Malaysia

Food, food, food. Malaysia is great fun. Throw in fun on the beach and Malaysia makes for an outstanding destination.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and was able to celebrate with friends and family. I know you are all back to work, so I will try and be brief. The last update was primarily about Indonesia. This one centers on Malaysia, where I was from Christmas evening until the afternoon of the 6th of January.

But first a couple words of thanks to Singapore and to some friends there. They are enthusiastic ambassadors for that city’s outstanding cuisine, and this time introduced me to specialities of Teochew cuisine, and an excellent place for xiao long bao (soup dumplings). I could show you the ever-expanding Singapore skyline, the casino with a massive observation deck on top, or Orchard Road lit up for Christmas. But I think Singapore is all about the food – so i’ll present some of the few remaining dumplings (and the other great stuff we had). Thanks guys!

Malaysia is advancing and building at an astronomical rate, and has been for several decades. I enjoy Kuala Lumpur, even though the weather is like Houston in August much of the year. Great infrastructure, natural beauty and a vast, multi-ethnic populace make Malaysia a great destination. But I wanted to get a taste of the countryside, so I spent one day taking the Jungle Line train from Gemas up to Wakaf Baharu, near the Thai border. Rubber plantations, hills/mountains and vast rivers were my companions, along with an ever-changing array of Malaysian families. I communicated primarily through smiles and nods.

Then a quick flight got me to Penang, one of the original Straits Settlements. It, along with Melaka, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Penang is all about food. Street vendors, hawkers, small restaurants. My rule of thumb was try and be the only foreigner in the place — and I had a blast. There is nothing like going from great tandoori chicken to outstanding char kway teow, (fried rice noodles) and then to excellent hainan chicken rice, all in one day, and then stopping off for great Indian bread, roti canai, as a late-night snack. This was the chicken rice.

Sadly, not all Penang culinary traditions are good ones. There is a proliferation of pickled fruit stalls in town. Yes, pickled fruit – mangoes, pears, apples. Now I don’t know what the poor mango ever did to deserve this treatment, but the smells were retched, and the taste 10 times worse. And this comes from a guy who used to drink and enjoy pickle juice as a child (don’t ask).

There are other sites on Penang Island besides the main city, Georgetown. I did make it to the Snake Temple — continuing my apparent need to visit all sites the Amazing Race has ever illustrated. It was a total dud – three small tree snakes and two that are used for taking pictures. They looked so bored I thought one was plastic, so I’m skipping the shot. Instead, I made more monkey friends on the top of Penang Hill, after a very fast funicular ride – top speed 20 mph. Coming down was more like a rollercoaster.

Penang also highlighted the other fact of transport in much of Asia – the constant whir/whine of motorbikes. The incessant buzz of the motors is the soundtrack for Asian cities, a sign of the expanding urbanity. For the pedestrian traveler like me, walking on the street can be quite frustrating. For me, the tipping point depends on the ratio of bikes to cars. Where cars dominate, motorcyclists drive with greater caution. When the bikes dominate, you end up with Saigon. But Penang still has the touristy trishaws.

From Penang, I went to another Straits Settlement, Melaka, the former Malacca. By now I’m beginning to realize some things about Asia at Christmas. Even in a predominantly Muslim country, Christmas is inescapable. More specifically, Christmas Muzak music and Michael Buble appear to be on repeat in every mall, every airport and every flight. Add to that the disturbing passion for all things Angry Birds and the Smurfs, and the enduring resilience of “I Will Survive” and “YMCA”, and you can understand why I escape to my iPod on occasion. Along with the frenetic market that is the famed Jonkers Walks, Melaka also provided debilitating heat and sun, reminding me of childhood, when tires melted and i saw stars in the middle of the day. Even the locals were complaining. But that didnt stop the riotous trishaws. These are disco versions – replete with chaser lights and boom boxes that deliver their own soundtrack.

I made it back to Kuala Lumpur on New Year’s Day, and met a friend at the airport, who will be traveling with me the next few days. We headed immediately to the beach – Langkawi Island, Malaysia’s version of Hawaii. I’ll spare you the superlatives, given that you are experiencing winter. But yes, great beaches, warm days and most days spent lolling about in the water. Langkawi is an archipelago of many islands and islets, making for great views from the beach.

I also continued my cable car visits in Penang – rising 2,100 feet in one of the steepest cable car lifts I have ever seen.

It was a two-part lift, with the most exposed section in the second part.

And after all that, there is a skybridge that crosses a chasm and offers great views of the sea.

And this was the sunset view from the infinity pool at the hotel, with just a sliver of the beach visible.

All the best.