Malaysia and Singapore

I’m flying to Kuala Lumpur today. After the frankly not very good food of the Philippines I’m looking forwards to the delicious foods Malaysia has to offer. I’m also really curious about the city.

The votes of the Philippine elections were being counted out as I was waiting for the plane in Manila airport. And it looks like Rodrigo Duterte is winning it. No surprises there. He was leading the polls, every time I checked. I don’t know what he means for the politics of this country, though. It seems he has some rather extreme views about law and order, and that could mean another police state situation for the Philipines. Apparently, voter turnout was 80 percent, which is an all time record. I think we should have voting turnouts this high. However, there is also violence associated with the elections as families with political ties often fight before and during them. As always, in countries like this, there are allegations of cheating.

Going from the Philippines to Malaysia is like going from the third world to the second or actually first world. You know what heaven looks like? Heaven is a really well stocked super market! There were so many products that I knew from Australia and New Zealand, I was so happy, I splurged a little and spent a whole 50 ringgit (about 13CHF) on lots of tasty fruits and veggies. They had Pocky, too!

Then I took the airport bus to the hotel (getting the ticket and finding the right bus took some asking around, but I got there eventually). And you know what? They drive on the left here! Like on Oz and NZ. I should have guessed, since the last colonial power here was the British. Left will always be my preferred side of the road. Also, the roads have toll booths.

So, tomorrow I’ll be exploring Kuala Lumpur. I’m so curious!

Oh, and when I arrived at the hostel, I had to take off my shoes at the entrance, and put them on a shoe rack. I think that’s really interesting.

They have actual, usable sidewalks here and traffic lights that people follow. It’s insane! Kuala Lumpur is pretty clean for Asian standards. Malaysia is a Muslim country, but by looking at the houses and streets you would not have guessed it. Architecture and aesthetics are nothing like those countries in North Africa or the Middle East. Sure, there are some women, looks like about half, who wear a scarf around their head, covering their hair and neck. But you had the same in the Philippines, which also has a sizable Muslim population, especially on Mindanao in the South.

Malaysia, in spite of being Muslim, practices religious freedom. I think if there is one example of a good Muslim country, this would be it. The country is a mixture of Malaysians, Chinese and Indians with all the problems that potpourri brings. My hostel is in KL’s China Town. The main street here, Jalan Petaling, is one great market, dappled with red paper lamps.

First thing I did in the morning was laundry. Then I had a stroll through the park West of my hostel, that had a deer enclosure, a bird park, an orchid park, a planetarium and much more.

Later, in the afternoon, I took the tram to KLCC and KLCC Park, where you have a great view of the famous Petronas Towers.

I have to say, my first impression of Kuala Lumpur is a really good one. It is interesting to experience all those different religious and cultural groups live side by side one another and leave their imprint on the cityscape. You have Mosques, Chinese temples and skyscrapers and train stations influenced by the Arabic as well as the Indian aesthetic, and the old meets the modern in interesting ways. The city surprises you at every corner. The calm, settled demeanor of the people and the traffic reminds me very much of Hong Kong, even though it is vastly different in style. It has a modern transportation system, too. With subways, two trains lines (called komuter) and loads of buses, of course. All in all, it is well on par with any European city, but is, of course, distinctly Asian.

Not all is milk and honey though. There are beggars here as well, I glimpsed slums in a few areas and the pollution of the Kelang river with waste products is considerable. I also read that there is a lot of tension between the ethnic groups. Especially since a lot of Malaysians are generally poorer than the Chinese and Indians.

There are so many languages here. Malay, Chinese, English, Arabic. These are the main ones. After KLCC Park, I went window shopping in Suria KLCC and found a really neat bookshop called Kinokuniya. It had a selection of English and Chinese books, but also a big Japanese section. The Comics section over all was really big too and, apart from the American ones, they also had Manga in Chinese, English and, of course, Japanese. They also had magazines in those languages and a whole section with artbooks and merchandise. I think I spent over an hour in that book store, just browsing. I loved it!

Apart from the taxi drivers you almost never get talked to, which I find really nice.

