Moments for pause and reflection are rare when you’re speeding through 3 countries in 3 weeks. Thus, I think the lack of updates since Bangkok can be excused. Tonight is the first night I feel like I can actually sit down at a computer for a meaningful think (as opposed to rushing to check emails/book hostels/write directions/other next steps.)
Today was also my first time alone since Bangkok, as my wonderful travel buddy has left me for Singapore. Today, nothing but aimless thoughts and sensory observations accompanied me through the streets of Kuala Lumpur. Loneliness (bringing me back to my time in Copenhagen, or Berlin) is sometimes refreshingly necessary, if a bit difficult.
Kuala Lumpur is a weird city to be thrown into. At first, I was so excited when I stepped out from our hostel into Chinatown and Little India. So much energy and diversity of people, foods, architecture. I can order a bowl of beef noodle soup in Chinese on one street, and then struggle to figure out how to eat the food at a hole-in-the-wall Indian place a couple blocks down. (I didn’t even attempt to eat with my hands. Sad, and slightly ashamed.)
Ultimately though, the overriding atmosphere of being in an officially Muslim country makes this a difficult place, for me, to grasp. Just when I feel like I can fall into the local street rhythm, something throws it off, jarring me. Sometimes it’s the majority presence of headscarf-wearing women on the street, definitely more so than in Istanbul. Or sometimes it’s the unfamiliar architecture jumbled together, like the colonial buildings that are Victorian-Moorish-Arabic styled, or the mosques both new and old, right next to a Chinatown that looks like any other Chinatown in the world. Then there are the department stores I expected, along Jalan Bukit Binang, but this time stretched down a single street that becomes visually reminiscent of Times Square in Manhattan, not Taipei (my standard point of comparison). In cafes that spill onto the sidewalks, the sweet scent of hookah mixes with the thick atmosphere of people and traffic. Groups of older men dominate the the cafe tables, not throngs of young teenagers. Pop into the food courts in any one of the department stores though, and the people (and food stalls) are almost entirely East Asian.
Of course, I can’t tell who are tourists and who are locals in these places, especially when both groups are so ethnically diverse, and so it’s hard to make conclusions about the city’s people. The city, though, is not the Asian city I was expecting. Religiously, spatially, ethnically, it’s like nowhere else I’ve been, and I don’t know what to make of it. At least I’m not the only one – a KL born-and-raised friend admitted he’s still figuring it out too.
Tomorrow – Borneo! Landing in Kota Kinabalu, then taking it easy for the next couple of days until I go on a climb to the summit of Mt. Kinabalu. Am I in over my head? Probably. But so excited for this finale of my Southeast Asia whirlwind trip.
