malaysia

With only 3 days at sea between India and Malaysia, we didn’t really have much chance to get settled back into ship life. As bad as it is, I didn’t even unpack everything from my bag! In global studies we had only talked about Singapore and a little about Georgetown and Penang Island where the ship would be anchored. This left me a little in the dark as to what to expect when we arrived. Nicole, Kerry, Leah and I had previously planned a trip to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, for the middle 3 days of our 5 day stay. We arrived on March 18 at 8am. Because the port is under construction in Penang we had to anchor in the harbor. It was our first time doing this and the first time we had to tender to shore. This is quite tedious because the tender only comes every half an hour and you inevitably just miss one as it is leaving. It meant a lot more planning ahead.
On the first day, I went on a tour of Penang Island with Semester at Sea. Although we were supposed to leave at nine thirty we did not end up leaving until about 11 because of the tendering situation. We boarded a bus and travelled to the Khoo Kongsi clan house. Although it was not far from the port I managed to fall asleep on the bus. I am becoming quite talented at falling asleep on anything that is moving whether it be in class on the ship, in a rickshaw in India, a bus in Malaysia (various times), any plane I am on and even a boat in the Amazon. It may be convenient during long bus and plane rides but it is quite frustrating when I am trying to take in a country where we have just arrived. The clan house looked to me like a temple but it was beautiful. It was built in traditional style with many colours and the details were very intricate. The walls were carved with images and symbols. There were 3 rooms, one which was used as a memorial to the dead, the great hall and another small room. It was really hot here (36 degrees and verrryyy humid) and everyone was ready to go after a few minutes. We boarded the bus once again and headed for the Kek Lok Si, or the temple of a thousand Buddhas. It was a very long uphill walk to get to the base of the temple. It was a narrow pathway surrounded by small shops selling t-shirts, souvenirs and fake designer things. When we finally reached the top (the base of the temple) there was a pond filled with turtles. There were more turtles in this one pond than I have ever seen in my life. They were the kind that are overgrown pets. The temple was split into many different levels and was really colourful and bright. We had a look around the lower levels first which had many statues of Buddha and other characters. There were water features and plants throughout the temple and especially incense burning everywhere. When we reach the highest level, there was a small gift shop, where you could pay a few extra Sen (cents) to go up the tower. I did this and started walking. There was a small spiral staircase which took you up the five floors. The walls were covered with tiles with Buddha on them, some painted, others made of gold, silver and bronze. Im guessing this is where the name of the temple came from. From the top there was a gorgeous view over the city of Penang and into the woods behind the temple. After returning to the bus we headed to the Fisherman’s Wharf restaurant for lunch. It was a Chinese restaurant that served many dished from spring rolls to noodles and friend rice. Everything was seafood with a little chicken. Beef did not seem to be as popular in Malaysia, probably because of the strong Hindu following there.
After lunch we headed to the snake temple. A little background is necessary first. We had been told in global studies that the temple was filled with drugged snakes that hung from the rafter and adorned the altars. They had said there were nets that kept them from falling down on the people and that there were all shapes and sizes of snakes. So when we arrived I was shocked to see only two small snakes wrapped around a candle stick on the altar. They looked dead and did not move a muscle. The temple was very small with not much to see. When we walked into the adjoining room there were many more snakes there. They were on the rafters, above the windows and also in a large cage with trees. There were 2 men who were taking pictures of visitors holding a large boa constrictor with a small green snake on their heads. I was petrified when I first walked in but thought to myself ‘when I am ever going to be in the snake temple in Malaysia again’ and decided that if I didn’t do it I would probably regret it later. So there I went, standing frozen waiting for the man to put the snake around my shoulders and on my head. When he did I was so scared I stood there freaking out. I forgot that I had to smile for the picture, so when they prompted me the picture turned out horribly and I look like someone had just stood in front of me naked! As soon as he took the picture I was like get them off get them off! Once they were off me I was fine watching other people do it after me. After leaving the snake temple we went to the botanical gardens. These were not too exciting for me except that there were tons of monkeys roaming around with the visitors. We stayed there for a little while looked at the flowers and trees before heading back to the bus. From there we came back to the ship, having to skip several sites we planned to visit because we had left late. Overall it was a good way to get a feel for the island and to spend my first day there.
