Malaysia

On Thu, 21 Apr 2005 10:57:11 +0800, Don
wrote:

Ivan Zelic wrote:
Hello All!

I'm planning to travel to Malaysia this year. What are your experiences
about this land?

Great food, interesting places and wildlife, great inexpensive accom.

Also great people, unlike the nasty species of neighboring
sinkapore.....

On Thu, 21 Apr 2005 10:57:11 +0800, Don
wrote:

Ivan Zelic wrote:
Hello All!

I'm planning to travel to Malaysia this year. What are your experiences
about this land?

Great food, interesting places and wildlife, great inexpensive accom.

Also great people, unlike the nasty species of neighboring
sinkapore.....

Hello,

I've just returned from a ~ two week visit to Malaysia and Singapore.
I would be happy to answer any questions about my trip - I only went to
Singapore, Melacca, Kuala Lumpur and Taman Negara though. I stayed in
accomodation ranging from 4 star western hotel to guesthouses. My
experiences are still clicking over in my head so I can't easily
summarise them yet.

The S/SW of the country is ethnically more mixed then the E/NE of the
country - the E/NE being more Malay/Muslim. This means you may need to
be a little more patient at times, especially if folk have headed off
to Friday prayers when you were expecting their help! An american girl
that I met said that she felt quite uncomfortable while there because
she perceived that many men were uncomfortable around her.

I only had good experiences - there was no one "highlight" of the trip.
But while there I also had discussions with people that I might not
have had if I didn't look like I could have been a citizen (I look
Indian). I'm now quite interested in the history of Malaysia and
Singapore and the term "bumiputra". I think my genes meant that I may
have had a slightly different experience to what most "white"
westerners tend to have (inspite of having been born in and growing up
in a western country!)

One quick bit of advice - if travelling into Malaysia from Singapore by
bus, make sure the Malaysian immigration official stamps your passport.
They don't always do this and this can cause hassles when you're
leaving.

Oh, another bit of advice - if visiting Malacca, the bus station is
maybe 10kms away from where my Lonely Planet guide (2003?) said it
would be. The buses all go to a new bus station now, called Melacca
Sentral. The taxi fare to the historical district (close to where the
old bus station was) was about 15 R.

I will return the region at some point, maybe later this year.

I did not travel there from Europe.

Neil

wrote:
I'm now quite interested in the history of Malaysia and Singapore and the
term "bumiputra".

Get ready for a lot of different versions of history...

Oh, another bit of advice - if visiting Malacca, the bus station is
maybe 10kms away from where my Lonely Planet guide (2003?) said it
would be.

I don't think it's quite that far. I walked to the center from the new bus
terminal a few weeks ago with my luggage in the middle of the day and I
don't think it took more than an hour.

miguel
--
Hit The Road! Photos from 36 countries on 5 continents: http://travel.u.nu
Latest photos: Jordan, Turkey, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Israel

Yes, I stand corrected - after posting I thought that I'd
overestimated. 5km is probably closer to the mark.

Neil

On 25 Apr 2005 19:36:10 -0700, wrote:

[snip]
The S/SW of the country is ethnically more mixed then the E/NE of the
country - the E/NE being more Malay/Muslim. This means you may need to
be a little more patient at times, especially if folk have headed off
to Friday prayers when you were expecting their help!

Good advice.

An american girl
that I met said that she felt quite uncomfortable while there because
she perceived that many men were uncomfortable around her.
[snip]

I think it would still be considered unusual for a single Malay woman
to travel by herself in Terengganu or Kelantan purely for tourism (and
therefore, the locals find it strange for a foreign woman to do so),
but I still wonder what the American girl was wearing. If you are
travelling on the East Coast, dress modestly. There's no reason for
non-Muslim women to cover their hair, but no shorts (no short pants
for men, either, I'd say) and no skimpy shirts. (Long pants or skirts
are fine.) Cover your legs and torso, and at least part if not all of
your arms. If you don't - especially if you show your legs or torso -
don't be surprised if men think you're loose. People there have the
stereotype that Westerners are promiscuous, anyway. Kelantan is not
Arabia, but in terms of dress and certain other things, it's a lot
more like the Arab world than it used to be. But don't be fooled; this
isn't Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan, and those women with head scarves
in the pasar (market) and driving their cars and motorcycles to their
shops are making money and are respected and sometimes influential
members of their communities. And in the approrpriate setting, they
will talk to you forthrightly and state their opinions. I'm still in
touch via email with an impressive Kelantanese woman with whom I had a
conversation in an internet center in Kota Bharu in 2003.

Michael

If you would like to send a private email to me, please take out the TRASH, so to speak. Please do not email me something which you also posted.

Well... Due the heavy amount of commuting done by Malaysians and
Singaporeans in a daily basis at the border, the immigration officers
might not done all the necessary duties (if they done that, then there
would be a bottleneck at the border).

If you're not Singaporean or Malaysian, it might be better to take a
special counter or line for citizens who are not Singaporeans or
Malaysians, if that particular counter or line is avaiable. Since that
they would pay more special attention to you.

But as always, always make sure that you got proof of entering and
exiting, in any country in any border. Unless of course you want to
kept your travel plan as a very guarded secret.



As for the friday prayer thing.

Well... It's one of the perversion of one particular hadits.

When they are told to drop everything and meet during Jum'at day, it
doesn't mean that in each particular day of the week they should drop
everything and go to a mosque to pray, it means that they should
commune when the community (jamaah = community) ask them to meet at a
choosen day.



As for the women outfit bit.

Another example of a perversion of another hadits.

One of the best friend of a woman is her outfit, it protects her from
the enviroment. After all, the sun, the wind, the dust, and so on could
do many terrible things to one's body if left unprotected.

Of course, some women aren't that dress savy, that's where the hadits
came in and said that a woman's body should be covered (a woman's body
is one of her greatest asset after all, it need to be protected) and
what shouldn't be covered (hands and face, to touch things and make
sure you can communicate nicely with other people).


One of the type of outfits that provide good protection from the
enviroment is a western outfit.

http://www.loridevoti.com/bio.html

http://www.nmrecycle.org/images/PF-Cowgirl.jpg

http://www.museumoftheamericanwest.o...ingCowgirl.jpg

http://www.aqha.com/bin/f/h/cb_fashion_wb.jpg

http://www.western-wear.de/store/images/s44_132.jpg


There are of course other type of outfits that provide protection.

http://www.pathfind.org/pf/Journey/v...nam/ao_dai.htm


Of course, it's much better to blend in with the community. So it's
much better to wear outfits according the style of the outfits that the
community wear.

After all, to wear an outfit in a nudist beach might attract attention
and negative sentiment.