
Chinatown street scene

Melaka
Temple lanterns

St. Francis Xavier Church, Melaka
Grave stone with grinning skull, for those of you who love pirates!

St. Francis Xavier Church, Melaka
Priest with flowers

Melaka
Traditional houses line the river

Comments

[Janet Coleman]

Fantastic Chris and Andy
Love to see this pop up on my screen

[Ross]

Awesome
KL sounds like an interesting place, so colourful, active, and exciting. Another great read, enjoy yourselves and stay safe.

[Jen Munro]

Wow, great entry!! I love reading your updates - nice to hear that you're getting some South East Asian Country madness and glad to hear the food is excellent too!