It is still unbelievable to think that I am going to be spending my holiday in Asia, let alone spending it in Malaysia and Singapore! Of all places in the world, I probably never would have put myself at either location; however, I could not be more excited to begin my exploration of South East Asia, starting in Malaysia and Singapore with two of my favorite travelers, Anna and Amy. A lot of hard work and planning has gone into this trip, and finally, it is here!
Our first day of travel was great. Our brand new North Face backpacker’s bags were jammed packed, checklists complete and travel tickets in hand. We had our Lonely Planet travel guide for SE Asia that we had studied intently for days and days in preparation. We began first thing in the morning on Wednesday on a fast train from Shanghai to Hangzhou. Once in Hangzhou, we caught a taxi from the train station to the airport where we found a comfortable bar to park before our flight. Just a few short hours later, we were checking our bags and preparing to board the plane for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – our first destination in our 16 day adventure.
The flight was fine and we found plenty of ways to entertain ourselves for 6 hours. Soon enough, the Pilot announced, “Welcome to Kuala Lumpur! The current temperature is 28. Enjoy your stay!” Through customs, claimed our baggage and caught a taxi immediately walking out of the airport… we were off to a great start!
The first things we learned (a) everyone speaks English so we are actually able to communicate, (b) cars drive on the opposite side of the street (c) the majority of people seemed to be super nice and (d) there was a large Muslim population (I’ll come back to that)! Our taxi driver was awesome! His name was Den and we became friends during our 90 minute drive into the city of Kuala Lumpur. Sure, he ended up charging us double for our taxi ride, but he told up good places to go, places to stay away from, and he gave us quite the city tour.
(sooo weird sitting on the left side of the car)
As we entered the city, he drove toward our hostel, oddly enough, located in Chinatown (never would have booked that had we known), but concluded our city tour by driving us straight through a Chinese market. We thought he was a bit crazy, but it was hysterical! We were in a decent size crossover vehicle, driving down a road barely made for one car, lined with markets, street venders, tables, chairs and tons of people! At one point, we almost hit a girl that was sitting down eating food. Of course, we were probably the only vehicle that drove down that street, but the people in the market parted like the Red Sea. If we had been in China, people actually would have crowded around more and stood in front of the car yelling and screaming making it impossible to proceed. In Malaysia, however, people have a very different mentality, so they moved aside, pulled their table and allowed for the car to pass without even a second thought.
(driving through the night market)
We finally made it out of the market, and turned the corner to our hostel – 200 MYR later, we had made it to our $5.00 USD hostel – Backpackers Travelers Inn. I will say that we got exactly what we paid for!
Well the first night that we spent in Kuala Lumpur was… interesting. Upon arrival, I immediately felt unsettled. It is difficult to explain, and to be honest, I was so excited that I didn’t think much of it at the time, but it was eerie. Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia in general) has a large population of Muslims. I never would have thought twice about that fact, except that when I stepped off the plane and into an area surrounded by intimidating men and timorous women covered from head to toe, it made me nervous to be a woman dressed “not so modestly”. Unfortunately, I do not know a lot about the culture, but enough to know that women are not treated well, and it suddenly made me very aware of my surroundings. Of course, I always need to be aware and careful when traveling, especially when we are three young women traveling, but for once I felt like I was at a disadvantage because I am less educated about the culture…. Anyway, we will get back to that.
So, like I was saying, the night was… interesting. After settling into the hostel and freshening up, we headed out to the town. Now, I am not really sure what I expected, but it was nothing like I had imagined. For starters, our stay in Chinatown was rather scary. Although we were in the city, we were in the outskirts on the not so nice side of town. It was rather dirty, run down, lots of dark alleys and abandoned buildings, but we were hopeful for the rest of the city. As we jumped in a taxi, the driver gave us the first glimpse into how racist the city was. Already, we felt a little out of place but as our Malaysian driver began telling us that we could not trust taxi drivers, especially the ones with “dark skin” because “they will kill you” I was wishing that I was somewhere else…
Now for the not so great part… Kuala Lumpur was not my favorite city. In fact, aside from the towers, I was not impressed by anything else. Granted, we spent only a couple of hours in KL (and we will go back at the end of our trip again for a couple days), but the city made me very nervous. Like I said, our hostel was on the bad side of town, and although the majority of people that we encountered were very friendly, we also encountered many that we not friendly. As we walked around the city in the evening looking for a place to eat, eyes were on us constantly, but not in a good way. It is interesting because in Shanghai, we are used to people starting at us because we are foreigners, however, their stares are pure curiosity; obnoxious but innocent. In all of my travels in China, I have never once felt threatened or unsafe. I have never felt uncomfortable walking by myself down the street at night. On the other hand, everywhere we went in KL, we were surrounded by men (mostly Muslims) who stopped dead in their tracks and stared us down as we walked by, and it made me feel like I wasn’t supposed to be there.
Needless to say, we didn’t stay out too late. We ate some dinner, then walked back to our hostel (not wanting to trust another taxi driver). On our walk back, we heard rats running in the alleys, and were stopped by several transvestites standing on the corner. For the record, I saw more tranies in KL in one hour than I have seen in my entire life.
Thankfully, we were tired from our long day of traveling, so we went back to the hostel to pass out. We all took some Benadryl to help us sleep on our luxurious tempera pedic mattresses that the hostel provided (ha!)
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