Penang and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

04/08/07

I loooove Malaysia!!! We arrived in Penang on the 2^nd of April and we’re actually docked in the middle of the ocean. We had to take our lifeboats to shore. Needless to say, the disembarkation process took a pretty long time. The SAS warned us that we would be in a Muslim nation so we should pay extra attention to what we wore so we wouldn’t offend anyone. As in the past few ports, I made sure to cover my knees and shoulders. Michael, Sam, Greg and I decided to go to Kuala Lumpur for the 4 days we were there; our flight left that same night. The first day, we went to the mall which was about six levels high and a few blocks wide. Celina and Val were in HEAVEN. I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw two happier girls. There were a lot of shoes stores, all of them seemed to have clearance sales. All the stores in the mall were geared to a younger crowd. I can’t remember seeing anything that anyone over the age of 30 (I hope I don’t offend anyone…) should wear. It was like a whole mall of Forever 21. We ate at a restaurant in the mall. I had broccoli soup, chicken teriyaki, and some sort of dessert. It was like a coke gelatin – not one of my favorites. There were about three ladies at the top of each elevator who would throw paper advertisements and brochures of their salons so by the time we got to the top, I had a whole notebook of these flyers. Somehow I got separated from Michael, Sam, and Greg. We had to leave the mall around 6:00 to make sure we got back to the ship and packed in time to make it to our 10:30 flight. I couldn’t find them so made my way back to the ship alone in hopes that they were already at the ship packed and ready to go. It took me about an hour and a half to get on board because of the little boat, which only ran every half hour, we had to use to get on board. They weren’t on board so I just packed and hope they’d make the next boat or the following. Eight o’clock came and went and once 9:00 approached with no signs of any of the fellas, I was sure that we missed our flight and starting to get worried about them. Luckily, the guys made it there just barely before 9. We left as soon as possible but had to account for the 30 – 40 minute taxi ride to the airport and that the check-in counter closes 40 minutes prior to departure so we were literally pushing it to the minute. We had the taxi driver speed as fast as he could (about 40 mph on the highway) to the airport and made it there just seconds before they left the check-in counter. The flight only lasted about 40 minutes. It felt like the captain came on, told us to buckle our seatbelts, and no later than the belt sign turned off it was turned right back on for landing. The walls of the airplane started smoking which really scared me but I guess it was just some sort of humidifier for the plane. After the plane ride, we had to catch an hour long bus to Kuala Lumpur, then a short taxi ride to our hotel, Hotel Equatorial.

The next morning we woke up relatively early and walked around the city with Dan and Maria, who met us at our hotel. Kuala Lumpur is basically the New York City of Malaysia. It’s very busy and there are a lot of sky scrapers. The first thing I noticed was how clean it is, but that may have to do with the fact that we just left India. We were starving so we searched for Malaysian food. For some reason, we found the most sketch restaurant in the whole city to eat at. It was in the basement of some building and was buffet style in a tiny kitchen. The selection was fried fish heads, fried piranhas, eel, some sort of beef that looked like paste in a brown sauce, pasta salad, white rice, and an assortment of sauces. It was interesting…I’m not sure if it was typical Malaysian food or not but trying it the first day kind of scared me away. Everyone at that restaurant and in the streets was staring at me for some reason. Initially I thought I was showing too much skin because the religion is predominately Muslim but I had a lot more clothes on than the majority of the female population. I’m not sure why they were staring but even Greg noticed. I felt really awkward and uncomfortable. After lunch we went to the mall which was even bigger than the one in Penang and a lot fancier. Most of the stores I didn’t even dare go into (Prada, Gucci, Versace), actually most of them but it was still fun to walk around. As the night fell, the entire city lit up. Greg said it looked like a fruit snack…whatever that means. Weirdo. We went to a couple that were all either next door or within a few blocks of our hotel. The drinks were ridiculously priced and there were a lot of crazy SAS kids but it was still a great time.

The next day we did pretty much the same thing – walked around the city. It felt like it was 100 degrees out! The Grandprix was coming to Malaysia so there were a lot of promotional events and billboards all over the city. We missed it by just one day and missed Kanye West in concert by a few days.

I loved Malaysia! Probably one of my favorite ports, although I saw that about each one and mean it wholeheartedly. I’d like to go back one day and according to the experiences we had in Penang, Kuala Lumpur, and the stories from Cameron Highlands, where Celina and Val went, there is still much to see in Malaysia, as in the rest of the countries we have visited. But our experiences in the different cities were so different from each other that I would like to go visit other places to see how different, or similar, they are.