When we got back to the ship I made a quick change before heading out for dinner and a night on the town with friends. We decided to have some street meat for dinner so we stopped outside a hotel for chicken satay. They are so good, especially dipped in the spicy peanut sauce. Kim, Zach, Ben and I sat for a while on the plastic tables drinking local beer and eating chicken satay. After that we walked around the corner to Momo and Slippery Senorita clubs. They had a live band at one and DJ at the other. We danced the night away until 11, when we had to go back to the ship in preparation for our 4am departure for the airport.
After packing quickly and getting 3 hours sleep, we headed to the union with all our bags. Because the tenders only run until 1am, we had to tender to shore with an overnight trip at 4:30am. Our flight wasn’t until 8am but the only other choice was the pay for a hotel for the night. After having some chocolate croissants and orange juice we boarded the tender at 4:30 and headed for the mainland. We had previously booked a taxi to the airport so we hopped in and were on our way. Needless to say we all fell asleep even though the drive was only half an hour long! When we arrived at the airport the AirAsia check in counter was not open so, surprise, we went back to sleep in the lounge. After checking in and realizing that seats were not assigned we went through to the lounge and waited for the plane to board. During these two hours we shopped in the duty free store and had a breakfast of sausage roll and tuna sandwich (better than having noodles at 6am I thought). When they announced that the plane had arrived everyone ran into a line so we followed. We waited in the line until the plane emptied and then boarded immediately. The plane had leather seats and was quite comfortable. We took off shortly after and slept on the 50 minute flight to Kuala Lumpur. When we arrived in KL we ordered a van to take us and Cory and Lauren, who were also staying at our hotel, to The Federal Hotel in downtown KL. This took about an hour and guess what we did? Yup we slept some more. When we woke up we checked in and headed to our room on the 6th floor. For the price we were paying we were surprised to enter and see that it was a king size bed with a single bed and not much else. We named the vast open space the ‘dancefloor’. Seeing as we hadn’t slept much the night before, we decided to nap for two hours before heading out to see the sights. Well two hours turned into 4 and it was 2pm before we left the hotel again. We jumped in a taxi and headed to little India. We first had a late lunch at a café and people watched. We had club sandwiches and soda! After lunch we walked down the main street and browsed the small market, stores and street meat stalls. Having just left India, it was hard to believe this was supposed to be Indian. We still aren’t sure if we were just lost or if we actually did see little India. After a disappointing time there (although we did enjoy the Ringgit store, the equivalent of the dollar store) we headed to the more touristy Central Market.
This was more of our style. Everything was for sale there from crafts to clothes and foods. We spent a while here and I bought a few souvenirs. Although the shopping was much better here, I was glad that we were able to go to a more cultural market to experience that too. We headed back to the hotel at 8pm and ordered chicken and beef satay from room service for dinner. The other girls got ready to go out but I was still suffering the effects of India so decided to stay in and get an early night. It was great to be able to use the internet, especially skype during our stay and to make phone calls home.
On the second day we had planned on getting up at 9:30 and heading to the Petronas towers, formerly the tallest twin towers in the world. By 11:30 we were all awake and getting ready. We didn’t arrive at the towers until 12:45 only to find out that they were sold out for the day. We decided to wake up early the next morning to try again. We headed into the attached mall to shop and have lunch. When we walked in the stores were all very expensive such as Coach, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Chanel among others so being on a student budget we decided to have lunch at the food court and then head out to China town.
China town was far more successful. There were 2 intersecting streets that were closed to traffic and filled with vendors selling sun glasses, CDs, DVDs, bags, belts, t-shirts and souvenirs. We spent a long time here browsing the stalls but I didn’t buy much because I think most of the same things will be much cheaper when we get to Vietnam. The market closed about 4pm when the police arrived so we took a taxi to the central train station, KL sentral. After some tricky driving by our taxi driver (we reversed up a street and did numerous U-turns) we arrived. It was like a mall in itself with many restaurants and stores. We walked to the monorail station and purchased tickets for under a dollar. When the monorail came we boarded and it travelled high above the streets as it winded through the city. It was much like the monorail in Disney World and Las Vegas. We got to see the KL tower and Petronas towers and well as look down on the whole city. When we got off, we took the short walk back to our hotel through the winding back streets.
