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