I have to say, when I left for this program I was excited to see the world and indifferent about the formal education I would receive. The first few weeks were rocky. Between getting yet another rocky assigned roommate, to struggling to find people I could more than tolerate. Of course I managed to find when to bite my lip with my roommate, meet some good friends and talked with interesting people. The class environment reminded me of my high school and my memories of how to work a teacher who actually knows your name came flooding back to me. Meanwhile, our small ship (okay, not that small) was cut off from American society with very little internet access and almost no phones. While, I found my niche on the ship, I still wasn’t completely sure about the trip on a whole. The rules and regulations were obviously far more limiting than back packing with Sarah two summers ago. Today I find myself with a complete change of heart. I’m not exactly sure how yet, but I have come across I different way of thought. Without fully understanding it myself just yet, I’m having a hard time putting it into words. Perhaps by the time I get home, it will be more clear. Either way, the world has gotten to me.
We started our way around the world and in the beginning it was rather surreal. Brazil, Namibia, and South Africa flew by in a flurry of extreme sports, beaches, partying and befriending locals. Then we got to India and, because of the large population size, the problems plaguing the world could not be ignored. Malaysia gave us a temporary break from heart-ripping issues, but made us think about racial relations both worldwide and back at home. Then we got to Vietnam. I spoke to some of you before I left about my unexplainable excitement to see Vietnam. Perhaps my interest in the Vietnam War sparked this and part of me definitely wanted to see how the Vietnamese people would react to a boatload of spoiled American college students. Academically speaking, I understood how the culture was able to bounce back from a war that stole 3 million of their people. At the same time, I didn’t understand how a people could recover for the death, destruction, and the after effects of such a violent war. In America, I feel we are still very much recovering from the same war that killed just about 60,000 soldiers and wasn’t fought on our soil. I was eager to see the country outside the pictures of the war.
The first day in Ho Chi Minh City I went on a tour of temples and churches in the city. The country of Vietnam is largely Buddhist, but also has populations of Catholics and Muslims. We visited the Notre Dame Cathedral, which represented a pretty classic Cathedral. Cross-shaped in structure, tall dome ceilings, and a beautifully decorated entrance and podium area. This Cathedral was not the largest I have ever been to, which directly reflected that Catholics are only about 10% of the population. A classic Catholic wedding was setting up with a bride in a stunning white dress taking photos right outside. Another stop we made was to the Xa Loi and Vinh Nghiem Pagodas. Each of these Pagodas included a giant, gold-painted Buddha in the center and areas to worship. Both Pagodas were decorated with bright and vibrant colors and smelled of incenses. The Mariamman Hindu Temple could have been pulled right out of India. I wasn’t able to go inside the Saigon Central Mosque because I didn’t bring anything to cover my head, but the outside was basic and subtle. Finally, the Le Van Duyet Temple was a beautiful Buddhist Temple that consisted of three areas. All the rooms were well aired and had incense burning. Each were colored with a spectrum of reds and yellows. A small coy pond had one fish that was so friendly I literally was able to pet his head. We got back in the evening to shower and get dinner.
We went out and got a Vietnamese dinner. I really wanted pho, but we happened across a place that didn’t have it first. It was an okay meal, not the best I’ve had, but not the worse. After dinner we went to this area that’s known as the backpackers area of Ho Chi Minh. We started at a club called Allez Boo, they were having happy hour till 10pm and we got there at about 9:15pm. The happy hour special was buy two cocktails and get one free. They had to be finished by the end of happy hour to get the deal, so naturally we each got three cocktails at once and chugged them while we played “never have I ever.” The game can be a lot funnier with people you know but don’t know super well. We decided to go find a dance club, but got sidetracked when these American guys asked to sit with them at this outdoor bar we passed. They turned out to be kind of boring so after a few drinks we left them. While with them we did meet a guy who regularly dresses as a drag queen and lives in back of the clothing store next door to the bar. His name was Quan an he was pretty cool. At this point we hadn’t seen any other SAS kids, which is always kind of nice. One of the girls I was with really wanted to go to the club that we knew all the SAS kids would be at called Apocalypse Now (weird irony, I know). So we get there and me and my friend Becca are totally not feeling it and decide to hang out outside until the other two girls are ready to go. The funny thing about hanging outside is you get to see everyone who goes in and say your hellos, but even funnier is seeing who is leaving… with who… About an hour later, we head back to the ship.
