India_2015- Streets of Penang

Penang: a state in Malaysia

Capital of Penang: Georgetown

Where is Georgetown: on an island, off the coast of Malaysia

Where did we go: eastern side of Georgetown

How long is the drive from Kuala Lumpur to Georgetown: 3-4 hours

When did we reach Georgetown: 2am in the morning, then slept for a few and got ready for sight- seeing

We went sight seeing in a beautiful cultural area embedded into the city, just a few blocks away from the beach. I guess you can call this area your Chinatown + India-town + Malaysia-town all in one. It's pretty crazy because there's one road crammed with Indian boutiques and cuisine, while the street next door is packed with Chinese stores and cuisine, and the street next to that is a street with Muslim goods. A few streets in the other direction is a Malay cultural road. So this place is brimming with culture!!

Little, little India, can't go anywhere without seeing a little foreign culture. The "Indian road" sold tons of clothing, jewelry, shoes, indian collectibles, and cuisine. Some of the merchandise is much cheaper than in India. I've heard Indians buy clothes and invest in gold here, instead of in India, since it's cheaper.

Look at how cute this little road is. It resembles a Hollywood movie set doesn't it? But no, this is Penang Street in Malaysia. We did a lot of shopping and ate late lunch here.

I found this little corner by the side of store, and it reminded me of New York City or Philadelphia. In these big cities, you see a lot of apartments and shops and metal stairs, right? You see the same thing in this picture but the number of plants here jumped out. I have never seen pots and plants sitting outside in NYC or Philadelphia (maybe because the weather doesn't allow it or gardening is just not practical). So go Malaysia!

Throughout Penang, there are these brilliant pieces of art on the outer walls. There are about 30 different paintings, all walkable distance, and you can take cool "squad" pictures with the art. For example, with this picture, I saw some posing by sitting on the back of the bicycle, pretending to ride. There's even a map with the locations. Check out some pictures : Penang Street Art.

This is a road buzzing with tourists and pedestrians, no cars allowed. Shops and restaurants line along this eccentric road, named Armenian Street. These are the more Malaysian authentic shops than Chinese or Indian. They sell souvenirs, crafts, handmade goodies, works of art, keychains, and lots and lots of food. If you're looking for goodies to buy in Malaysia, I'd say this is the best spot. 

Black and white pictures are tremendously effective. It creates a dimensionality, to make objects pop out and recede into the shadows. I think in this picture, I definitely made the setting more dramatic and moody than the original sunny day.

While looking up these places again to write this post, I used the street view feature on google maps.  I found the exact location of the second and third picture. So I was dumbstruck when I saw the precise area we visited and took pictures of!

India_2015- Modern Malaysia

I haven't talked about Malaysia yet so I'll say what's got to be said. Malaysia is a diverse country, mainly occupied with Malay natives (50%), Chinese (23%), Indians (mostly tamilians) (7%), and others. Language is a problem because there's a distinct diversity compared to the U.S. Malaysia has four big languages to deal with: English (claimed as the official language of Malaysia), Malay, Mandarin, and Tamil. The number of tourists that come in are quite a lot, so you'll see lots of them everywhere. 

Malaysian economy is one of the best in Asia. It's the most competitive and the fastest growing in Asia. Malaysia is also a Muslim dominant country, something I never though of before!

 Ok, despite all the Malaysian Airline mishaps that have been going on... we got to Malaysia, safely. We landed at the KL (Kuala Lumpur) airport and this airport is beautiful but absurdly huge.You walk at least a mile or two from your gate to the exit of the airport. Once we got out, we jumped in with our driver and drove to the city. The road to the city is stunning, at least the parts I saw before I slept. All you see is palm tree farms for miles and miles. And yes, palm tree farms are a thing. 

This is Kuala Lumpur, the capitol city of Malaysia. Can you imagine seeing this amazing view on the way out of your house every time? My Uncle and his family live in this amazing modern apartment/hotel building. Half the building is an apartment and half is a hotel. So if you're living in an apartment, you can still access the pool/spa/restaurant/fitness and everything else that the hotel room offers. It feels like you're on vacation everyday!! This is the view from the outdoor pool on the sixth floor. You could stop on this floor every time you're getting out of the building. How awesome would that be? This is Kuala Lumpur for y'all. 