It’s my second day in Kuala Lumpur and I am still impressed.

In the morning I went to a Hindu temple. In China Town. Because this is how it is here.

Then I walked through China Town, along Petaling Street, to Merdeka Square, named after the day independence was declared, back in the 1950s.

I also wanted to see Jamek Mosque, but it was closed to tourists for refurbishment.

I decided to go to Kampung Baru, a suburb that feels very homey, because of all the low wooden houses. It is a Muslim suburb. The quiet atmosphere was punctured by the midday prayers of a muezzin.

I walked to Titiwangsa Park and the lake there. It was another very peaceful park and I rested there for a while.

Then I took the monorail (Yay! I love monorails!) to a place called Brickfields, which is amazing! It’s an Indian suburb and there is a whole street with Indian stores: clothes, jewellery, food, music, illegal movies and more. It was so colourful and so intense and the street architecture was really nice as well!

I walked to Thean Hou Temple from there. My map first took me up the wrong road and I was barked at by a pretty vicious dog. It chased after me, which was pretty scary. I found the temple eventually, though. It, too, is very peaceful and since it’s on a hill, it gives you a nice view over the city.

I walked back through Brickfields, had dinner at an Indian eatery and bought some fruit at a fruit market. Oranges, apples and some peeled jack fruit, something which I have not had before and turned out to be really tasty.

Then I ended up in NU Sentral Mall.

---

Much of the shops are again the same as in Australia, like Cotton On, UniLQO and the ever present H&M. Oppo, which I have seen on the Philippines, is also present here.

Some words in Malay are actually repurposed English words. Things like restoran, bas, teksi and motosikal, stesen, and lif all sound very familiar.

The standard of living seems to be very high here. Most people have cars.

I only now realize that there are some things missing here, that I almost took for granted in the Philippines. There are are no old Caucasian men with young Malay women around here anywhere. The mere thought of it is ridiculous.

Also, since there are so many different cultures, you don’t feel that out of place here as in the Philippines. Of course, as a Caucasian, you are still a minority, but people don’t give you that much unwanted attention. Also, the beds in the Philippines were often way too small. Not here.

Meals are still small for Western standards, but bigger than in the Philippines, since there they eat not three but five meals a day.

I went jogging in KLCC Park in the morning. Wow, that was tough. I think because of the humidity, I must have sweat more than I have ever done in my life. I was positively dripping, like I’d been thrown into a lake. It took me a whole hour to recover back at the hostel as well.

In the afternoon I took the train to Batu Caves, a set of Hindu temples, set against the backdrop of a stunning stone wall and a set of caves within those walls.

One of those temples was inside one of the caves, and you had to climb up a pretty steep set of stairs to get to it. My already jogging-tired legs did not thank me for that.

Another cave was called the Dark Cave and was marketed as a nature sanctuary, with a lot of interesting cave dwelling species, like centipedes, bats, fruit bats, millipedes and spiders, some of them endemic. I thought it was interesting, so I took a tour.

I also visited a cave telling the story of Rama, which was somewhat a bit kitschy, but well done.

In the evening I went up Kuala Lumpur Tower to get a nice view of the city.

I also ate a cendol there, which is ice cream in the litteral sense, as in: shaved ice with cream on top. It was durian flavoured, so the taste was rather interesting.

---

Some Malay words

• Tandas: toilets
• Awas: caution
• Keluar: exit
• Jalan: street

I got up late and got the train ticket to go to Georgetown in the morning. Then I took a really modern train to Putrajaya to see Putra Mosque. Putrajaya is interesting. It’s made of really modern looking apartments, a lot of offices and what seems to be university buildings. There are not a lot of shops, but there certainly is a lot of grandour found here. The flagship of this grandour is Putra Mosque, a red-headed beauty on the banks of a wetland park lake that almost looks like a river. I liked walking through here. There was not a lot of traffic, though, and that made the whole suburb look rather abandoned.

I also ran into a spell of rain.