The second day Goldie and I have a class-required trip to a rural school for disabled children. We thought we had to be at the bus at 7:30am but it turned out that it left at 7:30am… so we missed it… Luckily there was another trip that met the same requirement that left at 8am! This was a school for the disabled in Ho Chi Minh City. We went around to a few of the classrooms and the children sang for us. After we saw all the performances the kids were released from classes to play with us. This school was for sure a reality check on the affects the Vietnam War, which they call the American War, had and still has on this country. Their environment being soaked with or their parents reproductive systems being messed with by Agent Orange directly caused almost all of the children’s disabilities. We are now almost 35 years past the end of the war, yet it is still greatly affect the individual lives of the Vietnamese. Meanwhile, a good majority of the people on my ship didn’t even have the slightest idea what the reasoning behind America entering Vietnam. We seem to have been able to forget a lot easier… While the children were great, it was hard to know that our country is the reason many of them struggle. When we got back to the ship we were physically and emotionally drained and decided to nap. After a short nap, we went out to the local market for shopping and lunch. I had amazing pho at the market that cost about $1 American. Got a few pairs of sunglasses, a few DVDs and some gifts. It was Halloween so our next goal was to find costumes. We spent the rest of our day searching the city for costumes. Finally, we were able to find a Halloween store and get some cheap costumes. I was a pirate. We grabbed dinner and headed back to the ship to drop things off and get ready for our night.
Who knew Halloween in Vietnam would be so big? I sure didn’t. Once we were all dressed up we went out to meet up with Quan, the drag queen from the night before, who said s/he would take us out. We met up with him at the clothing store and pre-gamed the night. He was super glamorous and we realized quickly it was a good thing we decided to go out with him. He and his friends took us to a drag queen rave like thing at this club called Hollywood. Long story short, it was pretty crazy. At some point we lost them and decided to go somewhere else. We ended up at this dance club called Go2 that had a lot of backpackers at it. My friend was Jamie Lynn Spears and we had put a balloon under a wife beater to make her pregnant. All the Vietnamese people thought that was possible the most amazing/funny thing they had ever seen and kept touching it. Finally, one of the girls we were with was really too drunk to stay out so we all decided to leave. We couldn’t all fit in one cab so me and Goldie decided to try one of those motorcycle taxis. The ship told us they didn’t recommend them because they can be dangerous, but it looked like so much fun! The driver was this really old (60+) Vietnamese man and he said he could fit both of us for $1 American all the way back to the ship. I got on behind him and Goldie on the back. I let Goldie have the extra helmet since she was on the back. Anyway, this ride was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done. Our driver was a little creepy and kept touching my leg and like giggling, but he was so old he was harmless and we were drunk enough to think it was funny. We decided then that we would only travel by motorcycle taxis from then on. Got back to the ship just fine and went to bed after some drunken socialization around the boat.
Day three was yet another early morning to go to the Cu Chi Tunnels and a Cao Dai Temple. We started at the Cao Dai Temple to witness the morning service. Caodaiism is a Vietnamese religion that combines ideas from multiple other religions. The temple was very large and open. The service involved everyone wearing similar robes and sitting cross-legged chanting. Definitely was nothing I had seen before on such a large scale. The actual temple was full of color and light and truly beautiful. We headed out to get to the tunnels, so we’d have plenty of time there. On our way to the tunnels we stopped at the American War Cemetery, which was hard to walk through, but was important to see. Then it was off to the tunnels. As some of you may know Cu Chi is an area of Vietnam that took a particularly brutal beating during the War. In the same area, there is part of Vietnam’s complicated underground tunneling system created in the 1940’s to hide from French attacks. The tunnels consist of about 70km and have everything including strategy rooms, traps, secret get-aways, and air vents. These tunnels were used by the Viet Kong and were particularly critical for the Tet Offensive. American forces continually tried to figure out and destroy these tunnels, but mostly failed. In fact, the American army had a base camp directly above part of the tunnels and was baffled when the Viet Kong was able to enter the base multiple times. These tunnels were the cause of a large percentage of American casualties. Today, the tunnels are protected by the Vietnamese government and used as a tourist spot. We were given the chance to crawl through a part of them. We thought it would be fun experience, so we did it. An experience it was, fun it was not. The tunnels are cramped, pitch-dark, and generally creepy. While the tunnels were definitely one of those moments where someone who did not live to see the war, like myself, had an intense connection to brutality of it, it wasn’t the tunnels that really got to me. Before actually going through the tunnels we were walking all around the area of Cu Chi. We were able to spend a long time there just walking and taking it in. At a certain point I was just looking down on the ground and it hit me exactly how many people must have died exactly where I was stepping. I couldn’t help but be flooded with thoughts of the fear, anger, and pain that had been felt in the exact spot I was standing. It wasn’t until after leaving that I realized I didn’t connect any of those emotions to a particular side, but rather the experience on both sides. Here I was standing in a wooded area, in the middle of Vietnam, 33 years after the war ended and the emotion of the area was still so heavy that it couldn’t go un-noticed. We got on the bus for the two-hour trip back to the ship for dinner and to get ready for the night. That night we met up with Goldie’s friend who had been a foreign student at UCSC last year from Australia. She just happened to be in Ho Chi Minh City at the same time. So we went to their hotel and pre-gamed a bit before we went out. We went out to the clubs for a while, but they were all kind of dead… At 2 we called it a night, got some motorcycle-taxis and headed back to the ship.
