Malaysia

    Going into Malaysia, I didn't have many expectations. Actually since I've known the itinerary for the Spring 2007 voyage, Malaysia was perhaps one of the ports I overlooked. Somehow, being sandwiched between India and Vietnam, Malaysia got lost in the shuffle. Therefore, I was really impressed and greatly surprised at how wonderful Malaysia is. A hidden gem of the world, Malaysia is a predominately Muslim nation that is in the midst of an economic boom. Though the financial crisis of 1997 throughout all of Southeast Asia devastated Malaysia's modernization efforts, the country is now picking up where it left off. This is seen best in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of the country and the financial hub of Southeast Asia. It is a modern city featuring towering skyscrapers and amazing architecture. Of course the best example of this is the Petronas Towers, which from 1996-2003 were the tallest buildings in the world.

    I had a wonderful time in the country during our 4 days here and I have to say that, not knowing what to expect out of the country really worked out well for me. Here is a breakdown of how the last four days went. Not sure when I will be able to get the pictures up.

Day 1: The interesting thing about porting in Penang was that ship was not able to dock. Instead, we were anchored in the harbor and had to use the lifeboats to get to shore. I may have been the only one, but I was pretty excited to take zip around in the dual engine lifeboats. Slava, Sashia, and I got to land around 11:30 and began walking around Penang. We were able to see a very extravagant Chinese Buddhist temple that was conducting some sort of ceremony where the whole grounds were covered in burning incense. Despite the lack of oxygen in the air, it was a pretty cool thing to see and the locals were all lighting incense sticks. I believe that it may have been in honor of their ancestors.

    From here we kept walking, past a large mosque and then into the downtown area where the Komtar tower is located. The Komtar is the tallest building in Penang and after having some great Chinese food at the mall, we took the elevator up to the top where we had a 360 degree, panoramic view of the whole city. It was a great way to see the way the city was laid out and how expansive it was. We were even able to see the Explorer out in the harbor.

    Next, we grabbed a taxi to head to the temple of the reclining Buddha. The temple takes up both sides of a city street and one building houses a 75 foot long statue of Buddha laying down. The rest of the temple is filled with the ashes of many Malaysian's ancestors and hundreds of Buddha statues. From here, we took another taxi to Penang Hill (which seems more to me like a mountain). We took the cable car up to the top and once again we were presented with a great view of the city. There was also a mosque and a Hindu temple at the top of the mountain. It was interesting to see both religions physically represented feet away from each other.

    Our next stop of the day was to Kek Lok Se, the largest Buddhist temple in all of Southeast Asia. It is also known as the temple of 10,000 Buddhas. This place was absolutely incredible. Consisting of multiple buildings, the temple was terraced into a hill side and featured many temples and a 13 story pagoda. The intricacy of the artwork and architecture inside and outside of the buildings was like nothing I've seen. Upon heading down the hill to the entrance of the temple, we began to discover that we were being locked inside because it was closing time. Each path we walked down led to a locked gate. Eventually, we found our way out and, thankfully, I wasn't forced to spend the night with the monks.

    After grabbing dinner at the mall and doing some shopping, we headed back to the ship to get ready for our trip to Kuala Lumpur in the morning.

Day 2: The day started early with myself, Slava, Ali, and Dan traveling to the airport. The plan was for Kyle, Sashia, Katie, and Natalie to meet us later on that night as they were on another flight. After some planes, trains and automobiles, we reached our luxurious resort just outside of KL in mid-morning. I don't want to brag or anything, but our hotel consisted of 1200 rooms, an amusement park, water park, extreme park, bowling alley, ice rink, movie theater, and plenty of clubs and restaurants. We got settled in and took a quick dip in the pool before heading out. Unfortunately, the hotels parks were closed for maintenance every Tuesday, but we found out there was another adventure park off of the resort with go-karts and ATVs. Since we were waiting to do sightseeing til the next day when the rest of the group was there, the four of us decided to have a little fun on the first day….or so we thought. To make a really long story short, we were dropped off at a large construction site and told to just walk down the road and we would find the park. As we walked past bulldozers, tower cranes, and welding Malaysians, the sky turned extremely dark and the rain begin to sprinkle. We found the park, which had been closed for a month due to the construction. After failing to convince the mechanics to just let us play around on the ATVs for a bit, we begin to walk out of the site. Thankfully, one of the workers picked us up and drove us to our hotel and me missed being stuck in a torrential monsoon and lightning storm by about 30 seconds.

    The rest of the evening consisted of grabbing dinner, hanging out at a local bar, and going bowling with a new Malaysian friend we made. The other 4 people came to the hotel pretty late and we all headed to bed.

Day 3: We got up early and headed into KL to do some sightseeing. First stop was the Petronas Towers to make a reservation to go to the skybridge on the 41^st floor for later that afternoon. The architecture of the towers is simply amazing. A combination of stainless steel and glass make-up the outside while the architecture is based on Islamic architecture. After making our reservation we headed to Batu Caves, a Hindu temple built into a HUGE cave. After climbing the almost 300 steps to the cave entrance, and staying clear of some mischievous monkeys, we reveled in the sheer size and natural beauty of the cave. We headed back down after some picture taking and headed back to the Petronas Towers for lunch, shopping at the mall that makes up the base of the towers, and finally our trip up to the skybridge. What an amazing view from up here. KL is just an incredible city.

    We headed back to our hotel around 3 to take go to the water park as it was approaching 100 degrees F. That night looked similar to the night before and we all had a good time bowling with the group.

Day 4: We again headed into the city pretty early to do some last minute sightseeing before our flight back to Penang. We were able to see a couple of the landmarks in KL including the Supreme Court, Independence Square, the Central Market, and the National History Museum. It was then time to head back to Penang and we got back to the ship around 4pm.

This evening, Captain Jeremy announced that the Explorer would be taken up to full speed (30 knots) for a period of 8 hours while we navigate the Malacca Straight. The reason for this you might ask? PIRATES!! Though there has never been a pirate that has boarded a passenger ship, the area is infamous for pirates and as the captain has stated "I feel bad for any pirate who tries to approach our ship when its going 30 knots."

We reach 'Nam in 2 days…