The "waterfall" journey

Today was certainly an adventure: and let me say, choosing Malaysia was definitively the best choice I could have made. There may not be nightlife, bars, dancing, live music, etc., but what it does have is amazing rainforests, incredibly nice people, immense culture, and fanfreakintastic food. After waking up, I went to breakfast with Sarah and some of the other study abroad students. Let me say, I was quite concerned that the 104 MYR per week ($34 USD) would not be enough money to eat! I correct myself- breakfast cost a total of 1MYR (less than 40 cents)-CRAZINESS!!! There is an Indian influence to the food so 1) I am going to have to get used to S-P-I-C-Y food!!!! And 2) I need to get used to eating curry for breakfast. I also already accidently drank the tap water, which the Malaysians don’t even drink. You know you shouldn’t drink the water when the locals even boil it before drinking it-oops, I feel fine so far. 

 After breakfast we started walking into the town of Tg. Malim to go to the market. On the way Sarah and I met a nice Malaysian woman and had are picture taken with her (I really need to get better at conversational Malay!). After making our way to the city by hitchhiking with a guy who we met (don’t worry mom, there were five of us) we went shopping, I finally found an ATM that would except my card, Sarah and I got some rugs, and we met some locals. Some of the locals loved taking pictures of all us “white girls” as they say. Oh, and don’t worry; we actually took a taxi back- which cost a total of 5 MYR (less than $2 USD). Everything here is cheap and I love it!

When we got back home, we got lunch (we only had five minutes so we all got a chocolate ice-cream bar)- YUMMY and nutritious! 

 We all met up with some of the guys that work at UPSI and they guided us on a “30 minute” trek to the waterfall. Well, at least they said it would take 30 min. It ended up taking nearly 2 hours to get there and the whole journey lasted over 5. It was so worth it! I wanted an atmosphere with lots of outdoorsy activities and I sure did get it! We got to see monkeys, a Hindu temple, swim in a really pretty river, find the largest snail shells known to man, play games with the three cutest Malaysian girls (one wearing a slip knot t-shirt?), and got to trek through the Malaysian rainforest. We also witnessed a young girl running after and kicking a chicken, what the heck? Poor chicken! Right before the “waterfall” we had to cross a rickety, wire bridge to get to the water. When we arrived I asked where the waterfall was and the guys pointed to the left. I was confused? It was a river with nearly nonexistent rapids and maybe a 2-inch waterfall. Regardless, the swim was not only refreshing but also beautiful. It was interesting because we had to swim in our clothes because the Malaysian men cannot see woman in their bathing suits, in fact, they won’t even shake the hand of a woman. Oh and the Malaysians were amazed that I could swim haha. Could life get any better, I don’t think so. The flowers and vegetation are also extremely diverse- biodiversity to the extreme!

After our excursion, we decided it was time for dinner- we were all starving! We walked to the restaurant and I ordered sweet and sour chicken. Let me say, Malaysian sweet and sour chicken is spicy beyond belief (my lips were numb after the third bite). It was tasty but the only thing that saved me was the dragon fruit juice with my dinner. The restaurant looked a lot nicer than some of the others so I figured it would maybe be a little over priced: nope, still only cost a whopping $3 USD per person. Sarah also had two very blonde moments of the day 1) glancing at a burger stand in the middle of the jungle, Sarah said they must be American burgers because the flags above the stand are American. I’ll let that slide; the Malaysian flag kind of looks a bit like the US flag). 2) I said dang; my chicken had a lot of bones in it- Sarah replied, “oops, ate all of the chicken bones in her dinner because they seemed like crunchy vegetables”. Oh Sarah. The dinner conversation was ridiculous hilarious- Marlee tried for nearly an hour to explain the difference between southerners and northerners, to the Malaysian guys. Overall, Malaysia is amazing so far and I still have 4.5 months left!