The next day, Goldie, Becca, Dan and I did a little more shopping (got a few more DVDs and gifts). Then we stopped in a internet café for about an hour since we don’t get any internet on the ship other than our email. When we decided to get lunch, Dan told us about this all-you-can-eat conveyor belt sushi restaurant. So we got sushi and ate until our bellies were so full it hurt. For those of you in Seattle, imagine Blue-C, but all-you-can-eat. After our amazing lunch, we went to the War Memorial Museum. It’s pretty much just one open room with pictures and texts on all the walls, but it still leaves a very strong impression. After taking a minute to digest everything outside, we walked over to the Norte Dame Cathedral. I had already seen it, but the others hadn’t and it’s definitely worth seeing. Across the street from that is the Ho Chi Minh City Post Office. It sort of looks like a giant train station, but somehow they do mail there. We got stamps and postcards and went outside to figure out what to do next. We looked up and saw this terrible, giant, grey cloud and before we knew it, it was pouring. I’m not talking Seattle rain here - this was serious downpour. Dan and I decided to head back to the ship, while Becca and Goldie tried to go out shopping. That night I was pretty tired from everything and stayed in to watch PS I Love You with Goldie and Sara.
Our final day in Vietnam we did some wondering around a neighborhood that we hadn’t been before. We had asked a taxi driver to take us to Chinatown, but he didn’t speak English and ended up dropping us off in this really non-tourist area. We walked around for a while. I met this very cute Chocolate lab puppy that had mange, but still managed to be super cute. We decided to get lunch, but couldn’t find anywhere that had anything that we wanted. Finally we found this cute place and went in. One of the waiters spoke English and helped us order all this great food. We had these little circles of egg with a shrimp in the middle that you put with lettuce and some sauces. At first sight it didn’t look very good, but turned out to be delicious! Then we had some fried rice and dumplings. Our waiter stood over us the whole time we ate, which was kind of uncomfortable, but happened our whole time in Vietnam. He then went on to tell us that his brother works with George Bush and showed us a picture hanging up in the restaurant of them together. It was pretty funny. We got him to put us in a cab and tell the driver, in Vietnamese, to take us to Chinatown. Chinatown was very busy. We went to a market and it was soo crowded and had fake everything. There were fake bags, fake sunglasses, fake jeans, it was crazy. We left the market and walked around Chinatown for a bit before we decided to head back into the direction of the ship. It took us a long time to find motorcycle taxis, and when we did they could speak a word of English. We manage to show them where we needed to go, got on and had a really fun, long ride. We got a small dinner before heading back to the ship.
Overall, Vietnam was emotional, beautiful, eye opening, and fun. Vietnam alone made this entire trip worthwhile for me. Vietnam is definitely a place I want to go to again and may require a backpacking trip including Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand.
I'm sorry this was so late! I will write and send my China and Japan updates this week! Love you all!
Falyn
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Sunday, November 2, 2008
I’m once again overwhelmed by updating my blog. I hope you guys are enjoying this (*cough* Zoe *cough*), it’s actually been nice to re-cap after each country. We left Malaysia on Sunday night (Sunday early morning for you guys). It was definitely a nice break after India. Malaysia is very clean and safe and friendly. Very rarely do people try to rip you off for being a foreigner, which is not how it has been everywhere else. Overall, Malaysia was a great time.