At the mosque I had to wear this rather interesting looking mantle, to look decent. In their defense, they made both women and men wear it, and even some Muslim girls who were wearing a bit more shapely clothing had to wear it, much to their dismay. Needless to say, the Mosque is rather beautiful.

After the mosque I went to the KLCC mall again. Kinokuniya really put a spell on me. I love that book store. Now, if only I could speak Japanese well enough to read some manga…

When I came back to the hostel, the hosts, who are all Muslim Indians were watching an Hindi movie. I thought it looked interesting, so I joined them. There were also two English women, one of which took way too much pleasure in colouring the other ones hair. The latter was a bit panicky. It was fun to watch. :)

I took the train to Georgetown. It was incredibly modern, with a television and everything!

Someone in the hostel in Kuala Lumpur said I should absolutely go to Georgetown and so I did. Georgetown is the food capital of Malaysia and is an old colonial town of the British with a distinct influence from Chinese trading clans. A lot of the old buildings are still there and many streets are really beautiful.

Unfortunately I had a blister and by now every step was like stepping on a nail. So I relaxed at the hotel for a while.

I liked my hostel. It’s called the Clockwise Hostel and is in an old Unesco Heritage building. They have good breakfast and really light, spacious rooms. They also have a small heron in their care called Sera, that flies around the main food area a lot. It is fed by eating small live fish from a dog bowl.

Since I wanted to try some of the local food, I did go out for dinner.

---

One thing I found interesting is that one woman on the train had taken off her burka, just for the train, and then put it back on again, once we alighted it. I wonder if trains count as a haram environment to do that.

The streets in Georgetown are really clean and the city center almost seems like a Disneyland kind of a place. Even though my foot still hurt, I walked through the old town area.

Fort Cornwallis was my first stop. The only remains of the fort were some cannons and the wall, so it wasn’t overly interesting.

After walking through the streets some more I was lured in by the menu of a restaurant on my path. They had bean soup with sesame balls. It was delicious. Then, I continued on the Eastern Esplanade to Chew Jetty. Chew Jetty is a part of town that had still been left as it had been during the time of Chinese trade about 100 to 200 years ago. Most of the wooden structures are still intact. I quite liked the architecture of it, but not so much the incredible amount of tourist merchandise shops. I still bought a Durian Puff though. This interesting little condiment is soft dough with a creamy durian center.

Now, I guess it’s time to talk about the sensual oddity that is durian. The fruit looks like this:

And it stinks. A lot. So much so, in fact, that you can smell them when you enter a supermarket, even though the fruit rack is on the far side of the entrance. So much so, that they are not allowed in hotels or certain other respectable establishments. Eating durian is like smelling something pungent and biting into it in spite of it. The flavour is rather rewarding though. It is both savoury and rich and once you have had it a couple of times, you can actually get past the initial aversion caused by the smell. It took me only two attempts to appreciate it. I think, of the many strange specialties out there, I compare it a lot to cheese. Most cheeses have a stinky, strange smell as well, but taste rather good.

I walked along the Eastern esplanade a bit more and had fried patties at a stall. I had a look at Lee Jetty, which seemed to consist mainly of wooden living quarters.

I ended up at Hean Boo Thean Temple, which was really impressive, but mostly for the music and the brooding weather at the time.

Then I went further into the city center and had a look at various more Chinese temples and a mosque and checked out a few of the merchant clan houses, the city was famous for.

Back at the hostel, I met a nice Korean guy called Charlie. We talked for a while and it turns out that he travels mostly for the fruit and fruit markets. I found that an interesting take on things.

---

Over the last couple of days I ended up doing a “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” and just carry around a towel wherever I went. It’s good for various reasons: to cover your head when you enter a mosque, or to wipe off your sweat for example, since you are always drenched.

I went to Komtar mall out of curiosity. It was a smallish mall with a cool little extra section for electronic gadgets and a comic museum. Then I took the bus to Penang Hill, mainly just for the view. There was a mosque and Hindu temple and couple of restaurants up there and I had a Nasi Lemak, but other than that it’s not actually all that interesting. Oh, and they have an owl museum as well.

