The girls are back in town…

Hi you all,
we made it back to Kuala Lumpur yesterday. It was a really nice feeling leaving the highway and recognizing all the places we drove by before our bus dropped us off in Chinatown. It felt familiar and we easily found our way around and went to some shops we remembered from last time without needing a map… I don’t want to exaggerate but it somehow felt like coming home 😉 What a great city, indeed. I, surely, will be back!!
But whenever I come back, it won’t only be for Kuala Lumpur, the country of Malaysia offers so many diverse things to do, see and experience. My favorites so far have been the amazingly wide tea plantations as well as our first trekking adventure to go and see the world’s biggest flower (Raflesia) in the Cameron Highlands, the more than beautiful beaches on Langkawi Island, „strolling“ through the world’s oldest rainforest and of course the metropolitan life here in Kuala Lumpur.
We have been extremely lucky with the weather. On the east coast, the monsoon flooded many of the touristy places so we were advised to stay on the west coast only. Here, there are some rain showers now and then but nothing too serious. It always stops after a while and then life continues again 🙂
The people we met are super friendly and always ready to help, if they could, they would take our hands and take us directly to the place where we asked directions for. Talking about the friendliness of the Malay people, I have to mention Am. Rebecca and I wanted to go to an Orang Utan sanctionary a bit outside Taiping. We asked at the local bus stand how to get there and they told us to take the local bus first, get off at a village and then take a taxi for the last stretch. Okay, we thought, sounds doable. So off we went and hopped on the bus. The friendly conductor and bus driver made sure we got off at the right stop and even showed us the street we should look for a cab. Unfortunately, this village where we were stranded was so remote that there were no taxis. We had two options: Either we walk the way (bright sun and 6km didn’t sound too tempting) or we ask the people working at one of the two food stalls in front of the mosque. Option two it was! We approached the man serving some cool drinks to the kids outside the mosque and asked whether he would know how to get a taxi here. He didn’t really speak English but the kids around him helped him/us out. They told us that there are no taxis here. Mmh… So we asked him how to get to the sanctionary without a cab. His answer was: „Sit down and wait until 1pm then I can drive you there“. Alright, it was 12pm and we just did what he told us. Before the prayer started, the kids had some time to talk to us and explain us what the drink that Am served us consisted of… some kind of jelly, milk, syrop and other unidentifiable things… We had a great time and laughed a lot. After an hour of waiting and after being back from the mosque, Am told is to get in his car. His small son joined us and it turned out that we first had to go to Am’s house to drop his son off and then he would drive us to the sanctionary (which was in the opposite direction). I cannot tell you how amazed we were when we, eventually, stood in front of the entrance gate of the sanctionary. Am even offered us to pick us up once we’re done and drive us back to Taiping. He was off work today so he would love to help us. He gave us his phone number and didn’t even accept the money we wanted to give him. At NO moment I felt uncomfortable or thought that Am had some other plans with us then driving us to the sanctionary. Conversation was difficult among us but we managed really well. Am was a great, great help and so genuinely friendly. Amazing!!! Our journey to the sanctionary took us more than 3 hours but it was worth it every minute. Great people!!!
This is just one example of the friendliness that we encounter here every day and which makes it soooo pleasant to stay and travel here.
If you have the chance, get yourself over here and see it with your own eyes. Malaysia is slowly but surely developping into a backpacker country, so tourist development measures are taking off rapidly. It won’t be the same authentic country in ten years, I am quite sure. So hurry up 🙂

As I said, we are back in Kuala Lumpur for two nights. Today we will check out the nationwide „year end sale“ before we make ourselves on the way down south to Singapore where we will hope to arrive in five days…

I am sending you warm and sunny greetings from my favorite capital we have visited so far.
Feel hugged!!!
Lisa 🙂