Day one in Malaysia I had to go on a trip with my professor for a class about ethnic communities. Malaysia is kind of a combination of India, China, and… Pakistan (kind of). There are three kinds of people in Malaysia. There are the Malays, who are Muslims; the Chinese, who are Buddhist; and the Indians, who are Hindus. While there are issues of inequality – Muslims and Hindus don’t generally do well together, on a day-to-day basis that country is extremely peaceful. We ported in Penang, a large, metropolitan city. Because of our ship’s size, we couldn’t actually port. Instead we had to do this process called tendering. So we anchored the ship about ½ a mile from land and had to get on a little boat to get to the pier. It was pretty annoying because you had to plan your day around when the little boats went back and forth. We just stayed off the ship as much as possible to avoid this. So anyway, we went on this tour of the different communities in Penang. Close to the ship was little India, which was exactly what it sounds like. Pretty anti-climactic after being in big India… Then we went to the Chinatown, which was pretty cool. Most of Chinatown is set up on Jettys, which are homes on stilts on the water. They consist of homes, small stores, and restaurants. Almost all the food in Malaysia is small carts on the street. Finally, we went out to rural homes of the Malays, but we didn’t stay there long. After the tour was over, Goldie (Jew friend) and I went to a local mall to get to an internet cafe. To our surprise, there was a Starbucks at this very non-globalized mall. Other than the Starbucks, it was all super Asian stores. I got an amazing sweatshirt from one of the stores that is basically indescribable. I was super excited and we enjoyed are lattes like no other. I had signed up to go to a shadow puppet show later that evening and I left Goldie at the Starbucks to meet up with our friend Julie*. Unfortunately, as I was getting on the bus to go to the puppet show, I saw Julie at the pier without Goldie. I ran off the bus and told her where Goldie was and she got into a cab with this guy TJ (known as a super creeper on the ship) to go find her. We had all made a meeting time at the pier at 10pm in case we got lost from each other. I got back from the puppet show at about 9:30pm and just hung out at the pier for the others. At 10pm Goldie showed up and said that Julie had never found her… So we decided to go to the hotel I thought they would check into for us and hope that Julie was with the others. We got to the hotel and they had checked in and we went up to the room. We figure they had already gone out and we never would find them, but then we heard voices in the room! They were there! We reunite, but realize that Julie isn’t in the room. Well, it turns out she’s in the shower because they found her at about 9pm at a bar and creepy ass TJ had been buying her shots all evening. She was super wasted. So we all get dressed and I tell everyone that I’ll take care of Julie and we can go out still. I go into the bathroom, get her dressed, get her hair dried and brushed, and she’s ready to go with some help. People were impressed I was dealt with her so well, but she’s really a happy and helpful drunk! I was surprised everyone wasn’t used to that… Hah. So I had Julie make me a deal, for her to go out with us she had to try to vomit before we left to make sure it wasn’t in her and if we decided she needed to go home, she had to be willing to go to bed. She agreed. So in Malaysia it’s super illegal to be publicly drunk (hence us making sure she wouldn’t vomit in public), so we were a little worried, but we thought we’d give it a try. It wasn’t long before Julie fell off a chair and I brought her home. I put her to bed with a bucket next to her and a pillow propping her on her side. I also had her pinky-swear to me that she wouldn’t leave the room. The rest of the night was pretty normal. It was Wednesday and that meant ladies night at all the clubs, so all our drinks were free until midnight, which was fun. We got back to the hotel that night, Julie was still there and everyone had a good night.
The next morning we checked out of the hotel, bought bus tickets to Kuala Lumpur and I went back to the ship to shower and pack. We spent the day exploring Penang. We got a small lunch (food didn’t sound amazing at the time) and shopped around. One of the people I was with had heard there was a Borders in town and really wanted to buy a guide for Japan, so we went to this mall called Queen Plaza Mall. It was a pretty impressive mall. It had a lot of stores we knew including Borders, Forever 21, Converse, Coach, and a bunch of other random ones. I bought Obama’s book for my plane rides in China. I hear he’s doing well, but nothing we hear on the ship can really be confirmed, so I hope that’s true! We headed back into town to grab an early dinner and catch our ride to the bus station. We ate at a food court, which are very common in Malaysia. It’s pretty much a bunch of tables in the middle and then all these little vendors selling you parts of your meal. It was super good food and the whole meal with a beer was $2.50 American. We met up with everyone for our shuttle to the bus station and got on the bus around 7pm. The bus ride was supposed to be about 4 hours, but we hit some bad traffic on the bridge to the mainland and it took 6 hour instead. Most of the girls we were traveling with slept, but a few of us stayed up and messed around. We got into Kuala Lumpur around 1am and went around to a couple of hotel before we found this gross little place for $10 each a night called the Dragon Inn. After putting towels on our gross pillows, we crashed out.
