Malaysia and Alissa

Hey everyone,

Before I begin my entry on Malaysia, I would like to tell you about the April Fools joke that the ship doctor decided to play on everyone during global studies that day. Before class started, he came on the mic saying that he had been up all night dealing with two people on the ship who were found to have Leprosy. He said that it was a weird strain that could spread fast and that one of the main symptoms is the softening of the cartilage in you nose and ears, so that we needed to check and make sure that we were still fine. In the mean time, I was freaking out with my heart beating really fast because as it was I was sick with a cold and terrified that I possibly got something worse in India. I was even so suggestible that I believed that the cartilage in my ears felt softer than usual. Well after he let this go on for a few minutes, he said that this sort of problem usually occurs on a certain day every year and this is when we all remembered that it was April Fools Day. I was so relieved, but it took a few minutes for my heart to return to its normal pace. Anyways I hope you enjoyed this brief story and now I will tell you about Malaysia.

When I arrived in Malaysia, I had no idea what to really expect since I hadn’t learned much about it while growing up. On entrance, I learned that Penang is actually an island, and the island looks like a turtle. The only way to get to the mainland is by ferry or by taxi along the 3rd longest bridge in the world. Another aspect of Malaysia, which is new on this journey, is we had to take a tender boat to shore instead of just docking. This made it a lot more difficult to get on and off the ship. For my first day in Malaysia, I went on an orientation of the island. Our first stop on this tour was the Butterfly Farm. In this farm, there were butterflies everywhere. They were so large and so beautiful. I had never seen anything like it. At this butterfly farm, there were also other types of animals such as reptiles, insects, and weird pig-nosed turtles. It was very interesting. The next stop on our tour was the Snake Temple. At this Buddhist temple, snakes are found on the altar as well as in small trees around the temple. It was a little creepy because at all times I was scared that a snake would just slither around at my feet but luckily, they all stayed off the ground. The next stop of the day was for lunch at a local Chinese Restaurant. The food that was served to our table, almost all contained seafood. I even accidentally ate fish that I thought was fried chicken with sweet and sour sauce. I had two helpings before I discovered that it was fish and then I was done with my meal for the day, since I do not enjoy eating seafood. After leaving this restaurant, we continued on to the largest Buddhist Temple in South East Asia, called Kek Lok Si Temple and Pagoda. In order to get to this temple we had to climb many steps that went through tourist shopping. Upon almost reaching the top, there is a little pond known as Liberation Pond where hundreds of turtles live. The reason there are so many turtles here is because people buy the turtles and then bring them here to let them be free. It was very cool. Finally, after a few more steps we reached the temple and pagoda. The temple was beautiful because there were many Buddha statues and very pretty art and architecture. After spending about twenty minutes at the top, we went down to the bus and continued to the next stop on the trip. The next stop was the botanical gardens where we walked around for a little bit and learned some information about the trees and animals. At these gardens, there were tons of very cute monkeys just running around. After the botanical gardens there was one more stop to a clan house, but unfortunately the tour was running about 1½ hours late so I had to get off at the dock to go back to the ship for a trip that I had signed up for the night that I really did not want to miss. My roommate Sheryl continued onto the house and said that it was very cool, but I enjoyed my night activity as well. I went to a welcome reception at the local college, Universiti Sains Malaysia. At this reception, we were welcomed with a 45-minute shadow puppet performance, which was very fascinating. I had never seen a performance like it before. After the performance, we were allowed to go behind stage to see how the performers use the puppets and to see all of the instruments that they were playing during the performance. All of the students were very nice and fun to talk to. After the performance, they served us local snacks and then we departed to go back to the ship. After this long exciting day, I was exhausted and went to bed.

The next day I slept in until about 11:00, then got ready for the day, and had some lunch. Sheryl and I had absolutely no idea what we wanted to do that day so we went to the field office desk to try to get some ideas. We wrote down three places to go see and then we went back to our room to discuss the plan for the day. We felt very lazy and weren’t sure if we actually wanted to do anything. By about 2:15, we finally got the energy up to go across to the dock where we planned on just walking around. Once we got there, a cab driver convinced us to go with him so we did. The first stop we went to was two Buddhist temples that were across the street from each other. The first was the temple for the happy Buddha and he definitely looked happy. When walking around this temple there was a wishing pool that had a revolving statue sort of thing that had bowls, each with something you would wish for. The one I decided to aim for was good health since I had a cold. I made it in the bowl, and when I was done, I turned and immediately tripped two or three times. It was absolutely hysterical. After viewing this temple, we went across the street to see the other temple that had a massive 800-foot long sleeping Buddha. This temple is for people who have been cremated and there urns can be placed underneath this sleeping beauty. It was very interesting. I guess this was sort of the Buddhist cemetery. After the temple, we had originally planned on going to the shopping mall, but while in the taxi we decided that neither one of us actually wanted to shop, so we instead decided to go to a Batik Factory and then to Penang Hill. The Batik Factory makes very interesting cloth by using wax to make the design and then a paint brush to color the rest of the fabric. These fabrics were absolutely gorgeous, but when Sheryl and I went in to possibly buy something, it was more expensive than we were willing to pay. After this factory, we went to Penang Hill, which is a very tall mountain in Malaysia. In order to get up this hill you either have to hike for four hours or take a trolly on the funicular railway, which takes about a half an hour. We decided to take the trolly, where we happened to run into one of the professors from the ship, with his wife, and two kids, whom Sheryl tutors on the ship. We spent our time with them on the hill while we marveled at the view of the whole island. After spending 45 minutes atop the hill, we went back down on the trolley. On the way down, we were able to see a bunch of monkeys swinging around in the trees. It was pretty amazing. Once we reached the bottom of the hill, we took a cab back to the port with the family that we had run into. It was nice to have the security of other people when we got down the hill and had to find a cab. Once I got back on the ship I had dinner, did some homework, and then went to sleep. Sheryl and I were very proud of our adventures this day because we both were very unmotivated and tired that morning and really didn’t know what to do. We ended up doing all three things that we had listed on our paper earlier that day.