The area the bus drove through to get to the hill was more interesting to me. It’s a bit more run down, more rural. There are more motorbikes and more old people sitting in the streets. There were also a lot of Hawker stalls and markets, a lot more trash lying around and many of the houses were made from wood and corrugated iron, rather than concrete.

Later I went to the Floating Mosque by bus. It was a nice mosque and the setting of it being on the ocean is always a nice idea. This is actually a common theme with mosques.

On my way back into the city centre, went to this huge Tesco, to see if I needed anything.

Then I ended up at Gurney Plaza for dinner. After some deliberation I decided to go back to the hostel, since I was tired.

---

I wonder why mostly yellow and red is used for Chinese restaurants and temples?

I like it that there are Malay woman in advertising, hijab and all. To me this means that they are not influenced by Western ideals much and that they are proud of their culture.

Most hostels use these water filters, to filter drinking water. They come in rather handy when you want to fill up your bottle.

I was to leave for Brinchang in the Cameron Highlands today.

In the morning I talked with Charlie some more. He wasn’t too happy that he was going to Indonesia next, since he didn’t think that their fruit culture was too good. I also had a conversation with a Dutch girl called Fleur about a lot of social issues in Europe.

Then I took the bus to Komtar bus station with a couple of other tourists. Since it was a per person payment, they made sure the bus was extra full. We had some Indian food at Komtar, which was really good. Then we went on to Ipoh, over the bridge that connected insular with mainland Penang.

Ipoh is really beautiful. It has these high, craggy hills, like Guilin. Unfortunately, most of them are mined for limestone. At Ipoh, while waiting for my bus to Brinchang, I had some roasted Jackfruit seeds. They are very tasty!

Brinchang is nice and cool and you don’t sweat at all, which a nice change and almost feels like home. Once I settled into my hostel, I went for dinner to a restaurant close by. I had veggies and noodles. The veggies were these slimy beans that I also had in the Philippines named okra, then round eggplant, carrots and cauliflowers. I liked it a lot.

In Malaysia you only eat with a spoon and a fork, similar to the Philippines. You mostly use the fork to shove things onto your spoon.

---

They currently have new and old money at the same time in Malaysia. This is for the coins mostly and makes it extra confusing.

Malaysia has an interesting system of rule. Every state is ruled by either a sultan or a prime minister, depending on the state and its political background. Every one of the nine state that has a sultan can have a ruler that is a hereditary of the royal house chosen to rule the country for five years at a time. You call that a federal constitutional elective monarchy, apparently.

More words:

• Datang sehala: oneway street
• Masjid: Mosque
• Selamat datang: Welcome!
• Kanak-kanak: child
• Terima kasih: thank you

I got on a tour to see the tea plantations today. It is quite the sight.

We had a nice walk through the native forest and then went to an observation tower high up on the mountain. We had cloudy weather though, so there was not much to see.

At the end of the tour, we went to the tea factory, to get some tea. The tea there is called Boh tea, meaning “Best of the Highlands” and can only be bought in Malaysia. Weirdly, this company had been started by a British family and remains in British hands to this day.

The Cameron Highlands are weird. One the one hand it is a tourist area with a lot of hotels, hostels, restaurants and tour options. On the other hand, it is also this power house of agriculture. Most of the landscape around Brinchang and Tana Rata is covered in the greenhouses of the tea and strawberry farms. All of it feels a bit disjunct.

In the evening I walked around the tiny town of Brinchang for a while, which seems to cater mostly to Chinese tourists. It is nothing more than a couple of streets and a market and there are a lot of hotel complexes.

The tour I took today, went to the rafflesia flower first. It was a long, tedious jungle walk full of slippery surfaces, wasps and bees. I guess you can already tell that I didn’t enjoy it as much. I just don’t like jungle walks. The flower was kind of worth it though.