The third day in Malaysia we wanted to try to fit in as many Kuala Lumpur’s must see spots as possible. We went and got breakfast at another food court and I translated to the people I was with what dim sum and other Chinese dishes were. I’ve been really surprised how people don’t know that kind of stuff. It happened a lot in India too. Anyway, after we were fed, we started walked to the KL Tower, which is basically the Space Needle of KL. It’s the third largest tower in the world. It was cool to see the whole city, but it was basically the same as the Space Needle. I ended up taking a bunch of these cool pictures by putting my camera up to the telescopes. That entertained two of us, while the others finished looking around. When we were done with the tower we hopped in two cabs and went to the old train station to buy tickets back to Penang for the following day. Unfortunately, our cabs dropped us off in two different places and we got lost from each other for a while. Somehow we found each other roaming around the station. The train station was very classic. It was very much what I think of as an old school train station. We asked around a bit and found out we need to go one stop further to KL Sentral to buy tickets. Everyone was pretty tired at this point so we headed back to the hotel. A few people decided to take late afternoon naps, and the rest of went off to get cheap massages. So the four of who decided to get massages went into a place close to the hotel. It was happy hour so we got a really good deal on an hour and a half “full body” massage and something called ear candling. Two of us had gotten massages before and the other two hadn’t. We all asked to be in the same room because we thought it’d be nice to talk to each other if we needed to and there were curtains in between our tables. Okay, so this massage was probably the most intense and completely unexpected experience I’ve ever had. Clearly in Malaysia boundaries that exist in America do not exist. Without getting into too much graphic detail, let’s just say we were all kind of violated. Any massage I have ever gotten in the U.S. they have a stopping point on you leg. This one did not. A butt massage was also included. Again, it was a fairly traumatic experience, but I do not want to get too detailed. You can ask me about it when I get home, I will not be forgetting it anytime soon. Overall, we were all good sports about it and laughed it off when we left. The back and neck part of it was really good too. The ear candling was pretty cool, don’t know exactly how it worked, but we were all happy the massage was over. The whole experience, with a tip, was $30 American. It’s a great story that has been laughed about everyday since, so I suppose it was worth it. They also must have done a great job on our backs, cause we were super sore the whole next day.
That night we went to Chinese fondue, which I didn’t know existed. It was on the street and in the middle of your table you had boiling hot water you stuck your food in. It was pretty good. Everyone stayed liked the idea of cooking their own food because besides for me, the food was not working well in people’s digestion. I have yet to get sick off of anything I have eaten, including everything they tell us not to eat (like fruit from a street stand in India, yum!). After dinner we went back to the hotel to pre-game the bars with a bottle of Stanley Morgan, we figured he was the Captain’s cousin or something. KL had a really big and happening club scene, but they all had about a $10 cover so we had to pick a place and stick there. I managed to talk to the front door girls at this place called the Rum Jungle and got it where if we bought a bottle of vodka we all got in free. This translated into us each getting 3 shots and in the club for $15 instead of paying $10 to get and $6 per shot. We finished the bottle pretty quickly but managed to attach ourselves to these 30-something year olds partying at the table next to us. One of the guys was from Texas and decided to buy us a bottle of Absolut. We finished that one and got us another one… Some of the girls went off to another bar, and four of us stayed with the Absolut. Once we finished it, Sara and Goldie went back to the hotel and Brittney and I stuck around. We were pretty drunk at that point… We ended up making lots of friends, but didn’t do anything too stupid. At one point we went to the bathroom and there was this secret passageway of sort that a bouncer told us to go through. It brought us to this dance floor, but after a few minute I realized it had brought us to a different club. Brittney hadn’t noticed. So we leave this club to get back to the other one, although I’m not exactly sure why we were so set on going back. We dance around and make more and at about 3am we decide to head back. Brittney is focusing on walking, so I try to get us a cab. All the cabs are trying to rip us off because they can see we are drunk and need to get home, but being the Jew that I am, will not accept it. Then this random guy comes up to us and offers us a ride back. I take a look at him to size up the situation and he’s probably the darkest little Chinese man I’ve ever seen. He’s really skinny, with big glasses, and a tucked in shirt. I decide Brittney and I could take him if anything bad happened, so we head to his car. We get in and Brittney passes out in the back seat and I chat with the guy. It turns out he saw the cab drivers trying to take advantage of our drunkness and just felt bad. He’s actually from China, but working in Malaysia with a N.G.O. working for world peace. Him and I have a good/me being way drunk conversation about politics and he gives me his email address telling me to let him know if I’m ever interested in working for a N.G.O. Yes, this is my second job offer since being on this trip, and both occurred while I was browned→blacked out drunk. Go figure. We make it back and pass out in our room.
