Malaysia, Truly Asia

I don't know about the US, but in Taiwan we have these commercials for Malaysian tourism that end with the slogan "Malaysia: Truly Asia". I never had any doubts about the Asianness of Malaysia (it's in the name, after all), so this struck me as a particularly silly slogan. However, any time something particularly special happened in Malaysia, the little song popped into my head: Malaysia, truly Asiaaaaaa.

Arriving in Malaysia was pretty special in itself. Apparently our flight was the inaugural flight of the Taipei-Kuala Lumpur route, so to celebrate this special occasion, the flight attendants had a little quiz show mid-flight, with free Air Asia vouchers to people who could answer questions correctly. Upon arrival, we were shunted into a press conference room, where we received "goody bags" that turned out to be full of Malaysian tourism information. Malaysia, truly Asiaaaa! I had my picture taken shaking hands with somebody importantish, and we headed off to find lodging.

Our lodging strategy in Kuala Lumpur was as follows: go to an area with a number of hostels and poke around. We successfully obtained a room for the low price of about $6. Cool.

In the morning, we headed off to see the Islamic Art Museum, which we heard was one of the only things actually worth going to in Kuala Lumpur. We arrived early, so we went for a walk and stopped to sit under a rain shelter. I felt it was quite thoughtful of Malaysia to provide such shelters in case of a sudden downpour, and in fact, we had only been seated for a short while when there was a downpour...of monkeys! A giant pack of monkeys streamed out of the bushes and pitter-patted all over the top of our (transparent) rain shelter. Malaysia, truly Asiaaaa!

The excitement of surprise monkeys put us in just the kind of excellent mood that is perfect for viewing a large amount of impressive Islamic art. The Islamic Art Museum had small scale models of the world's famous mosques, and all kinds of relics from different Muslim cultures. It was pretty awesome, but we had to be quick, because it was off to the airport to catch our flight to Phnom Penh! Don't worry, Malaysia, we'll be back in a week.