Also, the drive there was pretty erratic. We sometimes drove beside the road, in the middle of it, on the wrong side of it, circumvented other cars and mostly had about a meter’s distance to the next vehicle in front. I normally wouldn’t mind if I had a seat-belt and was in a normal car, but this was a jeep, and we were in the back, being jostled around and holding on for dear life. At some point the driver even got out to direct traffic and resolve a traffic jam. I still hold to the distinction that some people see others on the street as traffic participants and other people see them as obstacles. Our driver was definitely of the latter persuasion.

After our trip to the rafflesia, we could practice the blow pipe. This is a traditional hunting method by the Orang Asli.

Then we drove by the local Orang Asli village and were told a few things about this people. They are the indigenous of peninsular Malaysia and were there even before the Hindus came. These days the governments protects their rights.

In the afternoon, we went to a strawberry farm and then I went back to the hostel. I have been having some stomach trouble over the last couple of days and took some over the counter medication for it.

It is interesting to learn that a lot of Asian countries have the concept of garam and non-garam foods. Even though garam translates as hot, it does not mean spicy at all. It can rather be understood as foods that increase the body temperature of a certain person, or foods that decrease it. What foods these are is not entirely consistent over different countries, but it is consistent with what people actually feel. I think it’s an interesting concept. So, for the benefit of my stomach I tried to eat more non-garam foods, just to see what will happen.

In the evening I heard a muezzin singing and some Hare Krishna people that were doing a chant not too far away from my hostel.

---

There are eucalyptus trees here! A guide told us that they had been planted to dry out the soil. This is rather detrimental for the local flora and fauna, but apparently benefits agriculture somehow.

I took the bus to Kuala Lumpur and then Malacca today. It is interesting to note that the main bus station in Kuala Lumpur is ridiculously far away from the city center. The same goes for Malacca. I had to take a local bus for half an hour to get to my hotel.

Malacca is another one of those very tidy cities which seems to have a lot of money. It also has the very aggressive slogan of “Don’t mess with Melaka”. Because of it’s various European settlers (the Protugese, the Dutch as well as the British have all at some point settled here) it feels very European in a lot of places. Mostly Dutch tough, because of a very harmoniously integrated and clean canal.

So, it was back to the heat and humidity of the low lands again and also back to AC, or in the case of my hostel, a fan. This was the cheapest hostel yet and boy did it show. The rooms were very shabby and unclean and there was not even a blanket for the bed. The bed spread was clean though and there were no bugs.

I went to famous Jonker Street today, which seems to be predominantly under Chinese influence. Since it’s very touristy, there are, of course, the usual restaurants, shops and whatnot, but there are also some pretty temples.

Then I mostly walked through the streets of the city center. I had a look at the red plaza and the church there and explored this weird kind of area where there was just one museum after the other.

The weather was good, so I didn’t want to go to a museum and just ended up roaming the streets and the park some more.

In the evening I went to the mall and watched “X-Men Apocalypse”, which I really liked.

---

Where other cities have only pigeons, Malacca seems to have both pigeons and crows. It depends on what part of the city you are in. It can be quite eerie to see a murder of crows perched on the top of a building, peering down at you.

Bathrooms in Malaysia often do not have a flush button or lever, but a small hose to flush things down. This, and the fact that you often share a toilet with a shower, make all bathroom related surfaces a very wet affair indeed. There would often be flipflops outside a bathroom for people’s use, so they don’t get wet feet or socks.

I walked to Malacca Island, an island that is under strong refurbishment as a great amount of new living areas and shops are being built at the moment, as well as a nice marina and entertainment and shopping complex. It was rather interesting, since the place was almost devoid of life for that reason. Only few of the new shops were already open and a lot of the living space, even though finished, was not rented out yet.

Since I like mosques, I went to the Malacca Strait Mosque, one of the more beautiful mosques I’ve seen. It is also built on the water.

The sunset was really nice today, too.

Oh, and did I mention that there are those tricycles here that are superawesome, glow in the dark, and play loud techno music when they have someone on board?

I took the bus to Singapore today and decided to walk to the bus station. Best decision ever. Northern Malacca is really pretty.

On my way South I noticed mainly one thing: there are so many palm oil plantations here! Practically all the way down to the border, uniform palm trees.