Our final morning in KL started out a little rocky. Our friend Carolyn wakes us at 8:30am… Brittney and I are particularly hurting, but some are a few of the other girls. When Brittney and I were not getting up, Carolyn takes the detachable showerhead and sprays us with water. Not really the best way to make some who is super hungover/still drunk very happy. They all head to out while Goldie, Brittney and I check out of our rooms. They tell us to meet them at Starbucks. After we check out, we realize we have no idea where a Starbucks close by is… So we ask around a bit and no one know where the Starbucks is. Fuck. We had become lost yet again. The three of us get into a cab, thinking they must have gone to this Starbucks downtown, that we had stopped at the day before. The cab driver doesn’t really understand us and takes us to a completely different one (okay, globalization does suck). At this point we give us and decide to get coffee and breakfast and find them at the cave we were planning on going to. When we get to the cave/temple we find them. It turns out there was a Starbucks just down the street. We were all find frustrated with each other and just wanted to get back to the ship. This cave was also a Buddhist temple. It was pretty cool, I’ve seen cooler caves, but it was up there. There were a few weird things about the visiting the cave experience. First, there were these little monkeys all over the place. Second, every few steps we took there would be a group of Chinese people asking to pose for a million pictures with us… This has happened to us in other countries a few times, but not to this degree. Our train home is at 2pm so we head to KL Sentral to wait for it. The train kept getting delayed, which made us nervous because we had to catch the last tender boat to the ship at 1am or we would have to get a hotel room. There was talk of buying a flight, but I was pretty set on having the experience of taking a train completely up Malaysia. We agreed we would make it and the train left at 4:30pm. After an entertaining, beautiful, and restless 8 hour train ride back to Penang we still need to get from the mainland to the island of Penang. It was a weekend, so the traffic usually took about an hour. We got off the train at 12am. We got back to the pier at exactly 1am, ran from the taxi and just barely made it.
The last day in Malaysia I slept in a bit, having been tired from so much travel. We got off the ship at about 11am and did our last bits of shopping around town. We also had a delicious Thai lunch. I hadn’t had Thai food in sooo long and I’ve kind of grown accustom to eating it once a week. On-ship time was 6pm, so we got came back on at about 4:30pm. You never want to push your luck by trying to get back on the boat right before on-ship because usually a SAS sponsored trip will be coming back around then. If you are late for on-ship time you get at the next port, one hour of dock time (can’t get off the ship) for every 15 minutes you’re late. If you’re with a SAS sponsored trip you don’t get dock time for being late, but if you get stuck behind one of those trips you do. It’s annoying, but we don’t like to mess with it.
Okay! So that was Malaysia! We are porting in Vietnam right now, so I need to go get ready. I will hopefully update again after Vietnam and before China!
Miss you guys!
Fal
Day one in Malaysia I had to go on a trip with my professor for a class about ethnic communities. Malaysia is kind of a combination of India, China, and… Pakistan (kind of). There are three kinds of people in Malaysia. There are the Malays, who are Muslims; the Chinese, who are Buddhist; and the Indians, who are Hindus. While there are issues of inequality – Muslims and Hindus don’t generally do well together, on a day-to-day basis that country is extremely peaceful. We ported in Penang, a large, metropolitan city. Because of our ship’s size, we couldn’t actually port. Instead we had to do this process called tendering. So we anchored the ship about ½ a mile from land and had to get on a little boat to get to the pier. It was pretty annoying because you had to plan your day around when the little boats went back and forth. We just stayed off the ship as much as possible to avoid this. So anyway, we went on this tour of the different communities in Penang. Close to the ship was little India, which was exactly what it sounds like. Pretty anti-climactic after being in big India… Then we went to the Chinatown, which was pretty cool. Most of Chinatown is set up on Jettys, which are homes on stilts on the water. They consist of homes, small stores, and restaurants. Almost all the food in Malaysia is small carts on the street. Finally, we went out to rural homes of the Malays, but we didn’t stay there long. After the tour was over, Goldie (Jew friend) and I went to a local mall to get to an internet cafe. To our surprise, there was a Starbucks at this very non-globalized mall. Other than the Starbucks, it was all super Asian stores. I got an amazing sweatshirt from one of the stores that is basically indescribable. I was super excited and we enjoyed are lattes like no other. I had signed up to go to a shadow puppet show later that evening and I left Goldie at the Starbucks to meet up with our friend Julie*. Unfortunately, as I was getting on the bus to go to the puppet show, I saw Julie at the pier without Goldie. I ran off the bus and told her where Goldie was and she got into a cab with this guy TJ (known as a super creeper on the ship) to go find her. We had all made a meeting time at the pier at 10pm in case we got lost from each other. I got back from the puppet show at about 9:30pm and just hung out at the pier for the others. At 10pm Goldie showed up and said that Julie had never found her… So we decided to go to the hotel I thought they would check into for us and hope that Julie was with the others. We got to the hotel and they had checked in and we went up to the room. We figure they had already gone out and we never would find them, but then we heard voices in the room! They were there! We reunite, but realize that Julie isn’t in the room. Well, it turns out she’s in the shower because they found her at about 9pm at a bar and creepy ass TJ had been buying her shots all evening. She was super wasted. So we all get dressed and I tell everyone that I’ll take care of Julie and we can go out still. I go into the bathroom, get her dressed, get her hair dried and brushed, and she’s ready to go with some help. People were impressed I was dealt with her so well, but she’s really a happy and helpful drunk! I was surprised everyone wasn’t used to that… Hah. So I had Julie make me a deal, for her to go out with us she had to try to vomit before we left to make sure it wasn’t in her and if we decided she needed to go home, she had to be willing to go to bed. She agreed. So in Malaysia it’s super illegal to be publicly drunk (hence us making sure she wouldn’t vomit in public), so we were a little worried, but we thought we’d give it a try. It wasn’t long before Julie fell off a chair and I brought her home. I put her to bed with a bucket next to her and a pillow propping her on her side. I also had her pinky-swear to me that she wouldn’t leave the room. The rest of the night was pretty normal. It was Wednesday and that meant ladies night at all the clubs, so all our drinks were free until midnight, which was fun. We got back to the hotel that night, Julie was still there and everyone had a good night.
