6 months abroad - halftime!!

today 6 months and 2 days ago I left Austria, headed to London and 2 days later to Russia... That's when my trip really started... today 6 months ago...
6 months is a long time, and still it passed by so quickly!
and still another 6 months lie before me

 Halftime

Yes, halftime. Time to think a bit, to make some kind of a resumee of what has happened, of what I have learned and of what is still ahead of me. Time to calm down and relax... 

I was quite overwhelmed  by all the impressions I collected all along my long way so far. And they keep piling up. Every once in a while I stopped a bit longer in some cities - Beijing, Hanoi and Bangkok for example - in order to relax somehow. To regain power and to let all the impressions settle... But still it is hard to cope with it. I admit, I felt tired sometimes, really tired.

To make a maximum out of this trip and keep as many impressions as possible in my head, so I can still look back at them after years, I needed another break. Especially after Myanmar, I knew I gonna need it - and I was right. Myanmar was really impressive, overwhealming, and therefore exhausting.

So I chose to take a longer break, in the sense of not having new impressions flowing away all the older ones... And therefore decided to skip Thailand.
I was in Thailand, yes, even not too short. But I didn't visit anything. I didn't want any new impressions, no impressions from Thailand at least. And whereelse in Asia is it so easy to behave as if being in a Western country if not in this highly commercialised country?? Whoever was on Khaosan Road in Bangkok knows that it is everything but thai... No wonder that the famous backpackers-novel (and film) "The Beach" starts on Khaosan Road.

I went to Thailand not to see anything new, but to take some vacations from travelling.

However, I didn't manage entirely not to let new impressions overwhelm me. But they were not Thai: In Bangkok I was staying with an Iranian CS-host, and together with his friend they made me learn a lot about Iran. And this was especially interesting to me, as there are few countries, which are presented in such a bad in Western news...

Therefore I was even more grateful to learn more about the real life there and not only about Ahmadinejad and the issues they have with the States.
And the two guys were cooking for us... sooooooo good!! hmmmmmmm

So, don't ask me anything about Bangkok, I can only tell you that the New Years Eve party was great, that you can buy hell loads of tourist stuff and cheap drinks on Khaosan Road, and that there are some Iranian guys, who definitely know how to cook :)

My second reason for staying longer in Thailand was to complete my PADI open water diver course on Ko Tao - a small island in the western shore of the Gulf of Thailand. This small island is quite known for being one of the cheapest places to go diving and make these courses. Along the main beach you'll see one diving school next to the other piled up, as well as restaurants, bars and tour agencies...

In the bus to Ko Tao I got to know the french guy David, who - as me travels alone - joined me for the course and with whom I spend the free time. Well, free time - there was not so much time left... The course was far more time-consuming than I thought. All my wishes for tanning and sunbathing were vanishing...

However, we still got time to drink some cocktails in the evenings, sit on the beach in one of the many beach-bars and watch the various fire-shows... quite impressive, hum?!

If I knew, if I knew...
If I knew how time consuming this course was going to be, I wouldn't have bought my ticket to continue further to Kuala Lumpur already for the day after the last course-unit... In fact, I would have loved to stay maybe one or two more days on Ko Tao, just to relax and lie in the sun - yes, vacations are nice sometimes. Especially when you feel like not having any power left and are in the desperate need of a rest, just not getting enough is killing you...

But well, so it was...
I left the day after finishing the course, and after 18 hours in train and bus, I arrived in Kuala Lumpur (KL like everybody calls it)... check out the few photos of Thailand in my gallery!

Bye bye Thailand, hello Malaysia!

I liked KL straight away... I can't really explain why, but I'll do my best in trying ;)
Compared to Bangkok it is far less messy, far less dirty and faaaaar smaller (suprise: 1,5 million in KL compared to 12 million in BKK) and people are really nice and more willing to help. Aaaaand, hooray, they speak English!

Just on my way to my CS-hosts place (which is maybe another reason why I like being in KL - a great flat with balcony, great view over the city and a pool...) everybody whom I asked the way was willing to help me. Or they even came towards me to help, when they saw me looking desperately at my map, and finally one guy on a motorbike gave me ride to my final destination! Yes, nice indeed :)

One thing I really got to like about KL is the mix of cultures and ethnicities. In KL there are three main ehtnic groups: the Malay, the Chinese and the Indians (and many expats). And they all seem similar in size to me (they are not of course). Here in KL I had for the first time the feeling of really being in an multicultural multiethnical city, where people would really get along with each other without problems, even though they were not really mixing up.

Somehow KL is for me a mix of everything I liked so far on my trip, especially about China and Myanmar in particular: it's all about fooooooood :)

There are a lot of small foodplaces called Mamak stalls, which offer cheap but really good food. Usually they offer a variety of Malaysian (Roti Canai - more about that a bit further down), Indian, Indonesian and Chinese cuisine. And I have to admit my love for mainly Indian food...

