Malaysia

Like most people I had no idea what to expect going into Malaysia. It was the one country that I did not give much thought or attention to like I did to India, Vietnam, or China. Malaysia was simply some small Asian country in between the three. However, our experience in Malaysia easily ranks ahead of most of the countries if not all of them that we have visited so far.
Before our flight back to the ship in India I bought a Lonely Planet on Malaysia to try to get an idea of what to do while we were there. Andrew and I planned to go by ourselves and backpack through the country heading south and eventually making our way to the capital of Kuala Lumpur. But 2 days before we landed in Penang, we decided to let Ben hop on board with us. Going into the country we had no hotel rooms or flights booked at all, the only thing we had was our Lonely Planet book and a general idea of where we wanted to go.
The first morning we landed we disembarked the ship around 11:00 with the goal of finding a long distance taxi to take us to a town called Tanah Rata. Tanah Rata is located about a 4 hour drive from Penang in the Cameron Highlands which are about 6,500 ft above sea level. We knew that there were plenty of hotels and many tea plantations and hiking trails for us to explore. It took us no time to find taxi drivers eagerly wanting to take us to the highlands and after some negotiating we found a driver for the right price. Before we left Penang we had our driver take us to a market to grab a bite to eat. We all had a good meal which consisted of prawns, fried chicken, rice and veggies.
After a long rainy drive to Tanah Rata we had no time finding a hotel. That first evening we walked around the town looking through the various shops and talking to different tourism groups trying to find out what we wanted to do the next day. As we were eating dinner at a restaurant in town I saw a sign that advertised white water rafting in the tourism agency next to where we were eating. We ended up signing up for a caving adventure followed by white water rafting for the following day.
The next morning we woke up at 6:30 to meet our driver who was picking us up at our hotel to take us 2 hours away to where we would be caving and white water rafting. When we reached the caves our guide gave us a water bottle, flash light, and a helmet. He told us that we would be getting wet, but that was pretty much it. As we entered the cave our guide told us about the history of the caves and the various stalagmites/tites, and bats that lived in the caves. Our caving adventure lasted 4 ½ hours of nonstop hiking and crawling and swimming. Most of the way we followed a river upstream running through the caves, and at some points we had a 2 foot space with about a foot of water to crawl through. Near the end of our hike in order to exit the caves we had to walk up 697 stairs, we were exhausted.
Immediately following our caving adventure we hopped in a van and drove about 20 minutes away to a village where we were served a much appreciated lunch consisting of chicken, fish, rice, and fruit. I’m fairly sure that it was this meal that caused me much intestinal problems and pain the next few days. After our meal we drove another 10 minutes to the spot on the river where we would be rafting. They gave us a brief overview of what we were going to do and we jumped in our raft to head down the river, accompanied by a guide in our raft and two others in kayaks. The week before had seen plenty of rain so even though it wasn’t the peak season to white water raft the section of the river we were in was still graded a 3. It took us about and 1 ½ hours to raft our section of the river and along the way in some points we were able to get out of the raft and body raft down certain parts of the rapids. It was a lot of fun and maybe one of the best days I’ve experienced on the trip so far. That evening we found another hotel in town where we ate dinner and crashed for the night.
The next morning we obtained a long distance taxi to take us to Kuala Lumpur where I had booked us 2 rooms at a hotel the night before. The drive to KL took longer than we had planned because we decided to stop at Kellies Castle first. This was a 6 story castle built by a wealthy rubber tree plantation owner, and it was a lot of fun to explore its many secret rooms and passageways. Once we arrived into the city our taxi began breaking down about every 2 blocks, and our driver had to replace his break fluid four times before we reached the hotel. Our hotel room was nice and had a perfect view of the Petronas Towers. That evening we walked around the mall underneath the towers and explored other areas around city before going back to our hotel.
The next morning we were unsure about what we wanted to do. There wasn’t really anything we wanted to do in the city, but every where we went were advertisements for the Formula 1 race going on that weekend, and most people in our hotel were in town for the race. So with nothing else to do we got a taxi ride to the race track about 30 minutes away. When we arrived we bought passes to see the race qualifier and had our driver drop us off at the gate with instructions to pick us up at the same place at 5:30. As we were walking in the gate we immediately ran into James and Andrew who had arrived about an hour earlier. We talked with them and found a good spot to sit to watch the qualifying race. Formula 1 is like Europe’s NASCAR, and the crowd that goes to see the event is almost the same, Euro-trash. We got to see that qualifying race as well as 2 other races afterwards which provided us two crashes right at the turns on our side of the track. That evening we ate at a Thai restaurant which served us excellent food and then went to a Jazz bar next door.
The next morning we had a cab drop us off at the bus station with the hopes of being able to find a bus ride back, and no sooner had I opened the door to my cab when a man asked us if we were heading to Penang because a bus was leaving right that moment. We followed him through the crowded bus station down to where the buses were and after paying him $10.00 a piece we jumped on the bus for our 4 hour drive back to Penang. When we arrived back on the ship that evening we attended an excellent Easter service put together by some of the students.
The whole entire time on this trip it seemed that everything fell into our laps, and nothing caused us any problems. Even though Malaysia is 80% Muslim at no point did I feel uncomfortable or threatened, I think this was mostly due to the fact they everyone was Asian and wore caps on their heads instead of turbans. It was definitely the most economically developed country we visited thus far, and both Andrew and I enjoyed it a lot.