Malaysia 2006
Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia
February 2006
Selamat Datang! (Welcome!)
Travel for Dummies spends a week in Malaysia. If you expect to find kuala bears in Kuala Lumpur, you will be really disappointed. Not much hope for lumpurs, either, whatever they are. KL is a very clean and modern city. Up until a couple of years ago, they had the tallest buildings in the world, the twin Petronas towers. No, it wasn’t architectural osteoporosis that did them in, Shanghai built a taller building.
In the US, crosswalks say “Walk” or “Don’t Walk.” Malaysia, being multi-ethic with large populations of Malays, Chinese and Indians, uses a red stick figure standing or a green stick figure walking. The green stick figure walking is animated. When the light first turns green, Mr. Stick Figure is strolling. A clock is in the light square above him and it starts ticking down from about 20 seconds. When it gets to about 15 seconds, the Mr. Stick Figure stops strolling and gets serious with his walking. At about five seconds, the Mr. Stick Figure realizes his life is in danger and starts sprinting full out. Mr. Stick Figure should go to Beijing on behalf of Malaysia in 2008 for the Olympics. I actually switched my digital camera to video mode and filmed the entire sequence because it was so entertaining, at least to me. I think instead of the boring red standing stick figure, maybe they could animate cars continuing to bump over the green Mr. Stick Figure’s prone body.
Malaysia has three distinct cultures all co-existing in relative harmony. The largest population culture is the native Malays. The Malays are Muslim and control the government. The richest population, controlling 80% of the wealth, is the Chinese. Finally, the Indians (ie, former natives of India) make up the remainder and control the taxis and convenience stores. (Seriously – the small business sector.) The Malays language, while seen on signs, is not mandatory due to the multi-cultures. That is a good thing, because it really seems confusing to me. For example in our office, there is a sign in Malay that says “Terima Kasih Kerang Tidak Merokok.” In English it translates to “No Smoking!” I tried to find out if the literal Malay translation was something like “do not be the idiot who makes a fire and inhales the fumes,” or something similar, but I got the same response as every other time I asked a Malay for a translation: they just smile, nod, and back slowly away without making eye contact.
We took a cab to the Batu Cave and ran out of gas while going down a freeway. Our driver, Sarban, was a very colorful Indian Sikh. He was a great tour guide pointing out interesting facts as we sped down the shoulder at 100/kmh when traffic got congested. “There is a 300 ringget fine,” Sarban yelled over his shoulder as he swerved around a motorcycle and did a lane-share with a bus, “for driving on the emergency service shoulder, like this.” He didn’t say if the fine was only 150 ringgets if you only have two tires on the pavement at any given time. Anyway about that time the car chugged and Sarban yelled, “Oh Holy Mahindra! The gas is completely out! Not to worry, I switch to petrol!” The car lurched a little and then we jumped back into warp speed through the asteroid field. I was completely confused and not just from the shock of all the near misses. A few minutes later he swerved into a Petrol Station, flew past the gasoline pumps to this weird terminal where the nozzles looked like ray guns from Lost in Space. The attendant raised the hood and popped this nozzle on a connection. The trunk, immediately behind us, started hissing like when I fill up my barbeque propane tank. It seems all taxis here are dual fuel, natural gas and petrol, but they are encouraged to use natural gas through government subsidiaries that make it a fraction of the petrol cost. Mr. Sarban’s natural gas fill-up only cost him seven ringgets or about $1.90 (Less than the cost of one gallon of gasoline!). And he can go about 140 miles on that $1.90. I then realized THAT is why Kuala Lumpur has such clean air. The government nearly gives away natural gas, which only pollutes only a fraction of gasoline (petrol).
The Batu (Malay for batty or whacko) Cave is a huge limestone cave about halfway up a mountain guarded by a 150 foot tall Buddha statue. There are various Hindu shrines and temples inside the cave along with a couple of hundred hungry monkeys, all with an attitude and looking for a handout. Or a shakedown. This was all very Indiana-Jones-ish: the enormous dark cavern, lots of Hindu idols, monkeys threatening from all directions. Except for the gift shop. I’ve never seen a gift shop in any Indiana Jones adventure. Or Hindu shrine. There are 278 stairs to climb to the top of the shrine. I know this because each stair is numbered. We passed up several women of all ages with urns on their head chanting a different line with each number of step. I learned from our psychotic driver, Sarban, that this is a fertility ritual to give these women a son. When we came down, there were several men with hundreds of things piercing their skin all over preparing to climb the 278 stairs. For example, three guys had 108 (I was told 108, not 107 or 109 by Sarban. I didn’t get the significance of 108) lines each with a hook (like you’d hang Christmas ornaments on the tree) piercing their skin and hanging from their back. They too strutted each stair chanting a specific line for each step. I think they were in search for the perfect key-lime pie or a Corona. Others had various things, painful things I’d rather not go into, pierced with large heavy things hanging on. Sarban said it was a ritual to fast and pray for 44 days and then do the piercing, chanting and climbing to prove you had evolved and could feel no pain. I just smiled, nodded, and backed slowly away without making eye contact…
Oh well, enough said on the Hindu shrine. After an experience like this, I have to ask all my religious non-Buddhist friends, “Have you hugged your God today?!” This was a short trip and overall pretty boring. Only a little over a week and it’s time to head home tomorrow. I hope everyone is doing well and I hope to see everyone real soon.
Selamat Datang! (OK, in two trips here, “welcome” was the only Malay I got! And it’s the exact same in Indonesia.)
Keith, All-Holes-Bared No-Pierce