After walking around in China Town I went further to little India, where I sat down in an Indian foodplace, and first had a hot tea with sweet milk (like in Myanmar) with delicious naan, and later on a great mix of Indian curries and dal, accompanied with a delicious freshmade chapati... looks good, doesn't it?

The most typical Malaysian dish however - rather an appetizer in fact - you can have is still another type of bread (appart from the already mentionned Indian naan and chapati): it is called Roti Canai. Flat fried bread, the dough out of only flour, eggs and water, if you want with some fillings (like onions, eggs, cheese...), accompanied with usually 3 sauces. Oh yes, they do like 3-section-plates :)

Hmmm, I am getting hungry again...

As you can see, what I really started to love about Asia is the fact, that you can get such great food for so few money in small foodplaces on the street... I started to love this already in China. Another great thing about KL however is that apart from these typical Asian particularity, my Western (food-)habits are also satisfied: there are small supermarkets everywhere, which sell the most important things for everyday needs. And you can find a lot of things which in other countries apart from China (forget Chinas supermarkets, they offer NOTHING you would want) I only found in big supermarkets (like in Bangkok or Phnom Penh) or in special expat-shops (like in Hanoi). The only really important thing these shops lack is wine... damn it... well, nobody's perfect!
Oh, and cheese of course. But after 6 months without really good cheese I don't miss it anymore (am I still myself??)...
 
So yes, KL is traditional and modern at the same time...
One day I was walking around in China Town and Little India: They both are are like big bazaar streets selling hell loads of stuff (cheap replicas in China Town, and loads of saaris in Little India) and many different cheap eateries.

The next day I spent walking through the business district of KL, with the world famous - because once highest building of the world - Petronas towers.

Having a drink with a friend who works in petrol industry on a platform offshore, my little naive dream of being in a perfect multiethnic city was destroyed... Not only can you realise already through my story, that these groups are not mixing up (having their own little quarters, sticking to their own traditional dishes...). But what this friend told me (I didn't check this information, it is just what he told me) was that in fact even by law the group of Muslim Malay are highly preferred: when buying property Muslim Malay would get a discount of 25% (that's huuuuuge!), whereas the others would have to pay the full price. And when it comes to university education, 60% of the places at university are reserved for Muslim Malay and the remaining places are to be shared between Muslim Malay, Malay Indian and Malay Chinese, and others...
How ridiculous of me to think that anywhere in this world people from different ethnic groups are able to live together, mixing and not having power differences...

I started to wonder, why I have had this impression. And yes, it is ridiculous, but I guess it is because I am the first time in my life in an Islamic country. Even though my CS-host told me that Islam is really moderate here, it has a really important role in society. And also in architecture - even some skyscrapers - you can see the Islamic influences.

In society the most visible Islamic feature is of course the hijab (headscarf). Many women wear a hijab and sometimes you can also see women with all but their eyes covered. And there are of course a lot of women with hijab working in public service.
I guess this is the reason why I was so convinced of the ethnical harmony: the hijab is such a big issue in Europe (no way you could see a woman wearing a hijab in Austria in an Metro information desk). And - at least for me, and I consider myself highly tolerant to different cultures! - I still feel that a woman wearing a hijab in Austria underlines her different culture and religion, and it shows me that the not too small minority of mainly Turkish in Austria are still not at all well integrated. Just to show how controversial this issue is back home...

How naiv of me to feel that seeing so many women with hijab, working in public service and being a completely normal part of  society, made me think that they were so well integrated here and made me have the feeling of perfect ethnical equality... Hey, wake up Silke!! In an Islamic country, of course Muslim people represent the majority and the most powerful group (I am not talking about money and business, the Chinese even in this country control many businesses...). Here it is the other way round and nobody forces them to integrate, but the others have to integrate. And even if these groups don't have problems with each other and they are living quite harmonously together - as far as I can say after a few days here - they are still groups apart, having their own little parts in town, sticking to their own traditions, cultures and food, occupying different positions in different fields, and not really mixing on an informal level...

And before finishing this story, a few pecularities of this country to finish off the story:

Did anybody of you already realise, that usually in aircrafts there is no 13th row? Or that in many houses there is no door number 13 (I lived in the appartment number 12A in Vienna...). Well, here not 13 is a bad number, but 4. My CS-host explained my, why this is so: in Chinese the number 4 - 四 sì - means death. So they avoid it - but not only the number 4, but everytime a 4 occurs... I should have paid more attention to superstition whilst still being in China...

And one more peculiar thing: I won't wish you a happy Valentines Day. Not because I don't like this day too much as I was nearly always single on this day... But mainly because it is forbidden to celebrate Valentines Day in Malaysia!! Muslim clerics "argue that Valentine’s Day was first and foremost, a Christian celebration and secondly, a day of promiscuity and when immoral activities are rampant" (asiancorrespondent.com)... haha, love it!!

So, now I will follow the call of nature - off I am to Borneo for the next 3 weeks!
So I will now pack my backpack again and continue my trip:
6 months lie behind me, 6 months lie before me...
And there is still quite some space on my backpack to sew more flags on it!