Truly Asia?

The real experience of a place, the real flavour of a country can only be tasted by meeting the people on the streets, not air hostesses and travel guides.
The way the citizens of a country dress, the way they eat, talk, behave with foreigners…says a lot about the country as a whole. For it is the people that are the building blocks of a nation, like the cells of a living organism, the structural and functional unit of the nation.
In this respect Malaysia was a bit of a flop, really. Kuala Lumpur was only a couple of degrees better then Mumbai itself, that’s all. . In some cases, it was even worse than Mumbai.
Every man, woman and child had a cigarette in his hand, most teenagers were dressed like punks with unnatural coloured, spiked, highly gelled hair, Chinese tattoos, nose rings, eyebrow rings and many other such rings all over the place, and with eyes that clearly said ‘I am here to make money and you are my victim’.
Even the police looked us up as if we were exhibits in a zoo, standing there for the entire city to stare at. (Although I think we stood out in the crowd, among all the punks).

I had heard so much about it, Kuala Lumpur is a shoppers’ paradise, the Petronas Tower is phenomenal, so is the KL tower…Bullshit.
But how can that be? Did I go wrong somewhere? So I asked myself, what was my source of information? Who were the people who told me all this? From where did I personally hear praises about this place? And then it hit me.
Obviously they are going to find it heavenly. Obviously they will love it. When they travel in air conditioned Kesari or SOTC buses with guides who spoon-feed them all the way during your travels, its no wonder they found Malaysia marvelous. After all, they only saw the good bits…
We on the other hand had to find our hotel from the bus depot while incessant rain lashed down on us, soaking us, and our luggage, while the people on the streets were of absolutely no help at all.

I’m not complaining, mind you. The reason I chose to travel without the usual travel and tours company was to have experiences of this kind. Otherwise, how predictable and boring would my vacation be!