Going up the many steps at Batu Caves.
Hindu statue at the entrance of Batu Caves.
Yum.
A monkey and her bananas at Batu Caves.
I flew in to to Kuala Lumpur from Seoul last Monday night. I couldn't believe all the palm trees I saw below as we were landing. As I walked through customs I vaguely saw through the glare on the glass wall in front of me a figure wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt jumping up and down and waving his arms. It had to be the Mad Man himself. And of course it was. We headed home driving on the left side of the road again, reminiscing all the way on the good times had back at Arscott dorms in Australia and where everyone is in the world now (everywhere it seems).
Eddy (aka Mad Man) lives with his father in a house in Kepong, a suburb 15 minutes North of Kuala Lumpur. On the corner lives the coconut man who has huge trucks overflowing with coconuts to sell to local drink and food vendors. Ah, and the food here... it's delicious! Eddy has taken me out to try several different dishes and I've loved them all except for these green jelly strings put in a certain drink called cendol. He thought it would be difficult eating vegetarian in Malaysia but it's extremely easy after living in Korea for a year. Almost every street, food court and market has at least one purely vegetarian restarant and ordering vegetarian at the Indian restaraunts is guaranteed. Eddy took me to one vegetarian grocery shop and I couldn't believe what they did to tofu and vegetables to make it resemble meat and fish. There was frozen "fish" that seriously looked like the real thing. The point is kind of lost on me, personally I'd just rather eat vegetables that look like vegetables but whatever... it was quite a work of creativity to say the least.
Some quick observations about Malaysia so far in no particular order:
This is one seriously diverse place after being in the hermit country. Eddy speaks five languages (his father speaks six) and often times speaks to his friends in a sort of merged together slang version of several at a time. I'll hear an English sentence or word here and there and then it's Cantonese and then Malay, usually with "lah" attached to the end (basically a meaningless word attached to the end of almost anything). Almost everyone here speaks English and when I've gone out with Eddy and his friends they all speak English as their primary language. The people in Malaysia are a mix of Chinese, Indian and Malay and therefore, so is the food.
After living in the land of high speed internet for a year, the connection speed here is excruciatingly slow. Slow speed or not I will be staying away from computers for the most part (I'll try to keep this site alive but no promises).
No staring at the sky while walking in Malaysia. I need to pay attention where my feet are going or else I may end up in one of the several gaping holes in the sidewalk that lead at least several feet down into a dark unappealing void of nothingness. A bit dramatic but seriously, there are very dangerous holes everywhere. Eddy says people steal the concrete squares or metal grates and sell them.
I've mentioned it already but I'll say it again, the food here is amazing! Several locals have said to me that Malaysia is all about the food. Sooooo good!
And the drinks! And they're all so good! Coconut water, tea with lime, soya drink, sugar cane drink, lime drink (very sour, I could barely handle this one), lime plum sour, juices, teas and so many that I haven't tried yet.
So much more to write about but for now I'm going to bed so I can get up early and do some jungle trekking. I'm in the Cameron Highlands escaping the heat for a couple days and then probably going to Taman Negara to sleep in the jungle and do my best at avoiding the leeches.
