Day 60 (5 August): Hello Mr. Ambassador
After all the flight delays the previous night, I didn't arrive at the airport in Kuala Lumpur (more commonly known as KL) until the early afternoon when I was supposed to arrive early in the morning. Nonetheless, it was good to arrive and I was pleasantly surprised to find what must be the world's cleanest and most efficient airport as I was zipped through customs and on an express train into the city in no time.
When I arrived in KL, I boarded a local light rail train to meet my friend's Annie's friends (Karen and Gary) who work for the US Embassy here as part of the Foreign Service and were generous enough to offer me a free place to stay. After meeting them and taking a quick shower in their quite posh diplomatic housing, we took a quick drive through the city where I got a glimpse of the famous Petronas Towers headed to the Embassay for a happy hour with their co-workers and Embassy staff. During that time, I was fortunate to meet the US Ambassador to Malaysia and ended up having a rather lengthly 15+ minute conversation with him, since we had a common interest in Japan (as he spent a good bit of his career there), learning about his perspective on a number of Asian and Malaysian issues.
From there, we went with some of Karen and Gary's friends to get dinner at a Malaysian style hawker food court which is really a collection of outdoor food stalls with tables where people from each come and take your orders from their different menus.
Observations:
1) KL is a clean city (at least relatively.) I'm very impressed with the cleanliness of KL which probably means less than usual considering I just came from one of the world's dirtiest big cities. Nonetheless, there is no way I would have even thought about eating 'street food' in India, but it is perfectly safe here and even looks more sanitary than most sit-down restaurants in India did.
2) Embassy life is different. I guess this happens whenever you take a large number of people with something in common and put them in a place where things are very different.
3) Pollution is supposedly a problem in KL. I didn't seem to think it was bad at all (again relative to India,) but apparently Embassy staff in KL gets an small increase in their wage because of it. The Malaysians blame it on the Indonesians on Sumatra for failing to completely extinguish a forest fire (since 1997) so that whenever the winds shift, KL gets a little hazier. (Then again the Malaysians blame the Indonesians for a lot of things.)
4) No noise pollution. Drivers in KL don't use their horns which comes as a complete shock for two reasons: 1) in India drivers use their horns regardless of whether or not their are other cars around, 2) the driver is a little crazy (but nothing compared to India where cars will overtake other cars overtaking other cars that are already across the yellow lines and be in the breakdown lanes of the opposite direction's traffic while doing so.)
5) The Ringgit (Malaysia's currency) was allowed to float or be in a managed float, the same day that the Renminbi was re-pegged. I didn't know this since the international media in India didn't say anything about it. I had thought for some time that it made more sense for Malaysia to float than for China to revalue, but its interesting that the media in India didn't pick up on the development at all (especially since it actually might be more significant of a development.)
When I arrived in KL, I boarded a local light rail train to meet my friend's Annie's friends (Karen and Gary) who work for the US Embassy here as part of the Foreign Service and were generous enough to offer me a free place to stay. After meeting them and taking a quick shower in their quite posh diplomatic housing, we took a quick drive through the city where I got a glimpse of the famous Petronas Towers headed to the Embassay for a happy hour with their co-workers and Embassy staff. During that time, I was fortunate to meet the US Ambassador to Malaysia and ended up having a rather lengthly 15+ minute conversation with him, since we had a common interest in Japan (as he spent a good bit of his career there), learning about his perspective on a number of Asian and Malaysian issues.
From there, we went with some of Karen and Gary's friends to get dinner at a Malaysian style hawker food court which is really a collection of outdoor food stalls with tables where people from each come and take your orders from their different menus.
Observations:
1) KL is a clean city (at least relatively.) I'm very impressed with the cleanliness of KL which probably means less than usual considering I just came from one of the world's dirtiest big cities. Nonetheless, there is no way I would have even thought about eating 'street food' in India, but it is perfectly safe here and even looks more sanitary than most sit-down restaurants in India did.
2) Embassy life is different. I guess this happens whenever you take a large number of people with something in common and put them in a place where things are very different.
3) Pollution is supposedly a problem in KL. I didn't seem to think it was bad at all (again relative to India,) but apparently Embassy staff in KL gets an small increase in their wage because of it. The Malaysians blame it on the Indonesians on Sumatra for failing to completely extinguish a forest fire (since 1997) so that whenever the winds shift, KL gets a little hazier. (Then again the Malaysians blame the Indonesians for a lot of things.)
4) No noise pollution. Drivers in KL don't use their horns which comes as a complete shock for two reasons: 1) in India drivers use their horns regardless of whether or not their are other cars around, 2) the driver is a little crazy (but nothing compared to India where cars will overtake other cars overtaking other cars that are already across the yellow lines and be in the breakdown lanes of the opposite direction's traffic while doing so.)
5) The Ringgit (Malaysia's currency) was allowed to float or be in a managed float, the same day that the Renminbi was re-pegged. I didn't know this since the international media in India didn't say anything about it. I had thought for some time that it made more sense for Malaysia to float than for China to revalue, but its interesting that the media in India didn't pick up on the development at all (especially since it actually might be more significant of a development.)
posted by Traveling Brian at 6:18 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home