Crossing the border from Malasia to Singapore is a bit of a dance. First, the bus needs to pull over for the Malaysian border, where you only need your passport. Then the bus drives through no man’s land for a while and pulls over again for the Singapore border. This time you need to get out with your luggage and have everything checked. I was glad that so many other people knew what they were doing and just followed them. Mostly because I was afraid that I would not find my bus again afterwards.

The bus took me to the Johor Express Terminal from where it was not that far to my hotel.

This hostel is another one of those I loved. It didn’t have those squeaky bunk beds, but something that is called pods. You just sleep in a cubicle bed in the wall that you can close with a curtain. So much more privacy that way.

At the hostel, I met a guy from New Jersey called Lou that could recommend me a doctor for my still ongoing stomach ills.

I decided to walk around for a bit and went all the way to the end of Little India and back again. It was mostly shops and restaurants and stores blaring Bollywood music at you. Even though it was interesting, I preferred Brickfields in KL. It had more life and energy to it. The temples are nice though.

I ended up in Bugis Mall, a mall that feels weirdly claustrophobic for it’s narrow hallways and low ceilings. I had an Indonesian dinner at a food court that served Asian food of different surrounding countries; Malaysian, Indonesian, Chinese, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese etc.

Back at the hostel, I met an Indian guy called Aditya. He could see that I didn’t feel too well because of my stomach and we got talking after him confessing to me that he is actually carrying a large medicine bag around himself. We got along so well with each other, we ended up talking into all hours of the night, literally about God and the world. I learned a lot about Hinduism that night.

---

I was surprised to learn that there is no freedom of press in Singapore. You never hear of politicians or their exploits.

Also, Singapore has very strict laws and high penalties. Drinking or eating in the subway will incur a 300 Singapore dollar fine, smoking on a plane will cost you 5000 dollars or a year of jail, or both. When you are caught smuggling drugs of any kind into the country, you are given the death penalty.

I slept in and then took the train to Plaza Singapura. I walked to Fort Channing Center and to the park there. It had a spice garden and through it I learned how betel nut smelled and that I had had it in meals before. It is interesting to note that there is a water reservoir in this park. As in many countries, water is very valuable, so the reservoir is fenced off. A sign on the fence suggests that you can be shot on sight for trespassing.

Then I walked to the river, past the tourist restaurants and to China Town.

Just north of it, I had lunch at a place called the Salad Stop, which makes delicious (but also really expensive) food! Also, did I mention that architecture in Singapore is just amazing? Some of the building are truly stunning to see! And they make the city more homey than cold as well.

I took a stroll through China town and its market and had a peak into Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. It was pretty impressive to see all those small Buddhas lined up.

If you have been to any China Town in the world, this China town is very much like any of them, but with the touch of cheap merchanise that tourism brings. And it is probably more Asian than what Europeans are used to.

Since it was recommended to me by my guide book, I took a subway to Tiong Bahru. The suburb was very quiet and mostly inhabited by locals. There was a mall and a market. I must have skipped all the interesting bits, because it was not very interesting to me.

In the late afternoon I went to the Gardens by the Bay and I loved it. The whimsical statues, the weird modernist Chinese garden, the greenhouses, Supertree grove… there should be more things like that in the world. Architecture with a purpose.

I stayed until after the show at nightfall, and then took the subway over to Orchard. Oh, boy. Orchard is like your typical shopping street times five. It’s like as if Las Vegas took a stroll and came backconsisting only of malls and high end stores. It’s insane. There is something for everyone here and the wide promenade is alluringly inviting people of all kinds to participate in the consumerist frenzy.

I found a Kinokuniya as well, and as before, I spent a decent amount of time in it. I think I may be addicted…

---

Singapore is interesting. My impression is that it is very much Asia’s poster child, catering to both American and Asian sensibilities. It’s cosmopolitan almost to a fault, with glitzy shops, immaculate streets, a CBD skyscraper jungle, and sprawling malls you can get lost in. This perfectionism, is a little to the disadvantage of its inhabitants. To me it felt like a very beautiful and well constructed city, but at the same time cold and unapproachable. Not for a lack of trying though. Something just always didn’t gel for me during the time I was there. The city tried to win me over with free shows and nice people. I liked it, but never loved it.

