Day 29: Kuala Lumpur & Day 30: Penang

Day 29: Kuala Lumpur (aka... city of 'Garden Lights', as you see many lights hanging from the tree), is a very modern city with a colorful mix of Malays (majority), Chinese (2nd), and Indians (3d), each very proud of it's heritage and culture, with magnificent architecture and well manicured gardens. The Malay woman wear the traditonal clothes call 'baju kurung', which is a a head scarf,flowing full-length skirt, and blouse, and you can even see Indian woman wearing sari's still, and you can see western dressing as well.

I started the day taking a city tour of most of the famous
architecture structures around Kuala Lumpur (most commonly referred to as 'KL'). There is alot of the Islamic influence in the architecture, they even have buildings where there is a mix of British and Islamic. My tour guide explained to me that the government does not allow two buildings to be built the same, you need to get a government permit to build a building. Foreigners can own property and they don't have to be citizens.

In the afternoon we went to one of the gardens in KL, which had beautiful sculptures and well designed manicured bushes.
Alot of the bushes even the ones in the middle of the highways are well manicured. Then we went to a chocolate factory and learned that chocolate is made from cocoa seed which is kept out for 7 days then mashed, water and sugar are added to make the chocolate. The oil from the coca seed is 'coca butter'. Malayasia has many rubber and palm trees, so we saw how rubber is taken from the tree, they take the sap from the rubber tree twice a day. When you take the sap it is pretty running and then it solitifies quickly, sap is taken from the rubber tree twice a day. Then we headed to 'Batu Caves', one of the oldest Hindu shrines in Malaysia. I was interested in learning from my tour guide, who is 3rd generation South India, that many of the 2nd and 3rd generation Indians and Chinese still know how to speak their parents native tongue. He said even though the different ethnic groups maintain their heritage and culture they coexist well together. There are Chinese and Tamil schools available the government does require that Malay and English is taught in all schools.

Then I headed to dinner, Malaysia is know for it's 'hawkers' they are basically different stalls of food in one common area. I tried the 'Nasi Lemak', which is rice with chicken, sardines, cucumbers, sambal, and peanuts. It was better than the one I get at home at 'Banana Leaf'......

Day 30: My friend Gaylie and I took a trip to Penang (aka 'Pearl
of the Orient'), it's about a 4 hour bus ride. It is part of Malaysia, it is an island off of mainland Malaysia. The highways are very modern and the bus was very comfortable, it had reclining chairs, with air conditioning , the bus ride was only $8!!!!! What struck me when I got there was a billboard welcoming me to Penang with pictures of all the different groups of people that make up Malaysia, the Malays, Chinese, Indians in their native costumes.

We went to the beach and relaxed and then headed to the night market called 'Batu Ferringhi'. Then relaxed to Pina Colada's by the beach....