We flew out early and had a short layover in Kuala Lampur where we decided to have lunch at Burger King because the only other option was some scary noodle place. Our bill was 23 RM (Malaysian Ringgit) but we of course didn't have any local currency on us. They said we could pay with US Dollars but, well, none of those either. (note to self: bring back US Dollars next time we're back in the States). Thankfully, they took HK dollars. We gave them HKD100 and got back something like 25 RM. Between the two of us, we couldn't figure out how much we actually paid for our lunch so if someone could do the math and let us know, we'd appreciate it!
It was my first time in a Muslim country (don't feel badly if you didn't know Malaysia is Muslim because I didn't realize it until I got there - I really need to work on these kind of things), and it was interesting to observe their customs. The majority of women had their heads covered and were dressed in long pants and long sleeves, even though it was 90+ degrees everyday. Seeing as how I'm "environmentally challenged" and am either too hot or too cold, I can't imagine having to wear all of those layers when it's so hot outside. However, not every woman covered their head all the time, but we couldn't work out what the standard was and felt rude being too inquisitive with people. This trip was also the first time that I have seen women dressed in the full, black burkas. The local Malaysians weren't dressed this way, but there were several women at our resort dressed this way. I can't imagine how hot these women get.
Really, though, the biggest difference is not in how the women dress but in how they act and how they are treated. Chris and I had quite a few long talks about this. I have to say that I wouldn't classify Langkawi women (these women don't include those dressed in the burkas that I just mentioned) as "oppressed", or at least not in how we traditionally define the word.
Langkawi women work, go about their business freely, cruise around in cars and motobikes on their own. It's not as if they can't do many of the things that "unoppressed" women do. Yet, at the same time, women are clearly viewed as a man's possession, for lack of a better word, whether that man be a husband, father or brother. From what I saw and experienced, women aren't treated badly, on a whole. It's all very subtle. For example, if Chris and I were together, only Chris was addressed. From the taxi drivers, to the waiters to the women at the front desk, no one ever said "hello" or "how are you" to me directly. From the Muslim standpoint, it is considered a great insult to the man (& woman for that matter) to directly address any woman in a man's company. I would be irate if something like that ever happened to us in the U.S. but I have to say that I never felt like I was being treated rudely while we were there. That being said, it is nice to be back in Hong Kong where women are very independent and treated as equals.
Our first night we ate in one of the restaurants in our hotel that had a cultural dancing show. It was somewhat cheesy, as most hotel shows can be, but it was cool to see their traditional wedding dances that have been around for hundreds of years. It makes you sort of embarrassed to think that some of the traditional American wedding dances are the "chicken dance" and the "dollar dance." I mean, flapping your hands like beaks and shaking your butt doesn't quite give you the same feeling as these well choreographed dances but I guess that's what happens when your country is only 200 years old and a mix of all different cultures. Oh well.
We headed to an outdoor night market Saturday evening. Compared to what we have here in Hong Kong, the market was filled with crap but the food was amazing. We had dinner at this place and ate an amazing meal of Nasi Goreng Ayam (fried rice with chicken) and Mango salad, all for the whopping price of $2.50 and that was because we had a bottle of water.
Langkawi reminded us a lot of Maui, which makes sense given that their both small islands, in warm weather climates, but Langkawi is actually made up of 99 small islands, with only 2 of them being inhabited by people. You can see some of the smaller islands in the background of the picture. One of my friends recommended a great restaurant right on the beach called The Lighthouse for dinner and to watch the sunset. This is us at dinner there. We ate all Malaysian food and it was amazing. We've become obsessed with Thai food while we've been in Hong Kong but we're thinking that Malaysian may be our new favorite. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday evening.
On Christmas Eve, we wanted to rent a car to go and see some of the sights on the island. We thought it would be fun to cruise around for the day, even if we did have to drive on the other side of the road. This is where having our driver's licenses would have been very helpful. The funny thing is, we had planned on doing this long before we ever got on the plane, but it never crossed either one of our minds to bring our license with us. We brought our passports and our Hong Kong ID cards but nothing to actually prove we know how to drive. This is one of those things that we'll never leave home without again but we just never thought of it. Oh well!The good news is, we were able to rent a taxi for 4 hours for about $35 and we got to see a lot of the island. Only in Asia can you spend 4 hours in a taxi for the same amount of money it used to cost us to get from the Milwaukee airport to our apartments downtown.
We had our Christmas Eve dinner at a seafood restaurant in town. The food was amazing, including the massive King Tiger Prawns that we ordered. They were bigger than most lobsters we've eaten but we probably should have paid more attention to the fact that they were about $4 per 100 g. Please don't ask me to do the conversion but all I can tell you is that we had 4 prawn for $60. Oops! Really, though, they were very tasty.
I woke up Christmas morning in time to watch the sunrise. Thankfully, because we were very close to the equator, sunrise is at about 7:15, not too early. This is the view we had from the porch of our amazing bungalow. It was quiet and peaceful and very cool to watch the tide come in with the sun. It's hard to tell from the picture, but the entire water area in the picture was pure sand during low tide.
We found a little Catholic Chapel in town where we attended Christmas Day mass. It was just a room in a strip mall but there was a great community feel there. We also got to talk to our entire family, for a few minutes anyway, which was very special for us since we were both missing our families and Christmas traditions a lot. Christmas night, we went on a sunset dinner cruise around part of the island. The scenery and weather were absolutely beautiful. Here's a picture from our boat ride.
We hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas. It's hard to believe our vacation is already over and we're back in the swing of things in Hong Kong. Relatively speaking, it's freezing here. There is a "cold warning" for New Year's Eve - no I'm not making this up. It's supposed to get down to 11 C tonight (or 52 F). I'm not sure that really deserves a "cold warning" given that Milwaukee has gotten a ridiculous amount of snow and ice in December, but when you don't have heaters in your home, it's a bit chilly. And I have decided I've become a wuss in the short time that we've been here because I have been freezing all day. I may have to buy a hat and gloves :)
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