Malaysia #1

Hello! My apologies for not posting in roughly two weeks. The past two weeks I have been on two different trips to Malaysia. Both trips had their highs and lows, but unfortunately the lows dominated trip #2. Overall, I think I’ve seen enough of Malaysia for this semester, and possibly my lifetime! Here’s a summary:

Trip #1 - I took this trip with some of the U of I students, as well as a new friend from Elon University. It was a five day trip, starting with a flight into Kuala Lumpur immediately followed by a 5 hour bus ride to Cameron Highlands. Cameron Highlands was very interesting, with its 3 different little towns. The only real complaint I have about it was getting there. Our bus took 5 hours to get there, with the driver stopping to eat dinner (not mentioned in the itinerary), but worse things could have happened. We arrived late, and woke up the next morning to take our tour of the area. The tour cost 26 RM which is roughly $5, and included a bunch of stops to local attractions. My favorite was definitely the bee farm that they took us to. We got to try some real honey! Other stops included a strawberry farm, a butterfly/insect/snake/rabbit farm, and the legendary tea plantation. We spent the whole day there, and then hopped back on the bus to Kuala Lumpur arriving late at night once again.

I really enjoyed Kuala Lumpur! We had a jam packed day, starting with the Batu Caves. We climbed the hundreds of stairs, my shirt turning light grey to dark with sweat, and walked into the crumbling temples that remained at the top.

After that, we headed to the central market. This was my first ever experience in a real bargain market. I didn’t really test my true skills, however, when asked to pay 20 RM for a pair of sunglasses, I managed to get it down to 15 ($3 US). Everything was very obviously fake, but I still got a kick out of people selling “Gucci” and “Prada” bags on a street corner.

Finally, my favorite part of the five days. My group met up with a woman named Cynthia Wong in Malaysia. My friend Tricia was put into contact with her through one of the deans in the College of Business! Cynthia was an honors business student at the University of Illinois, and after working for a few years decided to move across the world to Malaysia. She now teaches yoga, which I have learned is incredibly difficult. We went to one of her yoga class events which was on top of a very tall building, in a metal dome. It was very peaceful, and an experience I’d like to try again! After, we went out to dinner with Cynthia and a bunch of her local friends and had some great conversation!