Malaysia, Truly Asia

There are these great ads that run on tv here promoting tourism in Malaysia. The slogan is “Malaysia, truly Asia.” I’m not sure how accurate that slogan is though, considering most people probably think of Japan or Vietnam before Malaysia, but it is catchy, I’ll give them that.
Christine, my sorority sister, came to visit at the beginning of June. It was my first time leaving the country, which really put Cambodia in perspective for me. We of course saw Angkor Wat and all the sights in Phnom Penh, and then flew to Kuala Lumpur, the capitol of Malaysia. It was a big shock to fly out of Cambodia and right into a real, modern city. Even the Malaysian airport had a Starbucks and a McDonalds, beacons of westernization if you ask me. We explored all over the city, saw the view from the Petronas twin towers (after being forced to watch an incredibly creepy video about the power of oil that reminded me of a futuristic sci-fi thriller), wandered through the air-conditioned malls, and explored China town.
The first day there we headed out to the Bantu caves. The caves are 276 steps up into a mountain and have a shrine inside. They were an amazing sight, though for some people the monkeys running up and down the steps were obviously the main attraction. On the way back our taxi driver gave us his opinion of Malaysia. Doesn’t David Sedaris say taxi drivers are the best way to get to know a new place? I didn’t ask him what Malaysians believe about Santa Claus but I did gain some insight. Before the trip I knew essentially nothing about Malaysia except that the Petronas towers are the iconic symbol of Kuala Lumpur. Turns out Malaysia was a British colony (literally I knew NOTHING going into the trip). There are huge Indian and Chinese populations, but our taxi driver claimed even if your family had lived in Malaysia for generations, as his had, your Malaysian passport will still say “from India.” He also told us only those who are ethnic Malay can vote for the parliament seats, and unsurprisingly an ethnic Malay person has held control of the country since independence. I should probably do some research to back up these claims before throwing them around on my blog, but my internet is slow so for now I’ll take them at face value.
Christine and I took the overnight train from Kuala Lumpur to Langkawi, an island off the coast of northern Malaysia. The island was so lush and green, it was really beautiful. The weather didn’t exactly cooperate for us to partake in the activities the beach would normally offer, but we did explore the island. One day we rode a cable car up into the mountains and got a beautiful view of the island. All the way at the top it was so foggy we couldn’t see anything, but it was still cool to see the cable cars basically disappearing into the fog. Afterwards we hiked up a very steep hill to see the seven pool water fall. At the very top it was a fairly small stream, but it was still a very verdant and worthwhile site. On the way down we saw a view of the waterfall from below. Maybe the view wasn’t worth the crazy hike, but it was nice to see a wet, green landscape after months of dried up rice paddies.
We had one more day in Kuala Lumpur on the way back, where I was happy to take full advantage of the ridiculously nice breakfast buffet. It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip for me. What can I say, food is a priority?
We then took our last flight, every single one of which was delayed (Air Asia is no RyanAir… they are not the most on time airline and they do not have a great jingle that plays everytime a flight lands on time), to Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam. The city wasn’t as totally cosmopolitan as Kuala Lumpur. It was more like a half way point between total modernization and being totally rural and undeveloped. I really enjoyed walking around the city, just seeing the wild difference between two major cities only a six hour bus ride from each other, Ho Chi Minh and Phnom Penh. The streets were clean, though they were packed with traffic, and everyone just appeared so much more modern in both dress and behavior. We saw all the major sites we could in one day including the old Post Office and Notre Dame cathedral, as well as the huge market. The hotel where we were staying had a great live band that played on the 23rd floor so we went up to watch them for our last night. It was so much fun and the band really appreciated us livening up the crowd of mostly people there on business.
It was a rude awakening to come back to Cambodia. Seeing other countries really opened my eyes to how rural and poor Cambodia is. Outside of Siem Reap and Phnom Penh the whole country is essentially wooden houses and motos. There is no public transport system, the roads are far worse than the rest of Southeast Asia, and the cities are dirtier. But at the same time I can appreciate that Cambodia has retained as much of its culture as possible. Even given its horrific recent past, I still feel Cambodians are proud and try to preserve the things about their country that are true and original. It is easy to get caught up in thinking that Cambodia is just so far behind, but there is a simple beauty to the country and the culture that you have to look hard to see. I hope that people who visit Southeast Asia get enough of a sense of the country to take that away, and not overlook the small miracles here in the face of the country’s major problems.