World Heritage

My journey to Malaysia started with a plane ride from Bangkok where I was seated next to a cute 15 year old Thai girl. After overhearing her conversation with a lady next to her I found out she was studying in Malaysia and living with her aunt to hopefully have a better chance at learning english. We were about to land and I asked her what was the best way to get to George Town, the center of Penang. Having her Thai generousity she offered me a ride with her aunt since they would be heading that way too. Her Aunt, Isha, is a large Muslim women dressed in a traditional burka who greeted me with a firm hand-shake and perfect english after passing through customs. After talking in the car I learned we shared many mutual thoughts about the importance of traveling, teaching, and the environment. Isha had studied in Egypt and Indonesia for 7 years becoming fluent in 4 languages, Malay, English, Arabic, and Thai. She is an environment and moral teacher at a government elementary school. After I revealed to her that I had no plans or hotel reservations for my stay in Penang she said, "I think you stay with me, yes." She lives with 3 other muslim women in a small traditional section of the city that usually doesn't allow anyone outside the muslim faith stay there. Knowing this would save me a lot of money and provide me with a unique experience of living in Malaysia in a muslim house, I graciously accepted. She says her house is 'heritage' and contains only the basic necessities.

Throughout the 6 days on Penang Island I toured many different temples and mosques, enjoyed a hike through the national park, walked through 'little india', went to prom, observed a local elementary school, and ate traditional food.

Snake Temple: where dozens of vipers live

Kek Lok Si temple

Chinese ribbon wishing tree

Kindergarden Room at the school

Mosque

Chinese Temple

How tourist travel...no Tuk Tuks here!

Hindu Temple

Penang is known to embrace modernity, with the chains such as Starbucks, KFC, Mcdonalds and skyscrapers scattered throughout the island, while keeping its 'old world charm' and is listed as a World Cultural Heritage Site. This is mainly because of the unique blend of people that live on the island. There are Indian, Chinese, Indonesian, British, Malay, and Thai and can be seen simply by walking down the street or at the vast array of places of worship on the island. Because Penang used to be a British colony, there is an old fortress still standing on the island, the educational system has implemented a british curriculum. This is why all the people could speak fluent english and why Lulu, the thai girl, was sent to Malaysia to study. Also while walking on the street the architecture of the buildings change from one street to the next. There will be a huge european white building and the lane next to it will be filled with chinese writing and orientatial styled shops. I spent a lot of my time simply walking around looking at all the buildings.

Living in the house of Muslim women I was at first very nervous and wanted to make sure that I was be curtious and not offending anyone. The women where surprising friendly and not shy with me. They treated me like a friend and not a foreigner as I somtimes felt like in Thailand. I was allowed to stay in the house because only women live there. With staying in the house though I had to follow their daily life, which meant waking up at 6 am to get ready for school which starts at 7:30. Everything was much more orderly than my life in Thailand, where school starts whenever the teachers get to school and teach when they feel like it. Throughout my stay in the house I learned alot about Muslim culture and religion. Got to witness the 5x daily prayers, learned about the Hijab (head scarf women must wear when outside the home), taught how to eat malaysia food, which is eating steamed rice with your hands. I thought I was dressing modestly in Thailand but these women are completely covered, wrists, neck, hair, down to the ankles. Lets just say I wore as many clothes as I could. My final event in Malaysia was helping Isha chaperone Lulu's prom night. I of course didn't bring anything suitable to wear for a formal event while traveling so Isha let me borrow one of her traditional dresses for the night!

Praying