Singapore is even cleaner than Malaysia, almost to Swiss or Australian standards. They have so many people cleaning the place, too. If you look closely, you can see quite a few of them, brushing it all up.  The costs are similar to Australia as well, even though food and loging is cheaper. The Singapore dollar is the same as the Australian dollar.

There are notably less Muslims here and the Chinese seem to have a lot greater influence. You can see more people eating with chopsticks, unlike the Malaysian Chinese who eat with fork and spoon.

Also, there is a lot more English heard on the street here, than in Malaysia. It seems that sometimes people speak English, just for the heck of it, and not because they have to.

I went to the doctor in the morning and finally got something for my stomach.

Then I went to Orchard again. I think I do have a bookshop addiction. I bought “Le petit Prince” in Japanese and convinced myself that I would read it, since it would be a good way to get into the language.

Then I decided to explore the colonial part of the city and took a subway to St. Andrews Cathedral, a distinctly Anglican church.

I walked to the Marina from there. Mainly to see the Merlion, but I also to see more stunning architecture and statues.

As one would expect, the Merlion was tourist-packed.

I continued along the river, past all those fancy and beautiful restaurants and ended up in Suntec mall.

It’s not a huge mall, but it’s rather sprawling. To get from one end to the other will take you 10 to 15 minutes.

---

I have tasted a lot of things that are made from green tea, but nothing so far has impressed me. Everything has been rather bland.

What I find really interesting is that there are two fashion fads going on at the moment, both more relating to women, than to men. Mostly because I have not seen any men doing it. One of them has been around for a while and is common in a lot of Asian countries: bleaching your skin with skin lightening cream. I think it looks rather horrible when people do it, especially if they only do it on their faces. They look almost like they are wearing a clown mask. People should be proud of their skin colour here, but it seems that white skin is the beauty ideal, as in most countries of Asia. The other fashion fad is coloured contact lenses. I have only seen that in Malaysia and Singapore, but I think they look really creepy. They obfuscate the brown eye colour and replace it with some other colour, but that’s not the main reason for their creepiness. The problem is, is that they are bigger than the underlying iris, so the people wearing them look slightly demonic. This modification seems to be very accepted here, though, and I don’t dislike it per se, it’s just a bit weird.

I went North to go to one of the parks. There was supposed to be a nice treetop walk there. What I didn’t bank on was the monkeys. When I saw them I thought I had hidden everything in my bag, but it turned out I was wrong. There was a packet of tissues sticking out of a side pocket, and one of the monkeys thought it was food and really wanted it. When he dropped it again, realizing that it wasn’t, I tried to put it into my bag, but me opening the bag caught it’s attention again and it tried to get into it. I fled, but my hand got scratched in the process.

Since I am positively terrified of getting rabies, even if the chances of me getting it are low, I went back to the city right away and went to the hospital to get the vaccine. This took pretty much all afternoon.

In the evening I was still very shaky, so I went to a mall, had some dinner and then went to see “The Nice Guys”, to pick myself up again.They also had a New Zealand products fair there, so that was pretty nice.

I slept until late morning. Upon waking up, I realized that I was running a small fever from the vaccine, so I spent some time in bed, feeling sorry for myself.

When I decided to go back to the realm of the living aka. the common room, I met Aditya there. He introduced me to the girl he had been talking to, Hazel. She was from Costa Rica, but travels all over the place all the time, since her job allowed that. Turns out I wasn’t the only one having a very late breakfast.

Hazel told me that her plan was to visit the DC Comics Super Heroes Cafe at The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands. I thought that was a brilliant plan. So I joined them to go. We took the bus to the Marina and just walked along the great walkway to the mall.

The cafe was pretty awesome. I mean, just look at that:

When we had eaten our very overpriced cake (Mine was a Wonder Woman cake! A Wonder Woman cake!), we continued our walk across Helix Bridge and towards the Merlion. We also watched an interesting show of two mimes doing some great freestyle art at one of the walkway areas in front of a mall.

