A Whiz Through Malaysia

Please get ready to hop into a vehicle that will whiz you through most everything we did in Malaysia at record speed. Please keep hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times, and make sure to close your eyes if you start getting dizzy.

…  ready?

We reached Malaysia by bus and went to Melaka by taxi. We found a nice hotel, settled in, and then went around to see the churches and other architecture. Melaka has a long history, with Englishmen and Malaysians and Singaporeans… but this is a fast run-through and we won't go into that.

We whizzed through it, saw quite a few red buildings. Total time spent: 3 days.

Next was Kuala Lumpur. We found a Palmmer guesthouse, latched onto the internet, made plans for book-reading competitions, figured out where to get our South African visas, and saw to our own interests for most of a week.

Most of the reason we were in KL was for the sights, but also to get our South African visas. When it became apparent we might not be able to, most of us started trying to figure out what the rest of the trip might be like for the next two months. More of South East Asia, perhaps, or maybe some other corner of the globe. Or maybe even Romania a bit… I wasn't sure what to hope for.

While things of dire importance were going on at the South African embassy, I was reading for a 'competition' to see how many books in different subjects you can read in a week. My books ranged from 150-page The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to the 751-page Long Walk to Freedom, by Nelson Mandela.

Another aspect of the contest was tea-drinking. A little sick, I filled my water bottle with hot water, dunked a Lipton teabag in it once or twice… and then drank 5-10 waterbottles (about 21 oz each) for four days straight. Most people in the guesthouse probably thought I was deathly ill, since I was walking up and down the stairs to reach the bathroom every hour on the hour. Tea will do that to you.

Another interesting thing was the fact that I abruptly decided to stop wearing glasses. I'd done some research on the internet, something along the lines of 'glasses and contact lenses place stress on your eye muscles. When you take them off, your muscles take time to adjust back to their best, but by that time the doctor's already prescribed stronger lenses… making your muscles get weaker and weaker. Exercising these muscles will allow you to have perfect vision again!'

Yes, it sounds like bologne. But I found that when I first took off my glasses, I could see only 6 inches away. After about half an hour without glasses, I could see 12 inches away. (Over the next few weeks, however, my vision didn't improve by much more than millimeters). Clearly, the glasses were doing something.

When the visa scare was over— it finally was in our passports and all was well with the world, we went out to visit Kuala Lumpur in one afternoon.

On the agenda:

The Islamic Art Museum… this had a mosque exhibit of most of the mosques in the world. Semi-blind as I was, I used squinting, Ioan's glasses, and occasionally mine to read the exhibits. (There was trouble with all of these solutions, though: squinting didn't solve the problem, Ioan couldn't read without his glasses, and mine made my head swim). We took advantage of the fact that we were five of ten people in the museum and tried doing push-ups, jumping jacks, and in general goofing around.

The museum also had a clothing display (awesome), batik (we'd seen batik in Indonesia, but the cool thing that the exhibition was the private collection of Ann Dunham, Barack Obama's mother), and various other beautiful displays of silverware and dishes and… well, museum-fare.

The National Mosque… one of the places which admits tourists, unlike most other mosques, which refuse entrance to non-Muslims. We girls had to wear the burka and head-scarf whose name I've forgotten. Though it's highly recommended that you wear a head-scarf in most Orthodox Christian churches, this outfit gave me pause. I had a few minutes of 'DO NOT TAKE PICTURES OF ME,' but in the end had to get over it because no one would listen and it was a bit pointless anyway.

Restaurants… we ate in a lot of places… but the best one was a place that sold pork fried rice… with two or three shrimps tucked in. I like shrimp in small quantities, so it was great.

We left Kuala Lumpur by plane.

Thank you for your patience.

Please watch your step as you exit the vehicle.