This is the view in the other direction. Not as many buildings, but the platform is super modern. This could be the coolest pool I've ever seen, cause the edge of pool is glass, and it's right at the edge of the building... idk it just looked so cool. 

The Petronas Towers, the 7th tallest building in the world. It's 129 floors high. This is what every tourist comes by to see and gets a magnet of. I was slightly disappointed when we couldn't go up to the sky bridge because you have to reserve in advance. Maybe next time?

This is the bottom of the tower, where the fancy stuff is. There is a mall called the Suria KLCC that's six floors high, and it's huge. It has every store and it's apparently the best mall in KL (Kuala Lumpur). The rest of the building is just offices I believe.

After spending more time in KL,  we had to make a tough decision: whether go to Singapore for a day (only three hours away by car) or to go someplace else in Malaysia. We decided to go to Penang, another huge city in Malaysia, instead of going to Singapore. We're going to come back and spend more time in Singapore and the neighboring countries. ;)

It took us a few hours at night to get from KL to Penang. We found a really nice hotel to stay at for two nights. We checked in at night so we didn't see what the area looked like, but I was super surprised when I woke up to a beautiful view outside.  

I mean, it can't get any better than this.  This view beats a Florida or Virginia beach view, right? (There's a beach here too!) If you noticed, there's a lot of green in Malaysia. Lots of trees and shrubs, and it's all so clean. 

Malaysia is also a mountainous area. The road from KL to Penang was basically mountains to the left and right. Here's another view, and I used the glass frames to make the picture look symmetrical. 

Next up: a close look of the beautiful city, Penang. 

India_2015- Bhatu Caves

GOODBYE INDIA AND HELLO MALAYSIA!!!

Straight outta Tirupati, we drove ourselves to the Chennai Airport, and flew out to Malaysia! Yea it was a fast escape to a far place. Juust kidding, our Uncle lives in Malaysia, so we made sure to visit him for a few days before we went back to U.S. 

The first place we visited was the Batu Caves in Kuala Lumpur. The Batu Caves is apparently the most popular Hindu shrine outside India. It's dedicated to Lord Murugan, and he's the God in the statute. According to Wikipedia, this Murugan statue is apparently the biggest in the world. 

These are idols of Lord Ganesha, who is the brother of Lord Murugan. These idols were on top of a temple situated next to the big statue. I like this picture because there's light shining from behind, making the idols look distinct or radiant.

Hah, climbing more steps to get to the top of caves! I counted the number of steps, but I don't remember exactly how many... but I think it was around 300 steps. This is the main entrance to the 400 million year old limestone caves. It's looks like a daredevil, "do you dare to enter", kind of entrance, right?

This is also another statue of Lord Murugan. This one is about as tall as a lamp post.  At this point, the area didn't smell too good, and the flooring was very slippery. They were cleaning up trash inside the caves, and the smell blew all the way to the entrance. And well the floors... there was water dripping from the top of the caves making the stone floors too slippery. They should've just put those yellow caution signs everywhere. 

 Macaques!!! There were so many of them around the caves, so it was really easy to get a good picture of them. Haha this one looks like it's in the middle of blinking, or it's half asleep. 

Guess what? Inside the caves, like way inside, up three flights of stairs, and in a small corner, lies a Shiva Lingam (Hindu God). And it's naturally formed, so people worship the figure and take it as a good sign. It's probably thousands of years old, so it's even gated and well protected.

In another part of the cave, the owners placed real sized figures from the scenes of Ramayanam (one of the greatest works of literature in India). This is the final scene where Seetha Devi and Lord Rama get married. And the scenes and figures just fit into all the nooks and crannies of the cave. I think this was the coolest part of the cave, because I've never seen a real-sized depiction of the Ramayanam. 

The Batu Caves were only 3-4 hours of our 4 day Malaysia trip, so stick around for more pictures of Malaysia!