The next morning I once again got to sleep in because my trip did not leave until 12:20. The trip for this day was a religion tour of Malaysia. The first place we stopped was at an Anglican Church that was created in memory of Captain Francis Light, who was the founder of Penang. Unfortunately, this church was closed for the day so we were only able to view it from the outside. The next stop was to Kuan Yin Teng, which is the Goddess of Mercy Temple. It is believed to be the oldest Taoist Temple in all of Penang. At this temple there was so much incense being burned that it was a little hard to breathe, but I made it through and was able to see all of the prayer and rituals taking place in the temple. An interesting thing that I learned about Chinese religions is that they sell all kinds of paper goods, such as clothes, cars, money, cell phones, computers, plus many others, that the Chinese can burn to give to their dead ancestors. They believe that once it is burned it goes into the realm of the dead. I thought that this whole idea was a little strange because a lot of stores were just selling items that were going to be burned. Anyways, after leaving this temple we continued down the street to the Hindu Temple, Sri Mariamman, which was also closed for the day. Even though we were not allowed to enter, I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything because I had already seen so many Hindu temples in previous countries. The next stop, which was also right down the street, was at the Kapitan Keling Mosque. When we got there, I was scared that we weren’t going to be allowed inside because other groups from the ship had already attempted at going in mosques and failed. Luckily, the man in charge at this mosque came out and said that we were allowed in because we were traveling around the world to learn about all aspects of life in all the cultures, so he wanted us to be able to experience a mosque. He was very kind, told us all about Islam, and even offered us free books to learn more about the religion. Overall, I was so excited to learn more about Islam because for my religion class we had to write a paper about mosques and the religion and I had yet to be able to view a mosque, inside and out. After the mosque, we got back in our bus and continued to our last stop of the day, which was the Kek Lok Si Temple, which Sheryl and I had already viewed two-days prior. Since we had already climbed all the way to the top, we decided to take it slow and look at all the tourist stuff along the way. After staying at this temple for an hour and a half, the bus took us back to the ship. When I got to the ship, I had dinner, did a little homework, and then waited until Alex and his family arrived back from their 3-day stay at Langkawi Island. They finally came back at about 9:20 pm, and we then went up to the deck to hang out, enjoy some ice-cream cake, and to spend some time with Tyler an Sara before they had to leave the following day. It was very nice to see them since it has been a while. After hanging out for a couple hours we all went to sleep.

The next morning I was supposed to sleep in because Sheryl went on a service visit in the morning, but unfortunately all of the work I had to do kept running through my head so I woke up and got some homework done before going out for the last time in Malaysia. When Sheryl came back, we had some lunch, and then went back to shore to go to a tourist information center to get a souvenir map and then to go to an internet café. This was an adventure, because we kept having to ask for directions because the internet café was a lot further than we thought and we wanted to make sure we were on the right track. We finally found an internet café that was nice and cheap, only 3 ringits an hour, which is a little less than $1. I was able to check my mail as well as search for classes that I will be taking next semester. After spending an hour at the internet café, we walked back and tried to find a pay phone for Sheryl to use. Once we finally got to one, she unfortunately could not get the phone card to work, so we just went back to the ship. While we were out on the last day, it was a little scary because we had to cross several main streets and there are absolutely no traffic signals for people to cross the street at. Luckily, we were quick and made it across with no harm every time. Well this was my whole adventure in Malaysia. It was nice and relaxing, and I felt that I was able to enjoy the entire island of Penang.

Since it is now the day after I left Malaysia, there are a few additional things that I would like to tell you about our ship ride today. Well we started out so slow, at an average speed of only 9 knots per hour. Today the crew also had to do a man overboard drill, so they threw a life jacket overboard, turned the ship around, and sent a lifeboat out to rescue the life jacket. We then continued the day by just making turns for the most part. It was the strangest thing. I think they were trying to waste some time before going fast through the Strait of Malacca, which is where all the pirates are. Well finally at about 7:00 pm they sped the ship up to its maximum speed in the high 20 knot zone to quickly get through this dangerous pirate area of the water. We will probably be going this fast until tomorrow morning and then we will be bunkering in Singapore to refuel before finishing the journey to Vietnam. Anyways I hope that you have all found my stories interesting. Sorry that this has been another long entry, I just am doing so much in such a short period. Well I hope you are all doing well and I miss you all!

Love always,
Alissa