Malaysia!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. Sorry, it's been a long time since I have posted anything on my blog and I will certainly try and do much better in 2011 than I did the latter part of 2010.
I had a chance to go to Malaysia for a week at Christmas and had an amazing time. Of course it was freezing cold here in Korea when I left for Malaysia, so the warm breezes and t-shirt and shorts weather was very welcoming! One of the first things I noticed about Malaysia is that it is much different than the other S.E. Asian countries I had been to. The infrastructure and housing in Malaysia was far superior to any of the other countries, I was actually a little bit surprised at how nice it was when I arrived. Malaysia is an Islamic state, so it was interesting to see many women wearing the Muslim burqa and to see the different mosques scattered around the city and country. There are also a lot of Hindus, Buddhists and Christians in the country, so there was an interesting mixture of worship sites all around as well.
One of the first places I went to was the Batu Caves, which were about 9 miles north of the city. Around the late 1890s the caves were dedicated as a place of worship to the Hindu god Lord Murugan the god of war and victory. Outside the caves is a 140 foot high statue dedicated the Lord Murugan. Each year there is a huge festival at the caves called the Thaipusam Festival, in 2007 over 1.5 million people went to the caves for the festival. Fortunately when I was there it wasn't that busy. There are 272 steps leading up into the caves. Along the way there are hundreds of wild monkeys who are climbing around on light poles and jumping out of trees. I had read to hold on tight to your backpack or handbag because the monkeys sometimes snatch stuff away! HA! When I was there a monkey stole a water bottle from a girl and then scampered up the light pole and was chewing on the bottle. I'm OK with monkeys and everything, but I didn't really want to feed them. A lot of people were feeding them peanuts, bread, etc. It was fun to see other people feed them, but they seem a little dirty to me to want to have them grabbing stuff out of my hands. Anyway, the caves were cool...they aren't very deep, but it was very interesting to see. Kuala Lumpur (I'll just call it KL from now on) is well know for it's pewter and Royal Selangor is the largest manufacturer and retailer of pewter in the world. The factory was open for tours and it was interesting to see the skill that the workers had in making the different items. One of the coolest things at the factory and gallery is the world's largest pewter tankard. It is 6'6" and the girth is 5'6". It weighs in at 3432 lbs and it took 3 months and over 2000 hours to complete!
The next day I left off for Kuala Selangor which is an area a few hours from KL. The main reason I went there was to see the lightning bugs at the nature park. It was really cool...the bugs were blinking like Christmas lights, the only disappointing thing was that it was impossible to get any good pictures of it. It was too dark to get a picture without the flash, but then when I turned the flash on it just lit up the trees and you couldn't see the lighting bugs. The guide said this was one of the largest areas of lighting bugs in the world. It was very peaceful, the guides rowed people down the river at night, I guess they rowed instead of used a motor so as to keep it quiet and make the trip more memorable and maybe not to scare the bugs too. It was so nice and quiet out there at night.
After that I headed down to Malacca which was probably one of my favorite places during the trip. I really love history and so going to see historical places is one of my favorite things to do. Malacca has a rich history, it was under Portuguese control for around 130 years from 1511 to 1641 when it was taken over by the Dutch. The Dutch then controlled at area from 1641 until around 1824 when it was taken over by the British. The British controlled it until the Japanese took over during World War II. Malacca has quite a few famous structures there, the "A Famosa Fort" which was built in 1511 by the Portuguese. Most of the fort has since been destroyed, but there is still one small gate house that remains, one of the oldest surviving European architectural remains in Asia. Another interesting building in Malacca is "Christ Church" which was built by the Dutch in 1753. It is the oldest functioning Protestant Church in Malaysia.
Most people associate Petronas Towers with KL...these buildings are really beautiful and amazing. From 1998 until 2004 they were the tallest buildings in the world standing 1483 feet tall! They are functioning office buildings and I thought it was interesting that you can't go all the way to the top. Tourists can go early in the morning and get tickets to go up to the bridge that connects the two buildings, but I heard that you had to be there around 7 AM and I just didn't feel like going to get tickets! HAHA! The last few days in KL I did like I always do and just wandered aimlessly around the city just exploring whatever I could see. This is usually one of my favorite things to do...I like to roam and just see what I can see. Some of the cool things I stumbled across were the National Mosque of Malaysia, the train station, some really cool parks, and all kinds of cool looking buildings. I spent New Years Eve there and it was a lot of fun to see the fireworks up over Petronas Towers, I was really happy to get some good pictures from my hotel room!
There were several things that stood out to me about Malaysia. As I said before, I could tell that the economy and infrastructure there was much different than most other SE Asian countries. Another thing I really liked about KL was the food choices. There were SO many restaurants there, and the food was really good. In the week I was there I think I ate Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese and Malaysian food. It also seemed that Malaysians have quite a bit on national pride...while I was there apparently there was some sort of soccer tournament and Malaysia won the championship over Indonesia. There were 100s of people honking horns and waiving the Malaysian flag (which looks quite similar to the US flag, in fact there were a lot of times when I saw the red and white stripes I automatically thought of the US flag! HA). Also, with a high Muslim population it was really interesting to see the mosques and hear the calls to prayer throughout the day over the speakers from the mosques. Muslims pray 5 times a day, and so one more than one occasion I heard the call from the speakers (at least I assumed that was what it was for). Malaysia was really beautiful and I had a great time there...I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to go!