In this instance, for a short moment, I understood the allure of Singapore. It took the company of great people and a beautiful laserlit evening, but I got it in a way you only get it when you are there.

Our dinner was MacDonald’s. Probably because we felt we have had enough culture for one evening.

Since it was my last day tomorrow, I really wanted to go to Universal Studios. Luckily enough I found someone in Hazel, who would acompany me there.

So I slept in today, just because last night I had still felt a bit feverish. Hazel and I left the hostel before noon. We took the monorail to Sentosa, just because I love monorails.

Universal Studios are pretty amazing, as you would expect. There was Hollywood, a street that looked like old New York, a Sci-Fi Town with a Transformers ride, Shrek’s Far Far Away, Madagascar.

My favourite was Ancient Egypt, from the Mummy movies…

… and Jurassic Park. The latter was just so perfect. The music! The gate! The food court! Maybe because that’s what Jurassic Park was in the movies as well, a theme park.

We took the Transformers ride, which was a great mixture between real sets and 3D. Then the Mummy ride, a roller coaster in the dark that was positively terrifying, but had some great puppet work. And we watched a 4D Shrek movie.

All in all, we had a great time.

In the evening, we walked back along the beautifully lit riviera, to the city.

Back at the hostel, I felt like I wanted to talk to Aditya for one last time, before I left. I really liked the guy. So we talked again, until it was late.

I actually felt kinda sad to leave Singapore now.

Well, on to Indonesia, or rather Bali, it is. After getting the second rabies shot at the hospital early this morning, I got to the airport by bus and flew to Jakarta.

I’m going to Indonesia for two reasons. First of all, I want to relax for a while and gather new energy, because I felt I was pretty exhausted from all the walks and tours and culture shocks. The second reason was much simpler: free diving. I have wanted to do a free diving course for the longest time now. Because I love it, simple as that. If you’ve never done it, it’s hard to explain what it feels like. It’s like complete relaxation, but at the same time it demands mental stamina and physical endurance. It’s the most amazing experience ever.

So, I will take a break from this blog until I come back from Indonesia.

I flew back to Kuala Lumpur today, because KL is awesome. And because I wanted to see Hazel again.

I had lunch with a girl from the hostel and we had some nice Chinese Bao at a cheap restaurant.

Since everybody I have met since I had been there last had been going on about the Museum of Islamic Arts, I went there. It's a small museum, with a very acute and small selection. The goal here seems to be to show the best and finest examples of Islamic art and the exhibition pretty much success in that way. The building was very nice as well. Very light with high walls and lots of open spaces.

I had wanted to meet Hazel at the museum, but the flakey Internet all over the city and my lack of a SIM card with Internet made communication very hard, so this didn't happen. So, instead we decided to meet up at the KL main train station, which lead me to run through a sudden burst of rain and Hazel to wait for aaages in front of Burger King. Our communication was so bad that we ended up waiting not ten meters beside one another at the same place, before actually finding each other.

Hazel had a migraine, so we just went home to her place with a taxi. I had tea there and we talked. Her flatmate Abdulla soon joined us and even cooked for us. We had a great talk and a good time!

When I went home I took an Uber for the first time. It was a rather pleasant experience, since I had a really nice driver. When I had told him I was from Switzerland he was overjoyed and told me it had been his dream to go there with his wife, and that he had been saving money for it for a long time now.

Back at the hostel I met an American guy and we talked until late. Mostly about death and politics. He had been travelling for two years now and told me a harrowing story of how he had had a seizure in Nepal, while trekking in the Himalayas.

I spend the day planning and researching Japan. I also had a wonderful tea and talk with the Malayan Chinese landlady of the hostel, Jiji, and her intern, about food, Japan and travelling. We sat in the kitchen all afternoon. They talked in Chinese a lot, but Jiji translated much of it for me. They also disagreed a lot, which was fun to watch.

And then I finally went on the plane to Japan.