Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia!!

I was all set to write an interesting, descriptive post about why I loved Malaysia and how interesting I found it, until I found myself having a bit of a rough week. I had my lock picked and Ipad stolen, a few days without meeting too many other backpackers (for the very first time on my trip!), lost a boat ticket and so had to pay again, blew up my phone charger, struggled for several hours to book a flight with no success, and spent almost 40hrs on very cramped buses in about a week. I suppose its reasonable to expect crappy weeks once in awhile though, with travelling for so long. Everyone has their ups and downs at home and it's only natural to expect that once in a while, that happens on the road as well. Thankfully, there have been some big ups as well, especially in the past few days, so things have really balanced out. I'm back to my regular, cheerful self and really: I'm in Indonesia, and living the dream so I guess I really can't complain!

Mosque in Kuala Lumpur

To back up a bit, I left Siem Reap Cambodia, for Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, with about a week in Malaysia planned. After that, it would be two days and one night in Singapore, and then on to Indonesia, with the rest of my travels spent surfing and diving and exploring in Bali, the Gili Islands, and if my money held out, Komodo National park. I found Kuala Lumpur to be very interesting and quite different from anywhere I had travelled so far in that it was very multicultural, had a distinct lack of backpackers (relative to some of the other places I had been that is) and was clearly quite well off financially. I found it fascinating to hear my first hauntingly beautiful call to prayer, and to observe Malays, Indians, Chinese and various other ethnic groups living amicably beside each other. I walked around quite a bit, learned to negotiate public transit to get to my next stop in Malaysia, and checked out markets and temples and landmarks (the KL Bird Park was a huge hit!). I befriended a student who was around my age who was from Nigeria, and found it interesting to talk with him about his experiences as a student and worker in KL. I also enjoyed having a bit of a personal tour guide who spoke some limited Malay!

My next stop was in the Perhentian Islands, in the North East section of the mainland West Malaysia. These islands were absolutely stunning with perhaps the clearest water, whitest sands and best diving I had experienced yet.
Here I must note that when I first started planning my entire trip, I knew for sure that I would be going to Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, but was unsure about other countries. As such, I made sure I knew all of the main sights in the four countries I mentioned but didn't spend a lot of time looking into things to do in others. It was definitely an experience having landed in Malaysia with having done my research on the country just the day before, and as well as while on my flight. It turns out, there are numerous interesting things to do and I didn't have nearly enough time. I hummed and hawed, but when I found myself in the Perhentian islands I felt like I had found paradise. That combined with a really good group of travellers I fell into, and I didn't want to leave! I ended up spending 5 or 6 days there in total, fitting in maximum diving (including my second night dive!) and beach time. I saw my first turtle, several black tip reef and bamboo sharks, metre long bumbhead parrot fish, moray eels, octopus, squid, and more small colourful fish and soft corals than I could count. We were blessed with beautiful weather and other than the iPad theft, which to be fair, was a serious downer, I really enjoyed my time and didn't want to leave.

The next part of my adventures I will skim over, as I had a few days of maximum travel time, a bit of do-nothing time to recoup, and too much time spent in the inside of a mall searching for another iPad. I travelled from the Perhentians back to KL, then from KL to Singapore. After only two days and one night in Singapore (it was supposed to be more, but the Perhentians ate into my time), I flew to Jakarta Indonesia. I'm excited for Indonesia and now I can say that the country is really beautiful, but for anyone who has been to Jakarta.... it is not. After one night, I boarded one of the worst night buses I have ever taken, and a cramped 13hrs later, stumbled into Yogyakarta.
It took a day or two to get settled into Yogya and at first I found it a bit frustrating. I arrived during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, a three day National holiday which celebrates the end of Ramadan. I didn't realize how big this holiday was: almost all muslims make an effort to visit family so shops were closed, traffic was crazy, and accomodations and transport were really booked up. I found a really nice, clean and modern hostel, but found that it was completely filled with locals and their children. Definitely a different vibe than I had become accustomed to in other hostels!

Shitty photo, wonderful girls!!

However, things definitely improved. Eid al-Fitr ended and I was able to get things like laundry done again. The traffic was still pretty terrible, but I met several fellow solo female travellers, and we really connected. There is something so refreshing about meeting fellow women who are travelling by themselves! We have all had similiar experiences in that people thought we were crazy, wondered about our safety, or thought that we just liked alone time. In reality, the women I have met have been some of the friendliest, positive people I've ever met, who have been safe for their entire trip, have spent minimal days alone, and have counted solo travel as one of the best decisions of their life. We spent the next two days packing as much sightseeing and fun in as possible, and I was sad when I had to leave them to fly to Bali.

Several highlights from my time with the girls included a sunrise trip to the Borobodour temples (a massive Buddhist monument and UNESCO world heritage site) and the Prambanan temples, a Hindu temple complex from the 8th century that are the nation's best examples of Hindu art. It was strange here -we were asked for photos countless times with locals, and heard "Boule!!" (foreigner/westerner!) shouted at us everywhere we went. It was strange having a separate entrance (paying more of course), getting free tea and coffee, using nicer washrooms and using the train for free. We also used the foreigner's que for entering the temple, saving about 30min of wait time. At first I felt very bad about this privilege that I had been given, just based on the colour of my skin, but when I realized I paid three times more than the locals... I stopped feeling quite as bad. It was still very strange though, and I'm not really sure what to think. Indonesia is a different place, that's for sure.

We also rented motorbikes (surprise, surprise) to go visit to Parangtritis beach where I finally understood why Indonesia is known as a surfing capital of the world -I've never seen such insanely huge waves! It was a massive flat beach absolutely packed with locals standing around, laughing, and splashing in the waves fully clothed, and with horse carts moving in and out of the crowds. Children laughed and shrieked, and we would go from standing on sand to being thigh deep in water in about one minute -and then back to dry land again in the same amount of time. I've never seen anything like it.

We visited the bird market which I was quite interested to see, but found it to be a bit depressing. No-one wants to see baby owls, scared out of their wits, crammed into a cage for sale. There were many different birds and animals too: pupppies, kittens, snakes, turtles, roosters, pigeons, and of course numerous species of songbird. I did find it cool to see black Java finches, like I had once sold when I worked at SuperPet in high school, and to remember that they are native to this area. We also checked out the Kraton (the Sultan's Palace), Malioboro St, a chaotic and energetic street jammed with street vendors of every kind and food stalls, and went for dinner when our plans to see the Indonesian ballet failed -misunderstanding of dates on our part! Our night ended with beers on the roof of our hostel, from one of the few corner stores licenced to sell alcohol in Yogya. There tends to be a limited nightlife in muslim countries :-P

I am currently writing this from the air, on my flight to Bali -in about one hours time I will be landing. Time has just been flying by (pun not intended), and I can't wait to make the most of my last few weeks in SouthEast asia!

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