We had a relaxing late afternoon as we all got ready to go for dinner and a night out on the town (I was feeling much better by this time). We decided to go to a small traditional Japanese restaurant attached to the hotel. When we arrived and starting asking the waitress about various dishes on the menu, her reply to most of them was “no more”. Having some fairly picky eaters among us, we left the restaurant after discovering there were no spring rolls or dumplings. We headed down the side street next to the hotel to check out another Japanese restaurant and a thai restaurant. After much contemplation and debate, we decided to go to the Western restaurant at the top of our hotel (I wanted local food but was outvoted). The restaurant had a great view and revolved so we had a breathtaking view of the city from the 18th floor while we ate. The food was quite expensive and disappointing as well. I had cream of mushroom soup and a noodle dish, one of the only local selections on the menu. We ate with Lauren, Kendall, Jon, Anna, Kevin and another guy who were also staying at our hotel. It was a fun evening but the food was less than impressive. We had a small argument with the hostess when she objected to us crossing our credit card numbers off the receipts. They don’t agree that only the last 4 digits are needed. We had been instructed to do this on the ship to prevent fraud. We finally settled our bills and returned to our room to finish getting ready to go out.
When we got to the room and laid down from being so full, we all got tired and decided not to go out but instead to stay in and watch movies. We had to get up at 6:30am to go to the towers to get tickets anyways so we decided that if we were to have a hope in hell of making it out of bed that early that we should get as much sleep as possible. After skyping for a while, we finally went to bed around 1am. After the wake-up call at 6:30 I was the only one to wake up and get ready. At ten to seven I woke the others up and told them I was leaving in half an hour with or without them. One by one they got up and got ready and we were out the door and in a taxi by 7:15. We arrived at the towers at 7:45 only to find the line already very long. We wanted to go up the towers at 9am but figured since that was the most popular time, that we wouldn’t get it so didn’t bother waiting. We went back to the hotel for breakfast before heading to the Lake Gardens. There was a buffet and an a la carte menu. We decided to eat from the menu after finding out that the buffet was 15 dollars. After laughing at the waitress when she told me the price, she lowered it to 28 ringgits, the equivalent of nine dollars. We enjoyed the breakfast which included western foods as well as noodles, rice, chicken sausages, fruit and other local delicacies. After breakfast Nicole wasn’t feeling well so Kerry, Leah and I headed to the Lake Gardens.
Our taxi driver dropped us off at the world’s largest covered bird park but this didn’t really appeal to us so we went to the Kuala Lumpur orchid garden instead. It was very beautiful but more like a nursery than we had imagined. After a quick walk around here we waited for the small shuttle bus that went all around the gardens. Because we didn’t have too much time, we decided this was the best way to see as much of the gardens as we could. After paying the equivalent of a few cents we hopped on. It was quite a disappointing trip to say the least. We saw more restaurants than garden and it seemed that it acted more as public transportation for the locals than for sightseeing purposes. Nonetheless it gave us a good look into the rest of the gardens that we couldn’t go to. Although lonely planet had recommended this as a not to miss site, I beg to differ. It was hardly the beautiful natural environment that you picture and was more a space for locals to bring their children to play and to practice tai chi.
After taking a taxi back to the hotel we packed up our stuff and headed to the airport. We had a state of the art taxi, complete with DVD player, leopard print fabric on the doors, racing seats and steering wheel and tissues coming out of the ceiling. Once again we all fell asleep on the ride and I managed to get some pretty entertaining pictures of the others passed out. When we arrived at the airport we checked in to our flight, having avoided a young woman who was trying to get us to take her bag onto the plane for her. After a two hour wait we finally boarded the plane and headed back to Penang. Guess what we did on the flight? Yup, we slept again!
When we got back to Penang we took a taxi back to the ship and Nicole, Kerry and I headed to a bank machine and money changer. It was a good opportunity to get some money changed into American and Vietnamese dong for future ports. We then headed back to the port to wait for the tender.
