Day 154 – Travel Day & Thoughts on Malaysia

July 10th, 2019

Today we traveled by bus from the east coast of Malaysia to the west coast.  It was an all-day journey and we did see a lot of the country’s beautiful interior.  The jungle-covered mountains and tiered farming terraces remind me of Peru.  There is not much to say about a 10-hour bus ride, but it gave me a lot of time to reflect on our time in Malaysia to date.  This post in no way is meant to be offensive or culturally insensitive. Travelling as a female American tourist, I have some observations that are a bit different than our own cultural norms.  I often find humor in situations that stretch the limits of my comfort zone without attempting to poke fun at anyone’s way of life. Malaysia has been one of my favorite places so far. This country and the people in it are beautiful!  I would recommend travel to Malaysia to any adventurer as it is filled with treasures both from the people and the landscape. 

The currency here is called the Malaysian Ringgit (RM).  As of now the exchange rate is 4.14 to 1 USD.  The average cost of a plate of food is $2-3.  The average cost of a place to stay is $10-20 for 2 people.  We took a bus from one side of the country to the other for $12 per person.  The food here is pretty good.  We have had a couple of traditional dishes that locals have given us. One was called nasi dagang which is a coconut rice with pieces of fish in a sauce with spices. This is a typical breakfast for special occasions.  It was really sweet because the owner of the Inn had his auntie deliver it to our room with cups of coffee at 6:30am before we got on our long bus ride. 

On the bus another local wanted us to try her snack of kuih kochi which is a dumpling that tastes sweet with coconut filling and palm sugar.  She forgot to tell B that you do not eat the leaf it is wrapped in so that was pretty funny.

We told her “thank you” for letting us try, and she insisted on giving us her whole tray of them.  People have been very kind to us.  Any children we have been around are very infatuated with us.  Much more so than we saw in Central and South America.  They often just stare and get shy and giggle if we try to talk to them.  I asked one girl what her name was.  She got so excited putting her hand over her mouth and looking at her brother, and then they both were jumping up and down because I spoke to them.  The kids are just learning English so there’s not much communication that can happen.  Most of the adults know enough English to communicate. 

Brendan and I both love the iced tea here.  We learned that you have to order it by saying ‘tea o’ ice’ or else it will come with sweet and condensed milk in it, which is delicious but a little heavy for all the time.  Usually when we order an iced tea on a nice beach, Brendan will say that he could just sit here all day drinking the tea.  Especially because it is hot outside and the tea is very refreshing.  Brendan says the hotter it gets, the more his iced tea budget goes up.  We ordered it at a bus-stop, and it came in little plastic bags.

The official religion of Malaysia is Islam.  Everywhere we have gone there are Mosques, and we have become quite familiar with adhan which the Islamic call to prayer is.  This call is made five times a day over loudspeakers from the Mosques and we have heard it everywhere we have stayed, even on the islands.  Brendan said the whole thing starts a bit early for him as the first call is made around 5am.  I like it because it makes me feel like I’m in a movie.  Probably because the only time I have heard a chanting call is in the movies.  It also reminds me that I am somewhere very foreign. 

Because the population is largely Muslim, drinking alcohol is not part of the culture here.  Most restaurants don’t sell it, and I haven’t seen it for sale in the stores.  There are occasional duty-free stores in certain areas where you can buy alcohol, but it’s just for tourists.  Brendan was always able to find beer when he wanted it. Usually there would be someone selling it as an under-the-table type thing.  I’m not really a beer drinker. I may have had two beers during the time we have been in Malaysia. It is common to smoke hookah and you can find many places to do that.  It also seems like everyone smokes cigarettes here. 

