Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur - Pangkor Island Route

As I was quite exhausted after physically active Sri Lanka trip, I immediately fell asleep on the plane to Kuala Lumpur. Flight was not time consuming and I woke up when we were about to land. First glances on the Malaysian peninsula cast my gut feelings: this trip would impact me tremendously. Well, I said to myself, let's get this done!

First moments and first days in KL are entitled as "Tarzan in the City Jungles". KL ICCT Terminal did not impress me. What impressed me was loud groups of Chinese speaking women wearing short skirts, sleeveless bright Tshirts with scoop neck and extremely high heel shoes who carried a large quantity of fake exclusive hand bags from LV or Armani, children toys, heavy boxes and plenty of other stuff. To add, they'd been very noisy, breaking the line all the time and speaking so loud that my ears started to pain. After harmonious noiseless trekking in Sri Lanka I had been thrown into one of the Asians metro cities. Welcome to Kuala Lumpur :) ! Immigration table. Passport stamped. I am legal here. So far nobody asked me if I am from Japan or Indonesia or the US. Good sign.

I came out from the terminal and went searching for a shuttle to take me to KLLC . As always, I fell asleep on the bus and was woken up one hour later by a Chinese neighbour. He said, We've arrived. Wake up, please. By the way, you look tired. Where have you been? " I'm travelling" "Alone?" "Yes. Is something wrong with it?" "No, no" You know, sometimes I just wonder how Asian men talk. For example, in India a few guys told me ( after not seeing me for some time ) , - Oh, you lost weight. - How nice of you saying this to me , I reply with sarcasm. - No, no, I am sincere. You really lost weight. 6 months back when I met you, you were quite fat. Now you look fresher. What do you do? Dieting? Oh boy. He does not know he is deleted from my memory. I got off the bus and was searching for my friend's boyfriend. Unfortunately, my phone was off and I thought that Vodafone roams automatically. Fortunately, I immediately recognized Aman just because it was obvious: he was searching for somebody in the crowd and I thought it could be me.So, we went to take a subway and a wild zombie named Tarzan rose in me. I totally forgot how to use a modern transportation, forgot that people may ( and can, actually ) not stare at you and you also do not stare at them. Forgot that you do not need to push people to find your way out of the subway station and that you do need to bargain loudly with rickshaw drivers and they do not shout at you back just because there are no rickshaws in KL, and secondly because everything is digitized for simplicity and comfort. On my arrival day and the next day I was still tarzanning. It felt as if I was learning how to take first steps, how to walk properly and not jumping because there might be a bike or an annoyingly honking truck. I was flying and feeling light. First three days in KL were perfect. I had spent a very precious time with my careful friend, Lasma. Lasma painted my staying in Malaysia with all warm colours that exist in the world. Priceless friendship.

First three days were not very much tourist oriented. Yes, we went immediately to Petronas Twin Towers. We were very lucky because that night it was a lunar eclipse and here is a proof :) Lasma encouraged me to try south eastern asian food. I fell in love with Bangladeshi food. Delicious! Thai food left me speechless. Needless to mention that I was gradually falling in love with the scenery, the taste and the drive of magnificent opportunistic KL.Among touristic sites I visited my favourite one is KL Towers. It gives a grande panorama view of the city with an audio guide and history background. Moreover, it educates you on the highest towers in the world such as Ostankino Tower in Moscow, Russia or the Tokyo one. I loved this spot because it stopped my feeling of being a Tarzan: high skyscrapers planted by a hand of an architect left me with relief. There was nothing to feel paralysed or shocked. An ordinary life in an ordinary city.

Apart from structured organised life, I loved KL for its affordability and the sense of comfort. Peaceful moments of reading a book or a journal in a cozy cafe with a fresh brewed coffee and a blueberry muffin, or lying on the grass next to the fountains and viewing the Petronas Towers and imagining you are a bird ... Cherishable moments. In the last two days of Seductive Malaysia trip there was no notion of time. There was Present all the time. There was no Yesterday, no Tomorrow. There was friendship, our sweet dreams, luscious food, amazingly transparent blue oceanic water, beige soft sand of Pangkor island, a sizzling orange sunset, lonely ships in the ocean, a total freedom and peacefulness. ... Seductive Malaysia trip has finished. Saturday noon June 18th I took a flight back to the hottest Chennai, India.In the airport as almost everywhere in KL shop assistants would ask me, Excuse me, are you from Kazakhstan? My jaw dropped several times. First time when I was abroad locals not only recognise my origins but also do possess a substantial knowledge of the country based on the actual facts and not the Borat movie. I probably shall say here that I adore multiculturalism and cross cultural communication, I smile when internationals know nothing about my homeland ( not even its location ) , I feel fine when people say that Kazakhstan is still Russia or China or whatever. It is fine. However, the more I travel and live abroad, the more I appreciate my motherland, the people that live in a multi- ethnical Kazakhstan and the cultures that we bear. But this is probably a topic for another blog post. You can view the pictures from Malaysia trip here