We arrived back at the ship at 6pm and decided to meet for dinner and a final night out at 7. After a quick shower and change I was feeling fresh and ready to go again. We took the tender to shore and looked for a taxi. We wanted to go to a steamboat restaurant, where you cook your food at the table on a barbeque style grill. The taxi driver took us to a restaurant that looked a little questionable so we walked around until we found a good place. We arrived at restauran Golden, which was filled with locals and no tourists, so we figured it had to be good. Joseph the owner came out to personally greet us and show us how to use the steamboat and cook the food. We had no idea what we were doing at first so it was a little bit of an adventure. Inside there was a large buffet of raw chicken, beef, pork, seafood, sausage, noodles and vegetables. We picked what we wanted to cook and headed outside to our table. The apparatus was already set up and featured a grill surrounding a vat of broth in the middle. We were instructed to butter the grill before cooking on it. Vegetables went into the broth and meats on the grill. Although we were not sure what to expect the food was delicious. We stayed for over an hour and ate far too much. We just kept putting more food onto the steamboat and eating it as it cooked. My favorite was an orange coloured chicken and the pre-cooked chicken satay which was the best I tasted in Malaysia. We really enjoyed our authentic meal here and thanked Joseph endlessly telling him we would recommend the restaurant to all our friends. We left a large tip and then headed for the door. As we were walking out Joseph chased us and asked us where we were going. We told him we were going to walk to Momo, a local bar a short distance away. He insisted that he drive us because it was too dark and dangerous for us to walk alone. We were very grateful when we saw where he drove us, through dark streets and quite alleys. We arrived at the bar a few minutes later, a journey which would have taken probably an hour to walk.
We had a great time at the two bars, Momo and Slippery Senioritas (we called it slippery susan’). We made sure to leave at 12:30am in order to make sure we were back at the dock at 1am for the last tender. The tender was packed with people coming back from the bar so as you can imagine, it was pretty much chaos. Well we finally made it and I headed for my cabin and hopped in to bed. I planned to get up fairly early the next morning to go to an internet café with Nicole and Kerry.
Well I woke up at 11:30 when Nicole and Kerry called to say that they were going to go to the internet café later in the afternoon. We met up for lunch at 12. It was a really good lunch as the food always is when we are in port. The cheeseburger days and pizza days are always in port and I haven’t even had one yet!
Anyway I went back to my room and lay down as I wasn’t feeling to hot from the night before. At 1:30 we headed to the union to meet the group for our orphanage visit. We didn’t end up leaving until about 2pm when we boarded the tender to head to shore. Once there we took a short bus ride to the St. Joseph’s Orphanage. When we arrive I was expecting a poor and run down place like the ones we had visited in other countries. It was exactly the opposite. The facilities were immaculate and modern and the children were well dressed and clean. Many of them spoke some English and all were polite. We were first told a little bit of information about the school and the children. They are split into grades and girls and boys go to class and live separately. There are 4 full time staff and the orphanage survives on donations alone. After the short introduction we were allowed to spend the rest of the time interacting with the children. Many played soccer, catch and others coloured, played with play dough and talked to the children. We gave them gifts of hair clips, pencils and stickers. I sat with Lauren, Leah, Rebecca and Marissa and we coloured and played play dough with a group of 3 girls. After a while other girls joined us and we played catch with a squishy ball.
Just before the trip was scheduled to leave me and Leah decided to head out into the town to pick up some last minute supplies before returning to the ship. We walked to the happy mart and picked up snacks. From there we wanted to get something to eat. We walked for a while but because it was Sunday there was not much open. We decided to get into a trishaw and ask the driver to take us to a good restaurant. He dropped us off at a busy street and we walked along. There was plenty of Indian food but I didn’t think my stomach was up for that again! In the end we ended up wandering back to the ship early. We boarded for the last time at about 5pm.
When we got back I changed some money into dong (for Vietnam) and mailed some postcards. We then went to dinner on the ship. I was not feeling well so after dinner I just relaxed until nine thirty. Then we had an Easter service led by some of the students who lead the bible study group. It was a really good experience and I was able to see that religion can be funny and light and not so serious and stuffy. I really enjoyed it and there were lots of people there and it was really encouraging to hear the testimonies of some of them. I went to bed around midnight. We are three days away from Vietnam now and I am really excited for it. I cannot wait to experience the markets and all the historical sites I have been told about! Until next time …xo