By “The Slow Road” standards, our planned visit to Malaysia—one country, three locations, 12 days—was a whirlwind trip. Originally, we hadn’t intended to go to Malaysia (put off by reports of growing antigay sentiment on the part of the national government). But when our D.C. friend Robin, who was coming to spend her Christmas and New Year’s vacation with us, found a discount flight to the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, we adjusted our plans.
As so often seems to happen in our travels, that serendipity proved to be a positive thing. Malaysia is a very interesting country, different in many ways from anywhere else we’ve been in Southeast Asia.
- It’s really rainy this time of year! Our previous destinations (Bali, Cambodia, and Laos) were in their dry seasons when we visited, so in three months we only saw rain on two or three days. But since we got to Malaysia, it has rained almost every day—often hard showers for hours at a time. That’s normal this time of year on the eastern side of the Malay Peninsula, but this year the eastern monsoon is so strong that it’s blowing over to the western side of the peninsula, where we are.
- Malaysia is very multicultural. Because it has been a trading spot for many centuries, with a strategic position on the Straits of Malacca, its population is a mix of many different ethnic groups. Three groups predominate: Malays (mostly Muslim), Indians and Sri Lankans (mostly Hindu), and Chinese (mostly Taoist or Buddhist). Although “Chinatowns” and “Little Indias” exist in some areas, the three groups intermingle to a surprising extent. It’s not unusual to see a mosque, a shop with signs in Chinese, and an Indian food stall in the same block. Everyone eats in everyone else’s restaurants, and the country celebrates each group’s major holidays (including, as one sign we saw said, “Gregorian calendar New Year”). Intermarriage over the years has resulted in some distinct subsets of the population with their own specific cultures—such as the “Straits Chinese,” Chinese traders who came to the Straits of Malacca in the 15th through 17th centuries, married Malays or Indonesians, and became a local elite.
- Malay women of all ages, even little girls, wear head scarves. That’s different than in much of the Middle East, where Muslim girls don’t usually start covering their hair until puberty. Here, it seems as though Muslim female dress is as much a symbol of someone’s ethnicity as a Malay as a symbol of her devoutness.
- Malaysia is by far the most urbanized, prosperous, and developed place we’ve visited in Southeast Asia. Our first impression on leaving the Kuala Lumpur airport was that Malaysia looked like Florida: flat terrain with lots of palm trees, high-rise apartment buildings, big highways with toll booths, and suburbs full of matching houses. Kuala Lumpur even has a Disneyesque monorail.
- Street food of all sorts is more readily available here than anywhere else we’ve been so far. In Kuala Lumpur, where we stayed in Chinatown, stalls selling all kinds of street food—from noodle dishes to soups, sliced fruit, pastries, and even roasted chestnuts—were literally on our doorstep. Since coming to Malaysia, we’ve been eating lots of very inexpensive and generally very good Chinese and Indian food. Much to our friend Robin’s delight, the country is also surprisingly vegetarian-friendly. Unlike in many other places, she never had to explain the concept of not eating meat.
- Because Malaysia is fairly prosperous (and we’re here during a school holiday period), we’ve encountered plenty of Malaysians on vacation, as well as the usual foreigners. It makes a nice change to not feel so economically separate from some of the people around us.
- That said, we’ve also seen more beggars here than anywhere else we’ve traveled in Southeast Asia. In that way, Malaysia feels more like Washington, D.C.
- After Malay, English is the country’s official second language, taught widely in school. So it’s very easy to communicate with a wide range of people.
- More than in Cambodia and Laos, people are open and willing to strike up casual conversations. Malaysia reminds us of Bali that way. Taxi drivers, restaurant owners and other diners, even people on the street ask you where you’re from and where you’ve been in their country, talk about the weather, or spontaneously wish you a Merry Christmas (since we look like the sort of people who celebrate that holiday).
- Shopping is apparently a big thing in Malaysia, as the proliferation of huge malls in the big cities will attest. Christmas is also a big thing, at least as a shopping holiday. We didn’t expect to see Christmas decorations or hear “Let It Snow” play over store speakers in a place where it has probably never snowed. Because we were unprepared, we made the rookie mistake of ending up in a high-end mall the Saturday night before Christmas (we were desperately searching for somewhere to eat in a part of the city with no street food). It was as loud and crowded and overwhelming as Tyson’s Corner Mall probably was that same night.
