A couple of years ago, I was gearing up for an escape from the pleasantly warm and occasionally rainy English summer weather to what I was assured would be the sweltering humidity (and much heavier rain) of Sri Lanka. Everything was set in the cheapest possible terms – apart from the cost of actually getting there.
I was staying with a South East Asian-based friend who’d procured a free villa for us to stay in (courtesy of distant relatives), spoke the local language, and had other contacts in the area who had promised to show us the local nightlife. In the weeks leading up to the trip, I was simultaneously dizzy on the high of globalization benefits and half-convinced it was all too good to be true.
As it turned out, I was right.
…sort of. Vaguely. In an eventually pleasant way.
Roughly two weeks prior to my departure date, I got a panicked phone call from said friend (let’s call him Jon since I’m working my way through the second series boxed set of Game of Thrones right now but in no way commenting on his birth status), who due to a work emergency would be unable to join me until two days after our scheduled meet-up.
As I was dependent on Jon for transport, accommodation, and communication, it was difficult not to take this as a sign to get my flight tickets refunded asap. But while I was girding my loins for various forms of airline-based bureaucracy, I mentioned the whole sorry affair to my dad. He listened to my stoic, mainly exhortations of despair with patience before offering a solution: I was to fly to Malaysia before catching another flight to Sri Lanka; why not extend my stay in Kuala Lumpur?
Before I could work out whether my overzealous budgeting permitted the expense of a hotel (it might have, but I’ll never know), my dad went on to point out that he’d just travelled to Malaysia the previous year and stayed with the family of an old colleague while out there. Would I object to doing the same? I thought longingly of sandy beaches and azure oceans and villas and quashed my knee-jerk reaction to what I saw as taking advantage of the kindness of strangers.
A couple of days later, everything was settled and I was to proceed with the first part of my journey as scheduled, at virtually no additional cost save that of delaying my subsequent flight to Sri Lanka. Travelling really is a rollercoaster of emotion.
Upon arriving at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), I was met first by a wave of humid heat, then by my dad’s former colleague and his son, who was fresh out of A Levels, in possession of a drivers’ license, and willing to take some time out of his post-examination celebrations and show a stranger around for a couple of days. We returned to their home in the middle-class (though KL doesn’t really acknowledge a class system) neighbourhood of Bangsar, where we had a pretty amazing meal of roti canai – the first of many different types of Malaysian food I was to try – before jet lag caught up with me.
Over the next couple of days, I learned quickly that Malaysia’s culture is made up of a mix of Malay, Chinese and Indian influences, manifesting itself in architecture, lifestyle, holidays observed, and most of all food. The local cuisine can be sampled from sources ranging from expensive hotel-based restaurants in the heart of the city to roadside mamak or hawker stalls, depending on what you prefer.
Indian curries rub shoulders with spicy Chinese noodles and traditional Malay dishes, a staple of which I encountered in the form of nasi lemak. Of course, in between all this feeding, I was shown around local sights like Batu Caves (a traditional Hindu worship site frequented by tourists), the National Mosque, the Lake Gardens and surrounding sights, Central Market, the KL Tower (offering a panoramic view of the city), and the Petronas Twin Towers – plus the numerous shopping malls scattered around the city.
When it was time for me to leave for my actual holiday, I was almost reluctant to abandon my explorations of the city and the surrounding country, not to mention the exceeding generosity of my dad’s ex-colleague and his family. There’s simply no way to fully account for the admittedly small glimpse I got into a country straddling the line between personal culture and global-level modernity.
I made it safely to Sri Lanka, met Jon, and had a pretty great time despite the two days shaved off our itinerary. My dad’s friend and his family had made me feel amazingly welcome despite the short notice of my visit, but there’s still a certain luxury to be derived from not imposing on anyone’s hospitality – though it helped that our accommodation was pretty damned incredible too, of course.
The beaches were great and the nightlife was definitely worth the trip – but most of all, I was grateful to my dad, his colleague and his family for keeping my trip to Sri Lanka possible in the first place. And no, I haven’t been back to Malaysia yet, but rest assured it’s definitely high on my must-travel list – both for myself and for anyone else.
Not that I wouldn’t highly recommend getting a villa by a sunny Sri Lankan beach too, of course.
Gavin Harvey has traversed many landscapes and cities of the world and longs to do it again soon. For now though, he’s content to be a fitness instructor in London and write for Dynamic Lives.