Impressions of Malaysia

City mosque in Kota Kinabalu

Malaysia is an easy country to travel. “Easy to travel” usually translates into the fact that it is more touristy therefore also more expensive and there is more pressure to buy whatever is forced upon the tourists. My experience is that I was generally able to avoid the more touristy areas and focused more on remote parts which I explored using local transport. Yes, I had to pay for the tours I took, as they don’t allow you to climb Mount Kinabalu outside of a group and you can’t do a Kinabatangan river safari on your own. But the rest was easy and peaceful. My average cost per day if I exclude the tours is comparable to the costs in Thailand, Laos or Cambodia.

Hindi temple in Penang

What also makes it easy to travel in Malaysia is that they use the Latin alphabet which is always helpful in a foreign country. Even if I don’t understand the language, I can read signs such as the names of places or names of food items on street stalls. Almost everyone speaks at least a little English in Malaysia so it was easy to get around. Even young schoolgirls chatted me up in basic English. I spoke with a local woman who told me that she went to university in India. She said that although there are many good university programs in Malaysia, some people decide to study in India. According to her, India has the best medicine programs because they have so many dead bodies that no one claims it’s easy to practice medicine on them. I think this might be a myth although with India, you never know. Do they really pick up dead bodies by the side of the road to use them for studying medicine?

Another aspect of the more developed countries of southeast Asia such as Thailand and Malaysia as compared to the less developed Laos and Cambodia is the amount of hassle they give you when entering the country and their visa requirements. The less developed countries make you fill out elaborate forms and pay a fee. I wonder if they believe that there are millions of foreigners lining up to take residence in their countries. The more developed countries just stamp your passport and in you go, no questions asked.

Malaysia is a mixture of Indian, Chinese and Malay cultures and religions. I was so glad to have the option of Indian food although the Indian ethnic groups are more populous on peninsular Malaysia and less so on Borneo where it’s predominantly Chinese. It’s fun to watch the coexistence of the Muslim population which doesn’t drink alcohol or eat pork with the Chinese culture which is quite the opposite. But they seem to make it work. I’ve seen Chinese restaurants that display “serve no pork” signs to be able to cater to the Muslim population. And I noticed a group of Chinese tourists who went to a Malay restaurant where they ordered Cokes and spiked them up with liquor from a small bottle that they brought along.

Performance at a Chinese New Year Bazaar
(looks and feels just like Christmas)

Out of all the countries in southeast Asia that I visited so far I noticed quite a number of fat people in Malaysia as opposed to Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, where practically everyone, young and old alike, is either skinny or bordering on emaciated. It probably correlates to the standard of living which is higher in Malaysia and also to the number of fast food places that can be found everywhere in Malaysia, even in very small remote towns. I sometimes had difficulty finding fresh fruit which I had become accustomed to eating for lunch and which was always readily available in Thailand, Laos or Cambodia. In Malaysia, it’s much easier to find street stalls that sell baked goods, waffles or pancakes. The fast food is also quite cheap therefore it is accessible to the entire population. For example, in Cambodia and in Thailand, a meal in a fast food place would cost about three times as much as a meal from a street stall. In Malaysia, the cost is about the same. So even the poorest can eat a greasy burger and fries for the same price as a noodle or rice dish with meat and vegetables. It’s sad to note that a better standard of living goes hand in hand with less healthy eating choices.