Malaysia #4: Tidbits
This blog is based on assorted observations about Malaysia. Like India, they number their floors – Ground, 1st, 2nd etc. And they drive on the left side. Turns out the number of countries that drive on the left isn’t as small as I had though.
Our ride back from Batu Caves had a driver of Punjabi descent, though he was 2nd or 3rd generation Malay, and had never been to India. He told us a lot about the country. Metro coverage in Kuala Lumpur (KL) is poor, so everyone has cars, which then leads to all the congestion and jams. People working in KL also live in KL (same as India, but unlike the US). That too adds to the jams.
A lot of apartment
complexes have come up near the highways and equivalents of Outer Ring Road
around KL; and they have built sonic barriers to reduce the noise that reaches
the living areas.
The cost of living
is fairly low, he told us. That surprised me – so much of what we saw felt
first world standard. Yet medical expenses are very low. So is the cost of
food. Which, along with the fact that the food tastes good, he lamented, is why
Malaysians are getting obese!
Everyone speaks
English, at least in the tourist-frequented areas and the capital (KL). But in
other places, the accent is heavy and hard to understand. For how long though?
Our Punjabi cab driver mentioned that the medium of education used to be
English when he was a kid, but now it had changed to Malay. He called the
language “Bahasa”, which is clearly derived from the word “भाषा”, a reminder of William Dalrymple’s
description in The Golden Road of the influence that (mostly Tamil) India
had on South East Asia. It tallied with the Indian food our driver liked – all
south Indian dishes, no mention of the north Indian dishes you hear of in the
West (no butter chicken masala). Plus, our driver said he loved dosai
(he didn’t call it dosa).
Branded clothes
and shoes are much cheaper than in India. Taxi fares too are comparable to
India – it was the first time I’ve been to a foreign country where I didn’t
have to think of taking a taxi! The equivalent of Uber in Malaysia is called
Grab, which operates in all of South East Asia, from Myanmar to Philippines.
The app saves you from the hassles of haggling over fares, or the driver not
understanding the destination, or carrying cash and change (just enter the
credit card details into the Grab app).
Strangely,
serviced apartments in KL are cheaper than hotels, so we picked that. Another
advantage with a serviced apartment is that the washing machine facilities are
cheaper than at a hotel. Plus, since the cost of most things in Malaysia feels
so affordable, we did a lot of the laundry – it saved endless washing cycles
right after returning home.
The good news is
that Malay food has salt, so it doesn’t feel, er, tasteless. The bad news is
that it isn’t spicy at all. Net, net, on the food front, it’s better than
Europe, but not as good as Singapore (All these places are equally bad for
vegetarians though). Plus, here they serve water in restaurants, without
being asked.
Malaysia is a
Muslim majority country, but not Islamic. The women in hijab (head scarf) are
very comfortable talking to strangers, even men. Even when they wear the head
scarf, the rest of their attire is quite stylish and colorful and can be
anything from jeans and T-shirts! This was a sharp contrast to how I have found
women in the hijab everywhere else. Islam in Malaysia is nothing like the Islam
of the Middle East and North India; it is closer to the Islam of Kerala and
Tamil Nadu. All this reminded me of Dalrymple’s point that Islam came to these
regions via trade with South India, not via conquests. The mode of how
something comes (trade or sword) changes how it is practiced. On a related
note, our Punjabi cab driver had mentioned about the mandatory 2 hour breaks on
Fridays for (Muslim) prayer. Since only the Muslim men can pray, the Muslim
working women use that designated free time to share a Grab ride, go to the
malls, shop, eat a slow lunch, and catch up with friends…
Overall, Malaysia has a lot of positive things going for it as a tourist destination –there are many tourist’y things to do, it’s friendly, they speak English, the Grab app works well, and the place is affordable. For south Indians, a vacation in the north (Rajasthan, Kashmir, Ladakh) probably costs more than one in Malaysia. Not surprising then that they’ve extended the visa on arrival scheme by a year…
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