Save the prime minister!

I just got back from a whirlwind tour of (part of) Malaysia and India. While the trip was amazing and left me with many incredible laughs and memories, I am so thankful to be back in a clean, organized and technologically sound country. There is a lot to talk about so I will break this blog into parts per city.

 

Ready? Adventure time!

 

First Leg: Malaysia

 

My friend Maya and I found ourselves at Narita Airport the morning of the 22^nd. After some high tension and stress regarding one of our friends and her visa arriving extremely late, we were confident everyone would meet up safely in Delhi in a matter of hours.

 

Maya and I had planned a layover in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia for a number of reasons. Foremost was price. No matter how hard I searched, there were no direct flights that fell on the days I was looking for. Second was time. I’m sorry, but I didn’t much fancy a 9+ hour layover in China without being allowed to leave the airport.

Third, by going to Malaysia and leaving a day earlier than planned, I could break the trip in half and see a bit of a new place.

 

First impressions of Malaysia consisted mostly of, ‘’Holy cow! It’s so green! And warm! And humid! And this train to the city is great! And…!’’. Long story short, I could see myself going back and exploring more. The added bonus is that US citizens don’t need to shell out big bucks for a visa!

 

After checking in to our hostel, we meandered, ate dinner, avoided the foul smelling durian fruits (strangely named ‘King of Fruits’ but I refuse to touch it), and went on a paparazzi adventure trying to snap a shot of the Petronas Towers. Eventually, we were successful!

Sparkly

  The next day, we had the morning and early afternoon to kill, so we decided to go to the KL Bird Park, the world’s largest covered aviary. Inside was amazing. The birds are, for the most part, given complete freedom and can fly around, eat, avoid humans and poop all over them to their hearts content. It was a really great way to spend the day!

Birdies

Hey Mr. Peacock!

    Afterwards, we grabbed some lunch, passed by a throng of people heading to the National Mosque for lunchtime prayers. Which reminds me, I was really impressed and struck by just the small slice of life I witnessed.

 

While many Malaysians are Muslim, many are not. At the airport there were a lot of female security officers. The Muslim women had their hair wrapped up beneath their uniform berets. I often saw them walking directly alongside non-Muslims (or perhaps more lax ones who didn’t care about covering their hair). I saw them holding similar positions to men. I saw them interacting with people who dressed identically to them, and interacting with people who obviously were very different. It was refreshing. It was something I wished I could share with every person who had ever lumped the religion into one awful breadbasket.

 

Malaysia sits at a crossroads in South East Asia. It bears marked influences from China, Indonesia, Thailand and countries even farther west. I was sad to go, but, like I said, I have a feeling I will be back.