MALAYSIA, KUALA LUMPUR

I wasn't really expecting Malaysia, I mean, I really wasn't really expecting the reality of Malaysia and Kuala Lumpur as such, I thought it was one thing and the impressions I keep having are totally different. I might make this ideas that might be glossy-paper-magazine about a place and what I find always surprises me.  The three cultures and how they mix and how they don't is really interesting to see. And, it might be a bit soon to say so, but I think I might be a bit in love with it. I suppose it also helps that I met this crazy bunch of travelers that, more or less, really *get* what I'm doing, because they are also doing the same thing. 

The city is more "user friendly" than Bangkok in the sense that there's more public transportation, and there's also less people trying to make you take a cab or sell you something. And the indian food is *amazing*. 

I had time to visit like a proper tourist, climb to the Batu Caves, see the Petronas (which thanks to the girl I was with I now keep calling the "expecto patronum"), go to the Butterfly Park, visit the Museum of Islam Arts, and all either walking or just taking public transport, and, more often than not, we were the only foreigners. Well, I don't believe we were the only ones, and we could have never blended in, but it was awesome to be part of a daily life thing. 

The hostel I was at was absolutely fantastic by the way. Not the cheapest one, but friendly and so so beautiful, that it really felt like the name, Back Home. It also gave the opportunity to taste peanut butter and to realize why americans love it so much: tea, toast with peanut butter and fruit first thing in the morning became one of my guilty pleasures. 

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When I was in Bangkok I met this guy who said that I was dressing as a tomboy, he said he wasn't judging me, but it actually felt like he was. It felt like it was important to him the fact that I wasn't in a dress at that moment, like the other girls around me. I have dresses, I love dresses actually but at that moment I felt I want to be even more of a tomboy, I'm starting to realize that what people want to pin me as is something I don't care much at all. 

But thinking is inevitable, even when I have friends in the hostel or the guesthouse I'm in. My mind is kind of inventing itself again, re-writting a new narrative about the things I learn about myself. 

I want to create, invade, re-estructure, this kind of bubble universe that my mind is actually constructing, but I also want to get out, to collaborate with someone, to design something, a magazine, a book, a blog, to construct something based on communication. 

What is communication to you? What kind of creative ways of communication can you find? 

WELCOME TO MALAYSIA, TRULY ASIA

Here's when I tell you how I said goodbye to Thailand. 

Sooner than I wanted to or than I planned, and it felt really harsh to do it, but as the bad weather kept following me, and I'm not talking about the moonson season down south, but of deep fog and constant rain, I just didn't want to keep waiting in Krabi for days without end, were even a lot of the boats to go down to the sea were moored due the storms. 

I've been traveling at quite a rate, I feel, as if I had to get back home really soon, I imagine due a bit of  inertia as what you usually do on a holiday, I think I kept forgetting about the fact that I have a few more months ahead. Moreover, I took this really disgusting night ferry from Koh Tao to the mainland in Surat Thani, where I really didn't sleep at all, mostly because I was squeezed between a friend... and a girl I've never met before, the promised beds were actually mats on the floor and underneath them cockroaches lived quite happily. 

That's why when I arrived at Krabi and I saw this deep fog settled over the whole province I kind of broke down a bit. I thought about having to spend a week copped in hostels or guesthouses and... just couldn't. I've also had a few paperwork problems back home that for a while scared me a bit. So, after thinking about it, and thinking about it, and thinking a bit more... I decided to move on. 

Start anew in a new place, flee from the easy tourist traps. And that's why I'm in Malaysia, with plans to move more slowly and learn a new way of traveling. A more slow paced way without the rush of getting the first to the finish line. 

There's no finish line, only the road. 

THAILAND, KOH TAO

Getting to Koh Tao was kind of nuts. Well, I'm lying, just a part of the trip was nuts. The bus system in Thailand works like a dream, and there's tons of routes and companies to choose from, so no complaints there, but the catamaran for the island? a complete nightmare. I've been in boats before, but never in my life I've felt so sick. My only consolation, which it really is not, is the fact that I wasn't the only one. Almost everyone got sick, which might tell you something about how it was... It's in moments like this when I realize how far I have my head in the clouds, when a friend who's done the same boat trip tells you afterwards about this great sea sick pills that they sell at the 7eleven. Duh. How did I not think about that before?

Well, what's done is done. 

I found this fantastic offer of a bungalow at View Point Resort at Agoda, which later I saw had really bad reviews, but we decided to check out before making a decision. Maybe I was more ok with it than other customers because I hadn't paid the original price, but I actually thought it was a lovely place. With enough mosquitos to eat me alive, but really nice. And I got to use a mosquito net, which a part of me loved just because felt really old-traveler and because it also felt like a kid's fort... I get strange notions about things. 

It rained constantly and I got complettely soaked a few times but, finally, I got to spend a really nice evening perched on a rock by this really small strip of beach, watching the sea, reading a bit, walking barefoot on the rock, taking a few pictures and watching the sun go down. 

I might get strange notions and I might get my head in some kind of cloud, but my pleasures are simple.