Explorations through South East Asia: Malaysia

For a couple weeks in March and April, I had the opportunity to visit Thailand, Cambodia, and Malaysia (clicking the links will take you to previous posts). Due to my short stay in Malaysia, I only visited one city, Kuala Lumpur. Before moving to Japan, I’m not even sure I’d heard of Kuala Lumpur. Is it famous? I really couldn’t tell you. I’m pretty sure the only reason I learned about it was because it was cheapest to fly from there back to Japan. This is turning into more of a backhanded compliment than I intended. Anyways…the point is that for most of my life, I couldn’t tell you one thing about Malaysia. I didn’t know any of its cities, climate, location, or people. It existed just as well as the settings from the required books I didn’t read in high school – perhaps others knew all about it, but to me, it could be anything, or nothing. Though I now know that Malaysia is home to jungle beds, firefly rivers, and the largest flower in the world, the Rafflesia, I didn’t see any of these things when I visited. Kuala Lumpur, the location I stayed, is more closely related to Los Angeles than the Ferngully scenery you might expect. Unlike Thailand and Cambodia, Kuala Lumpur boasted huge shopping malls, monorails, $8 beers, and even a McDonalds adjacent to my hostel. Now, I realize that city attractions and sky scrapers are just fancy ways to disguise the real purpose of what we can really find within its borders – a community.

Usually when I write my blog posts, I just let out whatever is inside. I don’t do much editing because my thoughts just escape me and editing them feels like they turn into something else. But for some reason, as I write about Malaysia, I can’t seem to focus my attention. I’ve written and re-written this post several times and I still don’t know what I want to say. Perhaps it’s because I’m not sure I can.

What I experienced in Malaysia was one of the purest expressions of human kindness I’ve ever felt. It was like being at a rave, but better – it was real. Sometimes, people would just come up and start chatting with me, both women and men. At first I remember not knowing how to feel about this. Are they trying to steal from me? I’d read a lot before traveling to South East Asia that this happens sometimes. But after we’d part ways and I realized that nothing was taken, I couldn’t help but feel bad about ever doubting their sincerity. Websites can tell you a lot about safety and theft, but they can’t tell you what it feels like when every person you make eye contact with sends you a smile as you walk past them, or to have several groups of people see you with a map in hand and offer to show you the way. Websites, like this one, can explain facts, but they can’t explain human connections. It’s up to us to discover those for ourselves. So perhaps all I can say about Kuala Lumpur is that you should visit it. It may not have rainforest adventures or roaming wild animals, but it is home to some of the kindest people I’ve ever encountered. When I told a friend this, he asked if I took lots of pictures of people smiling. I realized I didn’t take even one. It made me sad for a moment that I didn’t capture the thing that meant most to me. But I guess beauty isn’t always meant to be captured – sometimes it’s just meant to breathe.

Camera: Nikon FM10, Nikon FM2

Film: Portra 160

en route.



Love the colors in that one.



Couldn't quite capture this dragonfly, but I still love this shot. Perhaps because I spent so long staring at this little creature. Its eyes were gigantic.





Jellyfish are so incredible and serene.



I've never seen a butterfly poop before, but as I was getting my camera ready to take a picture of this one, it's butt (the top end) flipped downward and starting pooping. It kind of made me like that butterfly more...it's beautiful and doesn't care about pooping in front of me.

This is at the Batu Caves.

This guy was standing at about a 70 degree angle, butt out as far as it would go, legs spread apart, and arms fully wrapped around the telescope. I admired his intensity.

Ostriches are strange and amazing.

I love birds.

Explorations through South East Asia: Thailand

Last month, I traveled to Thailand, Cambodia, and Malaysia for two weeks. I decided to go alone because I wanted some time to recollect my thoughts and I really do enjoy solitary exploring. In December, one of my best friends came to visit me in Japan and we traveled for about two weeks as well. The differences between that trip and this lone one were huge. When I was with him, everything was fun, hilarious, random - or at least that's the impression I feel from it, looking back. But when you have few people to talk to for two weeks, you start to talk to yourself a lot, or rather, you think more about what you see and are experiencing. It is not a joint effort between you and a friend, seeing the world and examining it together, there is only you to interpret the life you are imagining.
I had started feeling a little sick before I got to Bangkok, but assumed it was a cold. Within a couple days, it turned into Bronchitis and I could barely get out of bed. The 100 degree weather also made it worse. On my first day of exploring, I arrived at a small area with various vendors selling street food. I bought some watermelon (which, for a pretty big bag, was only about 70 cents...amazing), and sat down at a nearby table and ended up staying there for a couple hours, buying water bottle after water bottle, willing myself to eat the watermelon after throwing up in a bag. Oddly, though, I met a lot of people while sitting there, and though I was feeling pretty bad, I got to spend a couple hours purely observing my busy surroundings - the woman making pad thai dishes and eyeing me in both a frustrated and concerned way, the man selling bags of fruit, always with a smile, the French, Indonesian, and Chinese people I met who ate their lunch on the same long table I occupied, and the various white people, carrying all kinds of souvenirs and coconuts and random things that made me laugh. When I made it back to my hostel, I rested a lot for a couple days and the hostel owner literally checked on me about 20 times a day. She'd bring me bread, juice, water, and was always making sure I was OK. My hostel room only had three beds.
The other two beds were occupied by two German guys who didn't know each other before arriving. We were all strangers. I liked rooming with them because I realized I had almost no understanding of German culture before; I am really ignorant about Germany. But they were both really energetic, outgoing, fluent in German and English, and would feed me painkillers and random German medicines they happened to have with them. They were also really kind, as almost everyone - both foreign and Thai - was in Thailand. I think one of my favorite moments was when I was walking through a mall type place looking for souvenirs to bring back for friends, and as I passed a Thai woman sitting by her booth of items, she smiled at me. I noticed that most people in Thailand do this when you make eye contact - they smile. But for some reason, her smile punctured me, I think I actually started to tear up. I'm not really sure why it meant so much, perhaps because it was a gentle reminder that the human spirit is far too omnipresent for us to ever really be alone.

Cameras: Nikon FM2, Nikon FM10
Film: Portra 160















This was the neighborhood my hostel was in called Klongsan.







Like giant animals in a zoo.


Rooftop.



This was in a TukTuk which is sort of like a motorcycle with a sidecar attached to the back. It's cheap and functions as a taxi.





Many people use motorcycles instead of cars and will bring their kids along with them. Sometimes I would see entire families on one motorcycle - a parent and three kids all squished together. This one caught my eye though - a baby drinking from its bottle. It made me think that if someone in America did that with their child, people would go nuts because it seems unsafe, but in Thailand it was commonplace and I got used to it almost right away. Makes me wonder how much of what we believe is important is only made up from what the government or society deems to be.

That guy's rifle was as long as my leg.




I'll post pictures from my next stop, Cambodia, next Sunday. Until then, I am off to Vietnam and Singapore! Cheers to traveling and exploring.
-M