First steps in Malaysia!

India is (more and less) following us

We left India last Tuesday, the 13rd of June, from the airport of Trichy. It has been a long time since we took a plane and it seemed to us that everything was very high, very fast and very confusing: in four hours, four hours only, we reached another country, on the other side of the ocean! It was incredible.

It took us time to realize that the adventure was starting. We were always joking that we were simply going back to Auroville... but we really had this impression! Maybe it was not wrong... because everywhere we went in Malaysia, it seems that Auroville's shadow is close by: we have the stickers of our friends (cf. article Participation and support), we even met randomly friends we know from Auroville, Gemma and Phil, in the middle of the train station of Kuala Lumpur (such a wonderful surprise!) and... we saw a kind of huge golden globe (ok, right... it was more a mosque than the Matrimandir, but still!).

stickers of our friends

Our journey in Malaysia seems to be an Indian way of life style:

Hindu statue (Batu caves)

• there is a lot of Indian food and a lot of Indian restaurants (it is very funny for us to see foreign people eating Indian food with spoons)
• every city has its "Little India", where we could find the same kind of colorful and joyful atmosphere we used to like the last few months... Some people are even making henna!
• Hannah is reading The White Tiger, an incredible novel of Aravind Adiga about life and corruption in Bengalore
• and... Julie still continues to have the reflex to say "Anna" (instead of "uncle") and we both are shaking our heades like Indian people, which confuses sometimes the Malaysians we meet.

 

But, in general, as soon as we landed, we found a completely different ambiance there. As Malaysia and India are not so far away from each other, we were naively expecting some similarities... but not at all. The weather is colder (with sometimes thunderstorms), the people are very different, the food is completely something else, the main religion is Islam, the streets are clean (!), the transports seems so modern to us, the shape and the dynamism of the cities are organized and the level of development is much higher.

Challenges & adventures... already!

Some problems, some issues, some surprises... Life is not boring at all, here... for the best and for the worst!

• Internet, where are you? Our main difficulty for now is to use the transports without Internet, to reach places we want to go, to take buses, to contact our couchsurfers. We are presently developing a "wifi addiction" and we are becoming very good at asking people in the street!

•  28-200, condolences... Few days ago, a catastrophe happened... Julie broke the very good camera lens of her reflex (some water was stuck on the lens)... We had to buy a new one, but of much lower quality. Let's see how it will be.

Departed camera lens ...

• Being veg' and vegan. An other problem we have is with the food. Indeed we are vegetarian and vegan since a while but we realize that in Malaysia the food is mostly based on meat. It is very difficult for us to find food we can daily eat (once, we were wondering what was this curious dish composed only of a kind of whitish jelly, on which people put sauce... squid!). Generally, the food consists of dishes of noodles or rice (in a soup or not) with chicken, fish, mutton or beef. And we have to confess that it smells most of the time really delicious!

Two days in Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur (KL) was the first city of our trip: it is one of the two capitals of Malaysia and the most populated with more than 1 600 000 inhabitants intra muros. KL is the cultural, financial and economic center ot the country and has undergone rapid development in recent decades. That's why when we arrived, we were very impressed: everything is huge and crowded!

Furthermore, Malaysia is an Islamic country. We could see it with the food, with our new friends fasting for Ramadan, with the mosques around us. The first evening, with our host Azry, we went close to his place to a kind of market to by some local food and we took it away. We had dinner in front of the Blue Mosque, where a lot of people (including families) where also eating after the sunset.

The Blue Mosque after the sunset

We went into the center at night: after 20 minutes of traffic, we reached the city of light. We were really impressed by the twin towers, by the lightnings and the fountains, by the phenomenal amount of banks and malls. After India, that was disconcerting! We had a wonderful time, walking in the streets and parks, having nice conversation with Azry, seeing with big eyes all these chic shops.

Petronas twin towers

Lightning with the shape of the traditional Malaysian kite

Outside from a mall in KL

The day after, Azry took us to the Batu Caves, a limestone hill that has a series of caves, a cave temple and Hindu sculptures. "Welcome back to India", said Azry. We climbed the 272 steps up! The same day, we saw also the Central Market, China Town and Little India in KL, before having an amazing dinner!

Murugan statue at Batu cave ... and we climbed the 272 steps on the right side!

Huge Malaysian kite in metal

Entrance of China Town's market

Hannah, with new sunglasses, Vinu's necklace and Matthias t-shirt!

A tour in Penang

Let's go more to the North! At Penang, we were living at Charles' place close to the airport but during our one and half day in Penang we spent quite a lot of time in George Town, the main city of the island. By car or by bus, we could reach the center, but very (very) slowly because of the traffic

We first discovered the place by night and the atmosphere was really nice. Most of all, we appreciated a lot the lightnings in Armenian Street!

Armenian Street by night

During the day time, while walking around, we could enjoy the charm of the street art, the diversity of buildings (mosques, churches, fort, mansion... and mall to buy a new camera lens...) and the beauty of the cost.

Blue Mansion in George Town

Saint George's cathedral

See side

Very small overview of the street art:

The boy and the dinosaure

Julie and her minion... like always!

And of course, we went to the beach, at Batu Ferringhi! Swimming into the water, going around in the night market, trying to get veg food (with people who don't speak English!), coming back very slowly with the bus... were our activities!

Batu Ferringhi

Amazing sunset on the ocean

Leaving Malaysia with continuity and impermanence

We just started to make our mark on the white snow, we just started to write this little story, like novices advancing towards the unknown world (it sounds sensational, doesn't it? ok... I stop  exaggerating). But: we are working on something. Something that we called "transience". How?

• by packing and carrying our bags, keeping and breaking our stuff
• by learning some words in Malay - which is sometimes not so complicated
• by meeting and saying good bye
• by experiencing gratitude and threw that remembering our Reiki's and Vipassana's lessons (cf. article about Vipassana coming soon)

ಜಿ 

We crossed our first border yesterday (after some unexpected issues and a lot of adrenalin!). The time is going so fast!  We are following our plan, we are keeping going on our way but... we want to say

terima kasih

 (thank you)

for all we experienced during the first chapter of our Odyssey!