A bright and sunny morning greeted me as I arrived at the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. On entering the airport building, I got kind of lost as I couldn’t find the way to the arrival area. On asking an airport officer, I was told that I had to take a train that would drop me at the arrival lounge.
I was a flabbergasted to hear the word ‘train’, but then I came to know that the Sepang International Airport has a network of trains that lead to different parts of the airport. Once over with the Customs and Immigration process, I went out to look for the person who was to pick me up. Suddenly, I saw a man carrying a placard that had my name on it. I walked over to him and introduced myself. He greeted me warmly in the local language, and said: “Salamat datang”, meaning ‘welcome’.
During the half-an-hour drive to where I was to stay, the Malaysian driver asked me my name at least six times. Malaysians are famous for forgetting things, and one of their prime ministers has even written a book titled Malaysians forget easily. Another thing that I came to know during my stay in Malaysia is that the weather there can be unpredictable — one just doesn’t knows when it will rain. Keeping this in mind, I always carried an umbrella whenever I went out. The thunder storms of Malaysia are really frightening, but once the rains stop, the sky clears as if it had never rained.
On finding out that I was from Pakistan, most Malaysians became more friendly, and I found that the International Islamic University of Malaysia offers a discount of 50 per cent in its fees for Pakistani students. The ideal time to visit Malaysia is between the months of August and September, or March and April.
The religions practised in Malaysia are Islam, Buddhism, Daoism, Hinduism, Christianity, Sikhism, and Shamanism. Once I was travelling in a taxi, the driver was listening to music on a high volume, but on hearing the Adhaan, the driver stopped his car, grabbed his sarong and shirt from the dashboard, went to the mosque, changed his clothes and offered his prayers.
The Chinese I saw there amazed me because they would go to cyber cafes and, rather then surfing the net, they would play racing games on the computers — which didn’t need any Internet connection at all! Another peculiarity of theirs is that when they speak English, they add the suffix Lah to each and every word. They add this suffix even when they chat on the net.
In Malaysia, you can easily get taxis, but the unusual thing is that some people, in their private cars often stop when they see someone on the roadside. They will ask you where you want to go and if your route matches with theirs, they will give you a ride for the same amount of money that a taxi will cost you. Taxis charge a bit more than the buses, but the buses are not easily available. The best, cheap and effective transport is the electric trains — but if you eat anything on the train, you will have to pay a fine of 500 Malaysian Ringitt. Don’t ever try to walk on the rail tracks as they contain a good amount of electric current. There are ticket machines on each station, and on each machine there are hundred or more routes given. You just have to enter your place of departure and arrival, and the machine will tell you the rates. Don’t be afraid while putting money in the machines as you will get the change back.
The shopping malls in Malaysia are really marvellous. There is one called Mines, which was built on the site of some mines. The KLCC Suria is a colossal shopping mall, located just beside the Petronas Towers. But it is very expensive, so think twice before shopping there. There is a shopping mall in Kajang that has a shop that sells used and broken things at reasonable rates. There was a place known as Pasar Kajang, which reminds one of Pakistan because it is kind of smelly. However, the good thing is that there are surprisingly no flies.
If you need to buy clothes or leather stuff, better buy it from Pakistan. An average T-shirt, from an average shop, costs approximately Rs450. But this doesn’t mean that you can only do sightseeing there and can’t buy anything. The best items to shop for in Malaysia are mobile phones, computers, computer accessories, heavy bikes and digital cameras. Computers are really very cheap; a Pentium 4 will cost you just about Rs30,000. Besides, one can very easily get pirated CDs!
Most businessmen and shopkeepers in Malaysia are of Chinese origin, who are experts when it comes to persuading people to buy something. But the Chinese are a superstitious lot. For instance, they never let the first customer on a Monday morning go without buying anything. So that is the right time to bargain with them.
The mighty Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur are popular with tourists. These twin towers are the world’s tallest structure, at 1483 feet. Regarding a visit to the Petronas Twin Towers, there is a good news and a bad news. The good news is that there are no ticket charges, but the bad news is that they give away only 800 timed tickets each day. The tickets are distributed on a first-come-first-served basis. I was fortunate enough to get a ticket. I had to go through a good deal of security checks before I could get on the elevator. But it stopped on the 41st level, known as the Sky Bridge. They allow visitors to go only till the Sky Bridge, and not to the very top of the towers.
Malaysia is an evergreen country, famous for its natural beauty, greenery and wildlife. Taman Negara is one of the oldest tropical rain forests, which covers an approximate area of 4,343 square kilometers. Trekkers are attracted to this heaven for its rich wildlife. There are a good number of endangered species of animals there too. Expert guides are easily available on the site and tell you a lot about the forest. The forest is also a nice place for fishing as there are two rivers, Tahan and Kenyam, running through it.
Malaysia’s tallest peak, Gunung Tahan, which is 2,187 meters high, is also located in Taman Negara. So this forest holds interest for mountain climbers as well. But for this type of thrilling adventure, one needs an expert guide and a lot of stamina as it takes three days to climb up to Gunung Tahan and back from there.
Among the animals found in the forest are tigers, mouse deers, barking deers, wild ox, tapirs, elephants, leopards and numerous species of monkeys.The birds seen flying around in the rain forest are beautiful, to say the least. They are colourful and their sweet songs are soothing. While listening to them in the quite setting of the rain forest, one feels that they are trying trying to tell you something but, try hard as one might, it is impossible to understand their message.
A bright and sunny morning greeted me as I arrived at the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. On entering the airport building, I got kind of lost as I couldn’t find the way to the arrival area. On asking an airport officer, I was told that I had to take a train that would drop me at the arrival lounge.
