Short and sweet Malaysia

So Malaysia turned out to be quite the adventure for us…or should I say lack thereof. This really is a beautiful country and I was in love with all the green beauty from the moment I arrived. We landed in Kuala Lumpur and have spent the majority of our time here; it is so much different from anywhere I have been yet in Asia. There are magnificent skyscrapers that cover the skyline, there are the biggest malls I have seen in my life with any high-end store you could imagine, and comparatively it is an exceptionally clean place. And talk about a mix of cultures which so wonderfully intertwine. Malaysia is filled with Malays, Indians, Islamic, and Chinese people which combines to make such a lively and interesting place to be. I really really liked the city and wished I could have spent more time going about Malaysia but unfortunately it didn’t work out that way.

We arrived on a Wednesday, spent the next day settling in and then on Friday we went to the Chinese embassy to get our visas done. Unfortunately they needed more paper work than was listed on the website so we were sent home and told to come back on Monday. This put a bit of a damper on our plans as we were hoping to get away for a few days. Saturday Juan ended up being sick so we couldn’t go anywhere and then Sunday we escaped for a day trip to Melaka. Monday we went in to get our visas done, Tuesday was another sick day (for both of us this time), then Wednesday when we went to leave to the rainforest for a few days we realized that our flight did not actually leave on Sunday like we thought but on Friday morning instead. Uggg, so annoying! This meant that we had to cancel our trip to the rainforest so we could pick up our visas early Thursday morning and leave the following day. So yeah, the trip was pretty much a bust. Between being sick and getting our Chinese visas we were not able to do much of anything. I am still glad we were able to make it here but it really is unfortunate we were not able to see more of the country.

What we did see though was beautiful. I think this is the greenest place that I have been to in my life. Everywhere you look it is covered in lush forest with incredible plants and flowers, and there are rolling hills and big valleys all around, even in the city. We went to Melaka for a day and I loved the place. It was really cute and small yet still really lively and there was a ton of history and things to do. Ninie set us up with some of her friends and we had such a great time with them. It was really nice for me cause they were both from Canada (Jordon from Winnipeg who moved to Malaysia and Bruce from Toronto who moved to Singapore). It was great to be able to talk about home and what we miss, especially when it came to the food! They showed us around brought us to a temple, a mosque, the market, St Pauls Church where the St Francis Xavier was buried originally, and we even went to a traditional tea ceremony which was so nice and enjoyable. The day was great, the company was better, and to think we only got a taste of what Malaysia has to offer.

A friend of Juans hooked us up with his old flatmate from when he was living here for us to stay with. From our first email introduction to Ninie she was one of those delicious people who is so nice you don’t even know how to respond. Without knowing us Ninie and her roommate Anna welcomed us into their beautiful home and invited us to make it our own for a few days. Ninie and her boyfriend Faroq took us to some wonderful restaurants, they spoiled us with wonderful evenings out in KL, and they graciously opened their lives up to us in such a beautiful way. Oh and since Ninie is a fabulous yoga instructor here with her own studio BeYoga, she even had us bending and stretching in ways that my newly plump-too-much-Asian-food body was not quite ready for. One of my favorite parts about traveling is getting to meet all these new people, to have new friends come into your life and add something a little extra special to your world, Ninie, Anna, and Faroq definitely did that during this trip.

So Malaysia although short and simple was a very nice trip. I hope to someday come back here and discover these lands more but for now I am off to China to see what may be in store for me there.