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Happy New Year and Merry Photo-Browsing!

Thursday, January 3rd, 2008

At long last, I’ve gotten my act together on the photo front. Lesson learned: when you’re on a round-the-world trip, upload photos as you take them.

My photos from Malaysia, India, Kenya, and Tanzania can be seen at http://flickr.com/photos/dptrphotos/. I have internet access at the house where I’m staying in Rome, so my photos from Egypt should also be up within the next few days. There are no Rwanda photos because, as those of you who read this blog might remember, my camera was stolen in Kigali (tear).

Update: All my photos are now online!

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to start posting on more a regular basis, so expect to hear from me again soon. I had a blast hanging out at Rome’s Piazza di Popolo on New Year’s Eve, and the experience was definitely entry-worthy. More on that later. Until then, enjoy the photos!

Moments in Malaysia

Friday, April 13th, 2007

The former journal editor in me wants this travel blog to be focused and polished but I guess that’s not the nature of the medium. So I’m going to dump everything here and let you all sort it out instead. Enjoy!

I left Malaysia late on Tuesday night and am now at a friend’s home in Hyderabad, India (more on that in another post), but I figure that I should tell you about my activities there. When I originally booked my layover into Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital, I expected to spend most of my five days there fighting jetlag. But I adjusted pretty quickly and soon found myself wandering EVERYWHERE in the city. (I had no idea that Matteo [boyfriend/travel partner] would end up being one of those people that asks “What next?” after each sight.) But first:

The Plane Ride and First Moments

Nineteen and a half hours is a LONG time to spend on a plane. Luckily though (and for the first time in my flying career), I fell asleep for about 8 hours of it- possibly thanks to the crazy schedule I had in the month leading up to my leaving the US. The rest of the time was spent watching lots (and lots) of good movies and television shows. And, when the plane landed in Taipei to refuel, I was able to get off the plane and walk around a bit. My impression of Taiwan (based solely on my airport experience, of course) is that it is filled with tiny people, bright colors, and very cute cartoon creatures. All in all, the ride was pretty easy.

I flew to Malaysia on Malaysia Airlines, so they had a commercial for the country that played right before we landed. 2007 is the 50th anniversary of Malaysia’s independence, so there is a big push right now to advertise the country to the rest of the world as a prime tourist destination. Part of that push includes having a theme song that goes something along the lines of “Malaysia, it’s just the best, it’s so great, come join us now, Malaaaaaaaysiaaaaaa.” I wish I had a sound bite, but since I don’t, let me just assure you that it made me giggle.

While hearing that great song, I was also looking through my window at the earth below. The ocean near Malaysia is a deep turquoise blue, and you can see great stretches of white beaches as you approach the country. Then, as you make your descent, you can see miles upon miles of palm trees. It’s beautiful.

And now, for The Sights

Basically, I’m convinced that I saw everything there was to see in Kuala Lumpur. On the first day, Matteo and I were exhausted from the flight so we just wandered around our neighborhood for a bit. We were right next to KL’s Chinatown, which was filled with lots of fake Gucci bags, $2 “Rolexes,” and cute shoes that my size 10 feet would never fit into. Apparently, though, I heard from a friend of Matteo’s that we visited (more on that later) that Chinatown’s Petaling Street, the main thoroughfare, used to have stalls that sold things like monkey brains and snake blood. Shame that I missed that.

On the second day, we went to the Petronas Towers. At 88 stories high, they are the tallest twin towers in the world. We traveled up to the observation desk (at the 41st floor) and saw a beautiful view of the city. Then, we went to Suria KLCC, a 5 story (I think) shopping mall at the base of the towers that is home to every high-end store imaginable. We had smoothies at a juice bar, and then I spent the next hour worrying about all the crazy stomach diseases I could get from the ice I just consumed as well as trying to organize my thoughts about eating “developing world” food while being able to browse through skin creams at the mall’s Body Shop. I have a lot to learn about Asia.

On the third day, we went to the Batu Caves, which are located several kilometers north of KL. There are Hindu shrines tucked within the cave’s nooks; even better, there are lots of monkeys with attitude that wander around looking for food and water to steal from visitors.

We spent most of the fourth day wandering around KL’s Lake Gardens, a huge park that has lots of attractions, like a bird park, an orchid garden, and several museums. We also went to the National Mosque, which was the first mosque I ever visited. I absolutely loved the interior’s simplicity and found the mosque to be more beautiful than many other sacred spaces I’ve seen in the past.

Later that night, we had dinner with a Malaysian girl that Matteo worked with at the Brookings Institution, who is now working for a think-tank in KL. It was nice to spend some time talking with someone from the country, since we had remained in isolated tourist mode over the last few days.

The day that we left, we covered the rest of KL’s major sites: the Eye on Malaysia (a big ferris wheel erected to commerate Malaysia’s 50th anniversary of independence; and, by the way, we heard the Malaysia theme song play the entire time), the KL Communication Tower (according to the city where everything is one of the biggest or the best, the tower is the fourth largest in the world), and another mosque called the Masjid (Mosque) Jamek (also beautiful). We also gorged ourselves on some street food we had been eyeing over the last few days (which was of doubtful wisdom given that we were about to spend hours on a plane- but our luck in avoiding stomach problems continued), like thin crepe-like pastries with groundnut paste and honey, steamed corn, and chicken and beef satay.

A note to American travelers that might read this blog: I also went to the American embassy that day to add visa pages to my passport. It took me 30 minutes, was free, and was a million times easier than sending my passport to an American passport agency for processing, where it would have cost me $60 for expedited service and, given the clog from the new passport requirements to Mexico and Canada, lots of headaches and anxiety over whether I would get the passport before I left the country. My advice: take care of the pages overseas!

Other thoughts

Malaysia’s population is primarily composed of three groups: the Malays, the Chinese, the Indians. Each group is distinct, and the cultural backgrounds of each are strongly evident as you wander the streets. For a traveller, especially one who (like myself) is visiting Asia for the first time, this variety is fantastic. (Another note: Matteo and I figured that, since the Indians were undeniably the loudest group, with their Bollywood movies blaring from TV screens facing the streets, that India would be really, really loud. And, now that we’re here, we found that we were absolutely right!)

Fun fact: there is a bookstore in Suria KLCC that looks like the inside of any Borders or Barnes and Noble, with one exception: all of the books are shrinkwrapped. All. Talk about an effective way to eliminate browsing.

Bodily complaints

Based off of my previous travels in Africa, I figure that this section can be a regular theme of the blog.

To date, none!

And So It Begins…

Sunday, April 8th, 2007

I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Kuala Lumpur right now. There's a girl on my right who is using Skype and a webcam to talk with her parents (I think) in some language- something Scandinavian. I have a mosquito ... [Continue reading this entry]