The next morning we checked out of the hotel, bought bus tickets to Kuala Lumpur and I went back to the ship to shower and pack. We spent the day exploring Penang. We got a small lunch (food didn’t sound amazing at the time) and shopped around. One of the people I was with had heard there was a Borders in town and really wanted to buy a guide for Japan, so we went to this mall called Queen Plaza Mall. It was a pretty impressive mall. It had a lot of stores we knew including Borders, Forever 21, Converse, Coach, and a bunch of other random ones. I bought Obama’s book for my plane rides in China. I hear he’s doing well, but nothing we hear on the ship can really be confirmed, so I hope that’s true! We headed back into town to grab an early dinner and catch our ride to the bus station. We ate at a food court, which are very common in Malaysia. It’s pretty much a bunch of tables in the middle and then all these little vendors selling you parts of your meal. It was super good food and the whole meal with a beer was $2.50 American. We met up with everyone for our shuttle to the bus station and got on the bus around 7pm. The bus ride was supposed to be about 4 hours, but we hit some bad traffic on the bridge to the mainland and it took 6 hour instead. Most of the girls we were traveling with slept, but a few of us stayed up and messed around. We got into Kuala Lumpur around 1am and went around to a couple of hotel before we found this gross little place for $10 each a night called the Dragon Inn. After putting towels on our gross pillows, we crashed out.
The third day in Malaysia we wanted to try to fit in as many Kuala Lumpur’s must see spots as possible. We went and got breakfast at another food court and I translated to the people I was with what dim sum and other Chinese dishes were. I’ve been really surprised how people don’t know that kind of stuff. It happened a lot in India too. Anyway, after we were fed, we started walked to the KL Tower, which is basically the Space Needle of KL. It’s the third largest tower in the world. It was cool to see the whole city, but it was basically the same as the Space Needle. I ended up taking a bunch of these cool pictures by putting my camera up to the telescopes. That entertained two of us, while the others finished looking around. When we were done with the tower we hopped in two cabs and went to the old train station to buy tickets back to Penang for the following day. Unfortunately, our cabs dropped us off in two different places and we got lost from each other for a while. Somehow we found each other roaming around the station. The train station was very classic. It was very much what I think of as an old school train station. We asked around a bit and found out we need to go one stop further to KL Sentral to buy tickets. Everyone was pretty tired at this point so we headed back to the hotel. A few people decided to take late afternoon naps, and the rest of went off to get cheap massages. So the four of who decided to get massages went into a place close to the hotel. It was happy hour so we got a really good deal on an hour and a half “full body” massage and something called ear candling. Two of us had gotten massages before and the other two hadn’t. We all asked to be in the same room because we thought it’d be nice to talk to each other if we needed to and there were curtains in between our tables. Okay, so this massage was probably the most intense and completely unexpected experience I’ve ever had. Clearly in Malaysia boundaries that exist in America do not exist. Without getting into too much graphic detail, let’s just say we were all kind of violated. Any massage I have ever gotten in the U.S. they have a stopping point on you leg. This one did not. A butt massage was also included. Again, it was a fairly traumatic experience, but I do not want to get too detailed. You can ask me about it when I get home, I will not be forgetting it anytime soon. Overall, we were all good sports about it and laughed it off when we left. The back and neck part of it was really good too. The ear candling was pretty cool, don’t know exactly how it worked, but we were all happy the massage was over. The whole experience, with a tip, was $30 American. It’s a great story that has been laughed about everyday since, so I suppose it was worth it. They also must have done a great job on our backs, cause we were super sore the whole next day.
