We spent all together three weeks in Malaysia, two on the west coast and one in Kuching, Borneo. Here are some of our observatorions from these weeks spent there.

People and customs. Malaysia is pretty much in the middle of Asia and that’s easy to notice – people and influences come from all around. The main religion is islam and that is easy to spot on continental Malaysia. Most of the restaurants didn’t serve pork and had ‘Halal’ signs in front. They also didn’t serve any alcohol. George Town was an execption, there they had alcohol advertisement and also craft beer culture.  

Hinduism was also present because there are a lot of people from India. It seemed that most people on the west coast were from India or had Indian origin. 

In Kuching people and the culture was more like the way we pictured Malaysia before our visit. Altough there was also Chinese influence. All in all It felt that in Kuching people were more friendly and relaxed.

Food. At first we had problems finding Malaysian food, most of it was Indian. We had our first (and last) laksa on Pangkor island. That was one spicy experience. We also tried Nasi Lemak (typical for breakfasts, rice with chicken, peanuts and sardines), roti canai (Malaysian omelette) and a Borneo speciality, pandan (a jungle vegetable that was used for example with chicken or as a spice in pastry). One of Ville’s favourites was Teh Tarik that is basically black tea with condensed milk. 

Destinations. We were going to visit Gunung Mulu as well in Borneo, but in the end we could not find any &​accomodation

ince everything was fully booked there. To Sabah we didn’t t&tg​
o for two reasons – foreign ministry advised not to go and we knew that it was really popular as well. We would definitely like to go visit Borneo again. And those two areas, Sabah and Mulu, would be the destinations. Also Indonesian side Kalimantan sounds interesting.