Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Most of the time I was flying to Kuala Lumpur from Kuching and walking around the city I had the song "Kuala Lumpur" by the North Carolina based band Bombadil stuck in my head. If you want to catch an earworm or have a more authentic representation of my experience on peninsular Malaysia, CLICK HERE, but be warned, the first five seconds of the video are not part of the song and a little vulgar (the link is cued up to start six seconds in).

I was not planning on spending time in KL, but in order to get from Kuching, Malaysia (where I had a conference) to Malang, Indonesia (where I was doing a field study for work), I needed to change planes in Kuala Lumpur and in Jakarta. Most of the connections I found had me spending very short nights in one of the airports - flight landing at 11 PM and then taking off the next morning at 8 or something similar. The office would of course pay for a hotel, but this didn't sound like much fun, so I decided to pick one of the capitals to spend more time in by creating a longer layover. Jakarta is notorious for its traffic, so I chose to spend an afternoon and night in KL - flying from Kuching in the morning (AirAsia, meal:Pak Nasser's Nasi Lemak - yummy, but I was thrown a bit by the fried anchovies), exploring a bit, and on the following morning flying to Jakarta and on to Malang (Air Garuda).

I love bathroom instruction signs. People take for garnted that toilet usage is obvious.

For less than the price of the airport hotel, I was able to by transit tickets to and around the city and book a night at the Tune Hotel - Downtown KL. Tune Hotels are run by the same guy who runs AirAsia, a low-cost airline. I was curious about how the hotel would be - can you imagine if RyanAir branched out into the hospitality industry? For twelve euros I got a small single hotel room with a bathroom, but had to purchase air conditioning and WiFi separately in twelve hour bundles (also towels, TV, breakfast, and soap/shampoo, which I didn't need).The hotel itself was quite chic, with a chain coffee shop, 7/11, and some meeting rooms on the first floor. 

The room had very little furniture - just the bed, a bedside table,
this fold-down  shelf under the TV and some hangers - no wardrobe.

After dropping my bag, I went to the train station to catch the commuter rail to the Batu Caves, which is a series of limestone caves north of KL, some of which have Hindu temples inside. Its most recognizable features are the 140 foot tall statue of Murugan, the Hindu god of war, and the over 270 steps that lead up to the entrance to the caves. I think we can all agree that my selfie game has improved since Singapore.

So many steps. There were Chinese tourist ladies climbing in high-heeled sandals!

At the top!

What the entrance looks like (partially)

I actually climbed twice. When I travel, I try to get snow domes from the capital cities that I visit. NOTE: Not snow globes! These are sort of half circles (not spheres) and usually plastic. This is a question of aesthetics, fun (they often have movable parts!), transportability, tradition, no music, and spending a lot of time on "the search." Well, there was a stand at the top that had a pretty cool one with the golden statue in it, but it was one of the pen holder ones, which have never made sense to me - why have an object that is begging to be shook, as the vessel for other objects. Thinking that there would be others at the stores at the bottom for less money, I passed on it.  I was wrong. The downhill stores had globes that lit up, were made of glass,were more expensive, and did not have the Batu Caves, in favor of having the Petronas towers, which I knew I probably would not visit. So, I climbed back up! Good thing too, because I went to go see what the deal was with a side cave that had guided tours and got this great view:

View from entrance to the Dark Cave. Not the clearest of days, but you can make out the Petronas Twin Towers (to the left of the long, leafless twig) and the KL Tower (between that twig and the lone, dangling leaf).

This is a neighboring green shrine to Hanuman, a Hindu deity (in the form of a monkey?) who is revered for his strength.
Check out those quads! 

I sprung for the iced (read: from the refrigerator) coconut as a reward for climbing all those stairs (extra 20 cents). 

I sat in the ladies' carriage on the train.
 Women. Women with children. No couples. No men.

I spent the rest of the afternoon ambling through the city. Trying to navigate by sight to the KL Tower, I found some cool street art:

 KL Tower was pretty cool and I am glad that I paid extra to go to the open upper deck, it was much less crowded than the observation deck and not glassed in, so the photos could be much better. I just wish I had a tripod with me. As I am writing this, I only have access to the images from my phone, but I took some nice panoramas with my "real camera"

KL Tower from the hill that it is on after my visit, BLING! one of the ceilings in the elevator waiting area, view of the Petronas towers from the Open Deck.