That night we went to Chinese fondue, which I didn’t know existed. It was on the street and in the middle of your table you had boiling hot water you stuck your food in. It was pretty good. Everyone stayed liked the idea of cooking their own food because besides for me, the food was not working well in people’s digestion. I have yet to get sick off of anything I have eaten, including everything they tell us not to eat (like fruit from a street stand in India, yum!). After dinner we went back to the hotel to pre-game the bars with a bottle of Stanley Morgan, we figured he was the Captain’s cousin or something. KL had a really big and happening club scene, but they all had about a $10 cover so we had to pick a place and stick there. I managed to talk to the front door girls at this place called the Rum Jungle and got it where if we bought a bottle of vodka we all got in free. This translated into us each getting 3 shots and in the club for $15 instead of paying $10 to get and $6 per shot. We finished the bottle pretty quickly but managed to attach ourselves to these 30-something year olds partying at the table next to us. One of the guys was from Texas and decided to buy us a bottle of Absolut. We finished that one and got us another one… Some of the girls went off to another bar, and four of us stayed with the Absolut. Once we finished it, Sara and Goldie went back to the hotel and Brittney and I stuck around. We were pretty drunk at that point… We ended up making lots of friends, but didn’t do anything too stupid. At one point we went to the bathroom and there was this secret passageway of sort that a bouncer told us to go through. It brought us to this dance floor, but after a few minute I realized it had brought us to a different club. Brittney hadn’t noticed. So we leave this club to get back to the other one, although I’m not exactly sure why we were so set on going back. We dance around and make more and at about 3am we decide to head back. Brittney is focusing on walking, so I try to get us a cab. All the cabs are trying to rip us off because they can see we are drunk and need to get home, but being the Jew that I am, will not accept it. Then this random guy comes up to us and offers us a ride back. I take a look at him to size up the situation and he’s probably the darkest little Chinese man I’ve ever seen. He’s really skinny, with big glasses, and a tucked in shirt. I decide Brittney and I could take him if anything bad happened, so we head to his car. We get in and Brittney passes out in the back seat and I chat with the guy. It turns out he saw the cab drivers trying to take advantage of our drunkness and just felt bad. He’s actually from China, but working in Malaysia with a N.G.O. working for world peace. Him and I have a good/me being way drunk conversation about politics and he gives me his email address telling me to let him know if I’m ever interested in working for a N.G.O. Yes, this is my second job offer since being on this trip, and both occurred while I was browned→blacked out drunk. Go figure. We make it back and pass out in our room.
Our final morning in KL started out a little rocky. Our friend Carolyn wakes us at 8:30am… Brittney and I are particularly hurting, but some are a few of the other girls. When Brittney and I were not getting up, Carolyn takes the detachable showerhead and sprays us with water. Not really the best way to make some who is super hungover/still drunk very happy. They all head to out while Goldie, Brittney and I check out of our rooms. They tell us to meet them at Starbucks. After we check out, we realize we have no idea where a Starbucks close by is… So we ask around a bit and no one know where the Starbucks is. Fuck. We had become lost yet again. The three of us get into a cab, thinking they must have gone to this Starbucks downtown, that we had stopped at the day before. The cab driver doesn’t really understand us and takes us to a completely different one (okay, globalization does suck). At this point we give us and decide to get coffee and breakfast and find them at the cave we were planning on going to. When we get to the cave/temple we find them. It turns out there was a Starbucks just down the street. We were all find frustrated with each other and just wanted to get back to the ship. This cave was also a Buddhist temple. It was pretty cool, I’ve seen cooler caves, but it was up there. There were a few weird things about the visiting the cave experience. First, there were these little monkeys all over the place. Second, every few steps we took there would be a group of Chinese people asking to pose for a million pictures with us… This has happened to us in other countries a few times, but not to this degree. Our train home is at 2pm so we head to KL Sentral to wait for it. The train kept getting delayed, which made us nervous because we had to catch the last tender boat to the ship at 1am or we would have to get a hotel room. There was talk of buying a flight, but I was pretty set on having the experience of taking a train completely up Malaysia. We agreed we would make it and the train left at 4:30pm. After an entertaining, beautiful, and restless 8 hour train ride back to Penang we still need to get from the mainland to the island of Penang. It was a weekend, so the traffic usually took about an hour. We got off the train at 12am. We got back to the pier at exactly 1am, ran from the taxi and just barely made it.
The last day in Malaysia I slept in a bit, having been tired from so much travel. We got off the ship at about 11am and did our last bits of shopping around town. We also had a delicious Thai lunch. I hadn’t had Thai food in sooo long and I’ve kind of grown accustom to eating it once a week. On-ship time was 6pm, so we got came back on at about 4:30pm. You never want to push your luck by trying to get back on the boat right before on-ship because usually a SAS sponsored trip will be coming back around then. If you are late for on-ship time you get at the next port, one hour of dock time (can’t get off the ship) for every 15 minutes you’re late. If you’re with a SAS sponsored trip you don’t get dock time for being late, but if you get stuck behind one of those trips you do. It’s annoying, but we don’t like to mess with it.
Okay! So that was Malaysia! We are porting in Vietnam right now, so I need to go get ready. I will hopefully update again after Vietnam and before China!
Miss you guys!
Fal
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