In Malaysia they have a very spikey, football sized fruit called durian that looks like this:

I see it everywhere and have been wanting to try it, but I don’t know if the Swiss Army knife can handle the job of getting into it.  It looks dangerous. There are even signs on buses and public transportation saying that this fruit is not allowed as I’m sure it could be used as a weapon.  People sell the large spike fruits on the street and I have seen it a lot on trees in the wild.  It would have been interesting to be the first person ever to try this fruit. I don’t know if I would have done it, thinking this might be nature’s way of saying ‘don’t eat this, it’s poison inside’.  It’s not like an apple you can just pick off a tree and enjoy a delicious first bite.  Maybe if God would have put a durian tree in the Garden of Eden instead of an apple tree the fruit would have never been tasted.  Then we could have avoided this whole man being cursed to work his whole life by the sweat of his brow and women being cursed with painful childbearing…  You never know.

In Central and South America there were tons of street dogs that always looked hungry and starved for affection.  I have not seen many dogs in Malaysia, but instead there is a large number of stray cats.  I think cats are better hunters than dogs so fortunately, they don’t look quite as emaciated as the dogs did, but they still beg for food and some of them want to be pet.  Most of them look like their tail is broken.  One person told us it is because they are all inbred.  I thought maybe they just all had accidents that involved breaking their tail. I don’t know which is correct but there are definitely a lot of broken tail cats roaming around. 

I have found it interesting that in several countries we visited, it is customary for women to wear very traditional clothing, but not for men.  There is an occasional man in a traditional garb that fits his culture but in general the men just dress American for lack of a better term.  Here, the Muslim women go swimming in their long garments and hijabs (head covering).  I wonder if they look at the tourists and feel sorry for the women in bikinis that expose so much skin and any body part you might be insecure about.  Or, do they look at us and think it would be nice to be so mobile in the water?

My least favorite part about Malaysia is definitely the bathroom situation. I may talk more about this  than most people who visit here, so feel free to skip over this section of reading.  However, I think if you haven’t been to this part of the world and are considering it, it’s better to be prepared.  When we first landed in Singapore and I went into the luxury bathroom with different toilet options, i.e. the squatting pan with hose wasn’t just for international travelers who live in the jungle.  This was for all of Malaysia and I’m guessing several other countries in this region. I don’t foresee the bathrooms getting any better in my near future. The bathrooms here are either a squatting pan or a toilet with a hose.  Everything is always a freaking wet mess!  There is water everywhere on every inch of the bathroom.  Even the hotels with private bathrooms have the shower right next to the toilet with no barrier, and literally everything in the bathroom gets soaked as soon as you turn on the shower.  This is why the hotels that actually do provide toilet paper for the tourist keep it outside of the bathroom. 

I actually might even prefer the pan to a toilet seat because its easier on your legs to squat low rather than high when you don’t want to touch a disgusting, sopping wet toilet seat.  I understand if the plumbing can’t handle the toilet paper, but why not get on the Central American custom where you at least have toilet paper and you throw it into the trash?  I used to be totally grossed out by this, and now I would give anything to have a dry toilet seat with a trash can for toilet paper.  I try to use the bathroom as few times as humanly possible during the day.  I can’t really limit my fluid intake because I don’t want to die of heat stroke but it’s something I’ve thought about.  The bathroom at the dive shop where we stayed had writing all over the doors “flush the toilet!”  The first time I went in, I looked all around for a flusher but there was nothing. There wasn’t even a tank or a back to the toilet.  I didn’t know what I was supposed to do and realized that is probably why so many people don’t flush, because the tourists don’t know how.  I had to find Brendan to ask him how to flush the toilet, hoping no one noticed me coming out and not flushing.  He told me that you have to fill a pot with water and pour it into the bowl enough times to create pressure for everything to go down.  Anyway, you always have to have your own toilet paper with you, but there is never a trash can…only a hose.  As much as I love being immersed in other cultures and experiencing new things, there are some things I have a hard time with.  I think I’ve lived too many years of my life with modern day plumbing to be comfortable any other way.  The bottom line and my only bit of advice is, fully scope out the entire situation before making any move that is irreversible. 

We have 10 more days in Malaysia before heading to Thailand.  We are now on the Western side of the country and will end up in the big, capital city of Kuala Lumpur when we fly out.  So far it has been hot but a really good experience.