If you have decided on a Malaysian holiday, you need about 10 days to two weeks to cover all interesting places, and there are very many. Because all Air connections in and out are mostly through Kuala Lumpur, you may end up the entire day in the airport shuttling between the cities. Malaysia is a big country East to West separated by a sea. Also, from what I observed, Malaysia does not seem to push tourism hard – there is little effort to sell Malaysia as a tourist destination to the outside world, but I may be wrong. So, in many attractions, there are much more local crowd than foreigners. My point become validated when you see the
The country itself seems safe and clean overall. We did not observe any garbage on the roads or roadsides. Even in China town and Little India in any cities we visited, we did see the area to be generally clean and hygienic. It was a pleasure to drive between cities and it was green throughout. With this greenery, surprised that it does not rain every day, but when it does, it pours.
Majority population are Malays who are Muslims, other races being Chinese and Indian, and they seem more of the moderate kind, like Indonesia, at least for a visitor’s eye. Almost all shops are manned by Malay women in scarfs and everywhere English seems to be understood well.
When it comes to vegetarianism, it is a disappointment though. Eggs are part of a vegetarian dies. Even Vegan is not understood well in many places – we got a Vegan pizza in a star hotel in Kuala Lumpur, and what we got was a cheese loaded Margarita pizza with handful of veggie pieces on it. We also ate in a Vegan place in Langkawi, but I would not fully certify the place as vegan. Also, nowhere I found they put a GREEN dot for a dish that is vegetarian – so you need to ask. Although you would get pastas and other dishes that sound vegetarian, their base is made of either chicken or fish broth and they are very transparent about it up-front, which I liked. Other than Subway, even McDonalds or Burger king does not carry anything vegetarian. And in Airports, there is nothing vegetarian (only one we found in KL). But if you are a meat- eater, Malaysia may be a great fit.
Since we are talking about the food in Malaysia, for Italian lovers, sorry, the only pasta that you would get is Spaghetti – no other pasta varieties like Penne or Fettucine are available. It is also hard to find natural or fruit Yogurts – they have some yogurt drink but not much for yogurt eaters. Airport’s food, coffee and desserts though are reasonable throughout all Malaysian airports which is a good thing – they do not try to rip you off like in other airports– the prices are the same as what you would find elsewhere. And surprisingly for a Muslim country, alcohol is available everywhere and prices are reasonable.
For their population, they have lots of restaurants which do not seem to be busy at all anytime. Street food during peak hours seems to be the happening place. Even in Langkawi, I was surprised to see lots of restaurants not having enough patrons – surprised to see how they survive. One cannot get good coffee anywhere – I mean either bean based strong coffee or Indian filter coffee. They use something that is Nescafe based called White Coffee which is the combination of coffee powder, whitener and sugar. Their diluted Kopi seems to be OK, but you get them only with sweet, condensed milk. Malaysia does have a lot of 7-11s and mini-marts that are open through the day and some in night too.
And now about shopping in Malaysia. They do not mind showing you anything and everything, but they (mama and papa stores) would not go out of their way to make a sale happen and satisfy a customer. The economy, we observed, works on cash transactions mostly as many international debit and credit cards are not acceptable in many places. I also saw something very strict – if their store timings say it closes at 6 pm, they would close at 6 pm sharp – this is for both big stores and small outlets. Even small private shops in downtown areas which I guess would love to make money selling once the evening sets it, the timings are 11 am to 6 pm and only handful of shops may be open after 8 pm as well.
Now the traffic and driving in Malaysia -it is smooth, and everyone respects the lane rules and goes by the local law. Because of this, I guess, I never observed any road patrol cars anywhere except may be near tolls. Penang is definitely a challenge to drive in – more congested than Kuala Lumpur as I think they have too many cars for the space they have. Kuala Lumpur was a pleasurable experience driving in cabs and taking the trains and metros.
GRAB as a taxi app is everywhere and is quite efficient – in our 40 odd rides, never did we have any cancellation, no talking on the phone by the drivers, cars were clean and spacious, lots of female drivers and they exactly come to the pickup place. They bought out UBER earlier and seem to be quite OK on pricing as well, except their surge pricing during peak hours is insanely high – 3x more than normal many a times.
Now more points on tourism. There are lots of places for Hindu & Buddhist tourism – especially in Penang, we saw a lot of temples that are good and well maintained. Their two Murugan temples in Batu Caves and Penang which are famous worldwide are extremely enriching in experience, but both these places have lot of monkeys on the way, so one needs to be careful climbing the hills. They keep observing your hands and what you carry and so you snooze, you lose. We even saw a small Ganesh temple in Sandakan. As for Buddhism, some fabulous temples are all around the place in all cities which is very soothing to watch – they must be a tolerant society, and it appears so.
Hotels are generally affordable and well maintained. They have a wide selection at various price points, and even five-star hotels are not too expensive compared to global rates. But in smaller hotels, expect a basic breakfast only but a fulfilling one.
Couple of things did put us off – first their dinner or river cruises are too expensive for what they show you. And secondly, the foreigner fees in tourist attractions are quite expensive as they vary from 2 x to 5 x even that of a domestic local guest. We felt the pinch in Sandakan area where the sanctuaries are – the government one for Orangutan was 2.5x and the private one for the Sun bear was about 5x. This was hard on our wallet, and in many cases, seems to be a rip-off. Although I personally do not like this entrance fee differences, if they want to add more for a foreigner, it is better they just add RM 5 over the local entrance fees. But this differentiation makes me validate my earlier comment that Malaysia is not necessarily sold as a destination for foreigners. Before I sign-off, one thing that folks should not miss in Kuala Lumpur is the Pewter Factory in Selangor, one of its kinds where they even allow you to make a pewter dish and take it home. Overall, a fascinating experience.