“Malaysia, truly Asia” is a slogan of Malaysia Tourism. In my opinion this claim is stupid. Of course Malaysia is Asian by definition, after all it is part of Asia. But in my opinion the slogan gives the impression, that Malaysia is somehow more Asian than other Asian countries. I don’t see how that would be.
From what I have seen it is one of the more modern and westernized countries, so one could even argue that it would be less Asian (though this statement would be equally stupid). But then I have spent there only a short time (not even two weeks) and have only seen cities, so I have of course only a one sided view of the country…

Georgetown

My first stop was in Georgetown on the Island Penang. As its name indicates, it is an old british colonial town. I expected to find an Old World ambience in the old city part. But I was disappointed, there were only sporadic old buildings preserved, certainly not enough to imagine how the town would have been like during colonial times.

I was lucky to be there on a last Sunday of the month when the Penang Road Street Market takes place. There were stalls with food items, antiquities, jewelery, clothing, and souvenirs, and cultural productions with music and dance were taking place. As I understand the proceeds of the market are used for charity. At one of the food stalls I met a Swiss guy who was living there since a decade. There I had a Swiss Apfelwähe (kind of an apple pie) for dessert

After having completed the mandatory visits to the local Taoist and Hindu temples and a mosque, I booked a bus to Kuala Lumpur. It was the most luxurious bus ride I had in the last 7 months, the seats were not ordinary seats, but massage seats! And this little guy in the picture was my personal friend for the journey, he offered me all the snacks and sweets that his mother bought him for the journey Unfortunately he spoke not a single word of English, I was even unable to find out his name.

Kuala Lumpur

KL is one of the most modern cities I ever visited. It is packed with skyscrapers and shopping malls and has modern mass transport with a monorail and underground metros. Unfortunately I was to late for a ticket to the Skybridge of the Petronas Twintower, half an hour after the counter opened, all tickets were gone

Melaka (aka Malacca)

This is another colonial town and is one of Malaysia’s major tourist attractions. The reason is that unlike Georgetown it is very well preserved, especially the old Chinese town and the area around the old Dutch “Stadthuys” (town hall). I stayed at the Sama Sama Guesthouse which is run by a Swiss German speaking couple (swiss woman and Malaysian guy who lived in Switzerland for a long time). They have a dog that wants to be a mullah: always when the mullah from the neighboring mosque calls for prayer, he starts howling. It is a nice place to stay and I met here some other interesting travelers. To bad I did not have time to stay longer.

Food

The local food was quite interesting, drawing from different cultures. There is malay food, of course, but also Chinese, and Straits-Chinese (these are Chinese people who immigrated a couple of hundred years ago and have adopted local customs and cuisine mixed with their own) and the cuisine of the Eurasian community bears strong Portuguese influence. But somehow I ended up more often than not in Little India for eating. For me the Indian cuisine is still the best by far…