61.

Finally back from Malaysia (again), so here's a brief travelogue of my, on the whole, decent experience.

(this whole post was being written on the flight back after I found out that my plan to finish up some homework was foiled by my inability to remember how to find out the surface area of a cone. Also, there is an annoying fat girl making a shitload of noise in the next row)

The Good:

- Hotel room was swell. Two adjacent club floor rooms furnished classily with wood and glass topped off (I'm not sure if this counts as a pun, but if it does, then know that it was fully intentional!) with a rain shower (I go crazy over little things like that) and a sizable flat screen TV (a rare commodity in Malaysia I assure you!)

- Food was stellar. First meal upon landing there (at 2am no less) was Burger King, which was fine in its own right but was ultimately overshadowed by the expectedly (I love Malaysian food) good local dishes, random restaurants (four digit Japanese tepanyaki [sp?] dinner!) and hotel food (tasting ox tail soup or whatever it was called, ordered from room service, was quite an exquisite experience). Weighing scale in the hotel room showed the damage - 1.5 kg.

- Chilling with family was cool for a change. Watched several movies in the hotel courtesy of the omnipresent pirated CD shops and a couple of movie channels. UP (still amazing the second time round), Paranormal Activity (pretty frickin' spectacular for a movie that cost $15,000 and a week to make) and Priceless (Hot Girl. Speaking French. Comedy. :O) were good. Precious (supposedly a meaningful, beautiful movie, but has more 'f' words in there than a room with a starving WJ!) and The Mist (absolutely horrible movie, expected more from a Stephen King adaptation) left me half asleep while Dark Asylum (female heroine acts brave. Throws grenade at bad guy. It's a smoke grenade) and Maneater (didn't watch this that much, but apparently this man eating monster turned out to be ... a TIGER) were just garbage can material.

The Bad

- Toilets, as usual, were not cool at all. I find it hard to believe that you have to pay for a toilet that has no toilet paper and smells like...

Oh. That would be racist.

- Sightseeing was boring. I went up to some hot spring and the people down there were in the hot spring with ALL THEIR FREAKING CLOTHES ON! That's like having sex alo-

Oh wait. That's possible...

- Man Utd. lost to Aston Villa while I watched on dejectedly in the hotel room. This automatically makes any place I go to 20% less attractive (that brings Malaysia too about... is negative even possible?)

The Conclusion:

As much as the (pure!) Malaysian blood in me wants to sugar coat (okay, not really) these next few lines, it is painfully obvious that Malaysia is still, beneath the thin aesthetic layer (new hotels, shopping centers etc) the government has added on in recent years, a disgusting shit hole developing country with average living conditions and questionable sanitariness.

Given a choice I'd never go back again but alas, my parents will undoubtedly drag me along anyway I'm too nice.