Malaysia

Pretend like this was posted back on October 29th. I wrote it then but forgot to post it.

Malaysia was quite the time. We got really lucky during our time in Redang as we had clear blue skies in the middle of Monsoon season. The dives were good although the water clarity wasn’t perfect. On the first dive Ralph ran out of air at 55 feet and we had to do air-sharing, luckily it all worked out and we were able to laugh about it. The rest of the day we just enjoyed lounging around the pool and picturesque beach. We took a chance by flying back to the ship on the day it departed, but luckily all the complex travel elements worked out and we didn’t miss the ship.

One thing that struck me about Malaysia was its lack of a unique culture. As I was walking around Penang and Kuala Lumpur I kept seeing places like China Town, Little India, and Thai Districts. At first I avoided all these places since I wanted a unique Malaysian experience, but I quickly realized that this amalgamation of cultures IS Malaysia. I think this feature was most pronounced in the food dishes which could consist of Thai noodles with Indian curry and Indonesian seafood. They don’t try to hide the fact either as they often label various dishes with their countries of origin. I even found “U.S. rib eye”and “American Lobster”dishes.

A couple days ago we were in the Straits of Malacca, the busiest shipping lane in the world. At any one time I could see at least 10 huge cargo ships and oil tankers around our ship. The straits are also a favorite hunting group for pirates so we had crew on 24 hour pirate watch with fire hoses on our low decks. Yesterday we had a bunker stop in Singapore and tomorrow we get into Vietnam where I get to see my parents! They have been travelling through Thailand with the SAS parent trip the past few days and got into Ho Chi Minh City today. For those with Facebook access I just posted albums for India and Malaysia.