I found my hotel from the KL Tower by following the monorail line.
It is the short building with the red lights, just after the curve in the brown line. 

My durian popsicle and the skyline. Oddly smelling, but surprisingly good. 

My flight was kind of early - I had to take a taxi to the train station in order to catch the airport express, because the monorail was not running yet, but I made my flight with plenty of time to spare. I was a little worried about changing planes in Jakarta, so quickly, but it worked out fine, with time to enjoy some american style doughnuts while I waited:

Doughnuts = Da bomb! Coffee = Nescafe :( 

Kota Kinabalu + Kuching, Malaysia

After snorkeling in Haiti, I "resolved" to try to squeeze scuba into an upcoming trip and I was able to make it happen in Malaysia. I read somewhere online that Kota Kinabalu ("KK") wasn't the most amazing diving in Malysia, but had a good reputation for beginner diving. KK is on the same island as a research symposium that I attended in August, so I checked with a few diving schools there for availability, then enrolled in and completed the PADI eLearning  Open Water Diver course before I flew to Malaysia, so I could get the theoretical stuff out of the way and spend my time there in the water and not in a classroom. The eLearning took a bit longer than expected and contributed to some time-stress in preparing for three weeks away from home. The eLearning was very thorough and made me think about physics/engineering stuff I had not thought about since undergrad. There is so much going on with fluids and pressures. When one dives, in addition to the tank of air that people associate with scubaers, one also wears a vest that is connected to the air tank and a belt with weights. You add air to the vest when you want to float (when you get to the surface, you inflate it all the way and you can float) and release it when you want to sink, but it gets more complicated - as you go deeper, the pressure of the water on the vest compresses the air further, so it provides less buoyancy, so you also have to add air as you go deeper.  So maintaining  a constant position under water was somewhat difficult to get the hang of - to make things even more complicated, the amount of air in your lungs also affects your position, so breathing can also be used to manage where you are.

Weight belt. I usually started with 3kg, but
sometimes the instructor had to add more.
(as I lost weight from compressed air)

Flippers, air-vest (real name: buoyancy control
device -BCD), tank, and regulator.

The instruction from Sucba Junkie KK was great! The lessons were fun and safety was always clear. I only forgot to breathe once... One of the exercises involves swimming without a mask and with contacts in that meant my eyes were closed. It was such a strange sensation, I freaked out for a few seconds, but quickly remembered that not breathing was very dangerous, inhaled and continued the guided blind swim. After two days, I completed all the exercises and despite low visibility, saw lots of cool animals on the dives: a lionfish, some clownfish (Nemo), some itty-biddy crabs... I don't have my log book with me right now, so I cannot give you a full list. On the last dive of the course, we saw an enchanting sea turtle. She was hanging out around the corner of some coral and then after a minute or so, gracefully swam by our group. I think my favorite are the nudibranchs, which I can only describe as fierce (in the fashion sense) sea slugs:

Google Image Search for nudibrach. Such variety! 

After the course, I paid for an extra day of "fun diving" to get some more practice - I initially left this gap day in the the schedule in case weather prevented me from doing the course in two days or so I had the opportunity to try out some of the other action sports in the area (white water rafting, trekking...).

On the dive boat off the coast of an national park island rain forest. 

I had planned to work in the evenings after diving (my presentation was not finished), but I pretty much fell asleep straight away. The first night I was asleep before I even took a shower. Luckily I woke up just in time to grab some food from a nearby convenience store before it closed. 

I did not see much of KK, although I don't know how much there is to see. I think it is like a port,, but touristically/culturally it is more of a gateway to Mt Kinabalu (on the Sabah state flag below) and rain forest activities. I was able to go through the fish market and sample a range of sweets from the night market.

Sabah Flag

Direction and distance to nearest public toilet on the main drag in KK.

Local dish: Bakso or meatballs. Super tasty and I love how nicely everything was arranged in the bowl

Coconut coated, green ball with some sort of fruit filling. Not the best.

Pancake with peanuts - nice!

Cupcake made with Sprite.

The next morning I worked from the hostel, since the airport bus stopped across the street and the wifi was pretty good. At the airport I searching in vain for stamps to mail some postcards that I had written (If you want one from an upcoming trip, email/message/carrier pigeon me your address!!!), but had to settle for some ice cream style dessert instead.

