Malaysia - Muar/Melaka

After spending a few days in Singapore, I crossed over to Malaysia two days ago. Singapore-JB-Muar. It's dirt cheap, 12RM (about 4CAD), for a 3 hours trip into the Malaysia "jungle" (on an expressway). A surprisingly modern country - not as much of a surprise after all this publicity from Wee. I met up with his family (while he was still in Montreal (we called him yesterday, but he was sleepy and grumpy)) and we went to Malacca, while having lots of yummy food I never tasted before.

Today, I'm in Kuala Lumpur. Another bus ticket on the Mayang Sari bus service from Muar for a mere 10.40RM. Prices are sometimes low, sometimes high, compared with North American standards. Yoghurt can be 1/3 of the price paid in Hong Kong, but then you have commodities such as shampoo and soap that cost as much as in Canada. The country is by all means on par with the other richer countries in Asia such as South Korea and Taiwan and Hong Kong. Well almost. But it's got oil, and is a muslim country, the first one I visited so far, and probably one of the most foreigner-friendly there is out there. Chinese make up about 24% of the population, while Malays are 58%, and that upset my previous conception that mostly/overwhelmingly Malays supposedly live in "Malay"sia. It's a multicultural country for sure... not in the same way as Canada I'm sure, but this will probably be the object of long debates with Wee upon returning to Canada.