Scribbles Abroad

Malaysia was one heck of a good time.  We stayed with Ditesh, a fellow couchsurfer that opened his beautiful home to us.  Those that haven’t checked it out yet, please do, www.couchsurfing.com.  If you can offer a couch or bed to a traveler they will surely be grateful.  In addition you learn a lot about a different culture and end up making new friends.  If and when you decide to travel you too can attempt to surf a couch and will have an easier time with a bit of experience hosting people.  It’s set up very similar to Facebook or Myspace, so many of you will be able to figure it out very easily.

Every single meal we had in Malaysia was an Indian meal.  While in Bali, Leeanne and Kimberly had told us there were a ton of Indians here but we had no idea.  The choice to eat Indian food was not forced but voluntary.  We absolutely love the stuff.  We were there for two nights and two days for a total of 5 meals.   We also only ate two different things.  The first was banana leaf:  Your placemat is a banana leaf and they bring a bunch of rice, vegetable curries, and if desired, meat curries.  The other item we kept getting was Tosai Masala.  It was and Indian Burrito.  Inside was curried meats, onions, potatoes and other veggies.  The outside was kind of like a super thin crispy crepe.

Our first night we obviously had an Indian meal and then we headed to the Petronas Towers.  The iconic buildings are beautifully surreal.  A funny story I was told, goes as follows; The Developer for the building hired two firms to build the towers, one per tower.  The first contractor was a Korean firm and the second was a Japanese firm.  The firm that completed first was to be rewarded a bonus.  The whole way the firms were tied in a deadlocked race.  Upon the final day where one was to be crowned victorious, the Korean contractor snuck up the final antenna that night through the interior vs. a helicopter and sneakily installed it.  Upon daybreak the Koreans were crowned victorious.

After the towers we headed to a bar called Decanters, a wine bar that found out that the Malaysians in the area really didn’t drink wine.  They kept the name but they pretty much only served beer.  It was a smoky excursion and my eyes were hurtin that night.

The next morning Aizat banged Ditesh’s neighbors car.  He was hungovers.

During our full one-day tour in Kuala Lumpur we checked out the Batu Caves, Chinatown, Little India, and then on to Oktoberfest Malaysia style.
The Batu Caves are a holy Hindu collection of temples.  Every year around one million pilgrims congregate at the Batu Caves in order to participate or witness personal sacrifices by Hindu devotees.  The sacrifices are of the pain-inflicting genre.  They include the piercing of skin with several hooks and then dragging edifices of the gods.  Others pierce their cheeks and practice other forms of sacrifice that many of us Westerners would just shake are heads at.

Funny looking little statues/gods

The god of Milk

We ate here, its the bizzle.

One other thing, Batu means rock in Bahasa.  No there weren’t a bunch of ice-heads there, although it woulda been funny.  Louise and I carry mace with us just in case.
Chinatown and Little India are just as you would think.  Selling of knock off goods, haggling, weird and good foods.  In Chinatown we witnessed a little bit of civil justice.  Two individuals snatched a tourists bag.  As they were running off the local shop owners beat the guys down.  We heard it all go down as it was only about a 100 meters away (note the metric system we’re falling into).  When we made it to the mess, the two guys were tied up with rope, had bloody faces, and had the ashamed look of, “I just got my ass kicked”.  It’s sad because they were probably extremely poor and were just trying to get by, but robbing tourists through bag snatching is not the way.  I was proud of the locals and it actually made me feel safer.
Louise and I have been robbed in a different sense.  Be it the cab driver that charged us triple the price or the hotel that charged us double.  To us it was just a few bucks, but the feeling of being taken advantage of kinda sucks.  At least we take away from the experience a lesson.
That night was the highlight of our trip to Malaysia.  Ditesh and his friend Aizat took us to the local Oktoberfest……..on November 1st.  Nothing like Oktoberfest in November.  The night started off with a promo of the first 1000 beers going for a buck.  The line was about 500 people long so we all got two beers for the promo price.  The line moved pretty fast and you needed to finish your beer before you could get your next.  After that good start, we bought buckets of German beers and continued the celebration of our heritage and internationally shared hobby of beer–drinking.
The venue was filled with about 1,000 different individuals by that time.  Malaysia is truly a melting pot, even more than Hawaii.  Every race was represented in this mix and everyone was having a great time.  Nobody was acting the tough guy, everyone was smiling, and all were having a good time.
After a couple of more buckets down the competition began.   We had finagled a table right up front of the action and both Louise and I were chosen for the beer drinking competition.  See the pictures and quick movie for the rest.

EA25ID Represent!!!!!!!!!!

The challengers

This girl opened up all the girls beers up with her teeth.  I though Louise was in trouble.

The sexy winner

Later that night we went and had more Indian food, actually two more meals.  It was such a great night and we have to truly thank Ditesh and Aizat once more.

West and East

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Diteshs’ friend jumped up on stage and started rocking it.

I tried to freak Louise but she wasn’t really having it….right then.

I

A fresh bucket of Tiger.

No wasting!

This sign said that only non-muslims could enter.

Taking a quick nap.

Love is still loving an empty bucket of beer.

Still sleeping, I think I ended up drinking that iced tea with a barf moat surrounding it.

The next morning our flight departed at 7am which meant we had to be at the airport around 5ish.  We were planning to catch a bus to the airport.  As Ditesh with Aizat in shotgun took us to the bus terminal at 4:30am they spontaneously decided they’d take us all the way!  A full hour away!  These guys were true homies and we were so stoked to meet them.  Ditesh even let us leave our 6’6”s (surfboard’s) there since we don’t think we’ll need them for the rest of South East Asia.

We sent an entire backpackers bag home to Hawaii in a friends container back in Bali.  Louise and I are now traveling with half of the stuff we were in Indonesia.  We will need to update our packing list for you to see.  What we’ve learned is that you really don’t need all that crap to get by.  It’s a hell of a lot easier without it, and if you really need it, you can buy it.  Plus we got rid of our 6’6”s for now.   For the rest of SE Asia we are traveling with one backpackers bag, a small backpack, and one boardbag (with 3 boards in it, two shorties and 1 fish).
We’re off to the Philippines and can here the adobo calling.  Aysus!

Hey, wheres the beef?………Darabif!