Yam flavored coconut milk "soft desert." Different from then Yam Ice cream G-ma and I made once, but quite yummy.

I flew AirAsia, a Malaysian low-cost airline, sort of similar to easyJet, to Kuching. The basic ticket would have been less than $25, but since I needed to check a bag I opted for their PremiumFlex ticket, which was still under fifty, but included a meal, seat reservation (with more leg room), separate check-in counter, and the freedom to change the ticket until two hours before the flight, if needed.

My meal choice was Vegetarian Chicken with Fried Ginger Rice, which I selected mostly because I wanted to see what vegetarian chicken was. turns out it is like a sheet of soy rolled into the shape of a chicken breast. It was actually really good.

Upon arrival in Kuching, I checked into my fancy hotel. My room looked like it had been decorated by Aunt Beth and there was a yoga mat and weights in the closet. I checked out the gym and pool situation, to gauge if they were worth using. The gym had some nice equipment, but I never made it back - no surprise. I wouldn't meet any conference folks until the next say so I went to the riverfront to get some food. I had bakso again, as the Sarawak Laksa (what Anthony Bourdain eats when he is in town) was finished for the day, accompanied by this Air Bandung lychee:

Rose syrup and fruit with (condensed?) milk

I saw several stands that make these fancy juice+fruit cocktails, which I assume exist in place of bars, since as a predominately Muslim country, there are few bars. I saw even saw them putting canned, possibly creamed, corn into one of the drinks!

Now we get to the real reason I came to Malaysia: a Service Research Research Symposium,, where I presented on sanitation services in low-income countries. I received some good feedback about different theoretical lenses I could use to examine my extensive data set and was able to see what other researchers are up to.

The conference concluded with a cultural dinner with dances and songs from all of the tribes in Sarawak. All of the Malaysians at my table were very helpful with explaining the Chinese style food - there were eight courses (because 8 is lucky), one of which was fish head soup!

Finally able to track down some Laksa Sarawak, albeit at the breakfast buffet of my five star hotel.

"preloved clothing from the USA" in the mall that was attached to my hotel

Singapore, Singapore (long layover on the way to Malaysia)

I flew Singapore Airlines to Malaysia and had a nine hour layover in Singapore. In addition to having extensive comfort and shopping options in the airport, they have different city bus tours that you can take for free, if you have a long enough layover. After the twelve hour flight, which arrived at 6 AM, I signed up for the tour at a desk directly outside of my gate, grabbed a doughnut and a coffee, and met up with other tour-goers about an hour late to go through customs and get on the bus.

I happened to be there on the extra day off that most people were granted because it was the celebration of Singapore's 50th anniversary. Nevertheless, the tour guide was cheerful and  full of good facts about how Singapore is a wonderful multi-cultural place to visit or live ("Please come back and stay for longer than the bus tour").

Part of the skyline from the highway into the city.

The tour had two stops, but I would split it into three parts. The drive to the city, when we learned about the history of Singapore, the high proportion of public housing (85%), the dense public transit system, and where to get a good meal "very cheap". Almost every balcony of all of the high apartment buildings that we passed was sporting a Singaporean flag.

After passing by some colonial buildings and the Formula 1 track, we stopped near the financial district to look at the Merlion - a creature that has the body of a fish and the head of a lion. It symbolizes the city's origins as a fishing village and the roots of its name, which comes from "lion city" (someone probably got confused with a tiger, according to the tour guide).

Of course I joined in with the selfie-frenzy, with pretty poor results.  

On the way to the next stop w passed some buildings that evidenced the diversity in the city: 

"We even have the Jews!" - tour-guide

Not the best shot of a Hindu temple, but check out the color and detail + the national symbols celebrating the birthday.

 The next stop was near a big mosque, in an area full of adorable cafes like these, which were mostly closed:  

Has a nutella sea salt tart

Even a Swedish one 

Rich and Good Cake Shop. This building style is called a shophouse
because there is a shop on the bottom floor that people live above. 

Beancurd City! Actually not in that exact area, but we
passed it on the way and I love the name, colors, and mascot.

Recreation opportunities for all ages:

Fun exercise options for seniors!

 And reminders of the birthday everywhere: 

I didn't really have may expectations about the city, but was so surprised at how many massive buildings there were. The tour did a great job of selling the city as a livable/workable space, although I do not think it would be that interesting as a vacation destination.