Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur - Selamat Datang

Mehr and I flew separately to Kuala Lumpur (which I will definitely refer to as KL from here on in). I was concerned Mehr's flight might not get out after mine, since Perth was looking like a typhoon might be coming through the city. The sky was black and the rain was diagonal and torrential as my flight took off at noon, and she wasn't going to leave until four pm. Luckily, the natural disaster held off until her plane escaped W.A. and we met up as planned at customs in KL airport (which is fantastic by the way).

The flights were refreshingly good after buzzing around Australia on budget airlines. Qantas had a selection of over 20 movies and 30 tv shows to entertain me for four hours. I was out of luck with the apple juice though... the hostess accidentally spilled it on my arm and enough of it fell on me that they couldn't fill my glass and when they went to find more, turns out that was the last carton. Alas. I connected to Japan Airlines in Singapore (free internet kiosks everywhere in the international terminal!). That flight was hilarious. One of the four hostesses spoke a bit of English, but they were prepared. The menu was all pictures so you could point to what you wanted. And they have a live feed camera at the front of the plane so you could watch take-off and landing from the pilot's perspective (he was a little off center to be honest...) And during the flight they played a video with only music showing pictures of what to do when we arrived in KL, such as immigration, customs, etc. I very much enjoyed it. The highlight upon landing in KL was how HOT it was. Usually I'm a bit of a cranky pants in intense humidity and heat but after being constantly cold indoors in Australia, I was too relieved to care.





Malaysia was an excellent choice for us to get our feet wet in Asia. It's a very multicultural country, with the three main demographics being Malays, Chinese and Indians. The country is officially Muslim, although tolerant of other religions (Hinduism is also very big here). We've been erring on the side of conservative dress, but after seeing the range of fashion on the streets of KL, we've relaxed it a bit. It's not uncommon to see a burka, a sari and a miniskirt in just one block of walking. If anything, the hardest part is remembering to leave my shoes at the door before entering buildings.

We wandered around sightseeing our first day, taking in the Petronas Towers (which are just as impressive as you might imagine), the Colonial District and Chinatown.



We discovered a great restaurant in Chinatown where we gorged ourselves on satay chicken and noodles, and where I even tried frog stirfried in green onions and chilli. Taste of chicken, texture of fish, by the way. We've been adventuring a bit in food since we have no idea what most words in Malay mean. A common Malay breakfast dish we tried was Nasi Lemak, a coconut rice served with peanuts, boiled egg, chicken, cucumbers and sambal (spice curry sauce with anchovies?). It was great; will definitely have that one again. Another favourite is Roti Canai, a fried chapati-like dough that you dip in curry dahl sauce.

We also learned after ordering Nasi Ayam that Nasi means 'rice' and Ayam means 'chicken'. Other vocab we've picked up from streets signs:

Selamat Datang: welcome
Pasar Seni: market central
Keluar: exit
Menara: tower
Jalan: we think it's street
Lemak: coconut
Terima Kasih: thank you
Berhenti: stop
Teksi: taxi
Ekspres: express
Muzium: museum

As you can tell by the last few, they enjoy phonetically spelling English words to make them Malay.

We spent Canada Day in search of plans. We kept hoping to bump into some other Canadians, and we were not disappointed.



We went to check out the Batu Caves, these massive Hindu temples in a mountain cave, just outside KL in the afternoon. 272 stairs later (not exaggerating; actual stair tally), we were gazing in awe at the yawning caves. We didn't go into the temple/shrine areas because they were in prayer session.



I should also mention at this point that there were monkeys. Everywhere. We had been warned not to bring food, since they can be aggressive.

You know what? I don't like monkeys. There, I said it. I don't mind the small, not too bright ones that inspire Paul Frank's fashion line, but on the whole, I'm not cool with them. And everyone LOVES monkeys. Oooh, they're so cute. Ooooh, they're so playful. NO. They are nasty-tempered, rude and probably diseased. Especially these ones. Mehr was taking a picture of one from a respectful distance and the monkey's older boyfriend attacked her backpack. I was seriously concerned there might be a monkey swarming. I gave them a lot of evil looks to make it clear that they would get no love from me. Stupid, smelly monkeys.

On a lighter note, while rewarding ourselves with an ice cream after successfully descending all 272 stairs, I ran into Brendan Morrison, who I went to King's with. Yes, this planet is really that small. How random is that? He had also met some other Canadians in KL, so we all went out together to celebrate our fabulous nation at a place called Reggae Bar in Chinatown. After 80s-crazed Australia, the reggae and hiphop tunes were a welcome change for our ears. And the DJ won our eternal affection for playing not one but TWO Sean Paul songs in the course of the evening. Happy Canada Day indeed!!