Malaysia (Spring 2004)

It's funny... I really just went to relax on the beach, but Malaysia turned out to be a really fun place to visit. I'd have to say the best part was the food. Malaysia's basically made up of Indians, Chinese and native Malaysians in what seems like pretty equal amounts, and food is a similar mix. Every night we had tons of different choices and it was all excellent. The best was this Indian restaurant we found in Kuala Lumpur where you eat with your hands off banana leaves. A bunch of rice piled with all kinds of different curries and then fresh fruit smoothies to drink. So good.

The people of Malaysia were super friendly. We were constantly being helped out with directions, advice, suggestions by the most random people. Outside of the markets, nobody was pushy or tried to rip you off, and it felt safe to walk around even in the middle of the night. I was also surprised at how developed the country is and even with the amount of people there, things were pretty clean everywhere we went. The only exception was the water off of Penang Island. Not the crystal clear water I had hoped for but I guess no place is perfect.

There were four of us on the trip. There's something wrong when it takes more time to get to the airport than your final destination, but that's exactly what happened. We had to fly out of Osaka which meant a six hour car ride just to get to the airport. The flight over was about the same amount of time. Arrived in Kuala Lumpur and the first night just walked around to get our bearings and check out the city. Ended up walking over to the Petronas Towers (which until recently were the tallest buildings in the world) which are lit up and look especially impressive at night. Spent the next day exploring the city and mainly checking out the markets of Chinatown and Little India.

Next day we all piled on a bus for the six hour ride to Penang. Stayed the first couple nights in the main city of Georgetown. The first day, Blair and I rented mountain bikes and decided to see if we could circle the island. It was good time, but after 10 hours and climbing up two mountains it got a little old. We started by going northwest past the fancy resorts and then went counter-clockwise around the island. Stopped at a deserted beach along the way and then as we went south realized that mountains weren't shown on the map. After riding uphill for an hour in the midday sun we finally arrived at a fresh fruit orchard/market and quickly finished off about three drinks each. At this point we realized that the sunscreen I had brought was pretty worthless and we were already red and only half way home. So for the rest of the ride back we had towels on our heads and shirts covering our arms and made quite an impression as we rode through the small fishing villages. The kids all thought it was great and came out to laugh and yell hello to us. We finally turned inland and tried to loop home only to realize we had another mountain to climb. What we didn't know at the time was that it was basically the highest mountain on the island. For probably half of the climb we literally had to get off and push our bikes up the hill because it was so steep. Met some locals at the top who were thoroughly impressed that we had found this "shortcut" to the other side. The ride down was great and we stopped at Kek Lok Si temple for a great view over the city.

The rest of the time on the island was at the nicer resort area called Batu Ferringi. Huge resort area but we ended up finding a nice little place literally 15 meters from the beach. Spent the next few days relaxing on the beach and also checked out a nearby national park that had a great beach along the trail and monkeys running around in the trees. There was also a pier to jump off of where I managed to slice my foot on some barnacles. Nothing serious but there was a second there when I was thinking I probably shouldn't be swimming around with a bloody foot.

Not a ton of nightlife on the island but one of the best things was the night market every evening. All along the main street people would set up little stalls selling all kinds of clothes, jewelry, food, electronics, etc. It ended up being more entertaining just going to the market for the night.

Finally, we came back the way we came and spent the last night in Kuala Lumpur. More exploring, more markets and the final night we went to this nice club to see a famous? DJ named Jon Carter (Ministry of Sound). Flight home was uneventful and then arriving back in Osaka we decided to go check out the cherry blossom festival at the Osaka Castle. Cherry trees everywhere and a huge park surrounding the castle which was really nice. The only bad thing was the rain all day and the cold (especially compared to Malaysia). All in all a really great trip.