Port Kelang, Malaysia - March 25, 2012

The ship docked early this morning. We actually slept in because we were not scheduled for tours.  Instead, we took the shuttle bus to the Bukit Tinggi Shopping Mall, a 20 minute drive from the port.  The port building looks like they are planning for significantly more cruise traffic, perhaps a product of the slowdown.  Driving to the mall, there is nothing to really describe to distinguish this part of Malaysia from any other with four-lane highways lined with power lines and grassy fields. There is a fairly new townhouse complex not too far from the port (with no clothes hanging to dry on the outside, ala Hong Kong/Singapore) and an older tall building (with many hanging clothes!  Zoning?) where the port workers must live.  This area must be more like a suburb of Kuala Lumpur.  Kuala Lumpur is the destination city from this port.  It is 90 minutes drive by bus.  This was one of the deterrents for taking a tour today.  We would be gone on an 8 hour trip with 3 hours just in travel on a bus to see the capital city of Malaysia.  Just not enough time.  We would have gone if the Petronas Twin Towers were still the tallest in the world but that building is now in Dubai and we’ll see it.  There is a History or Discovery Channel documentary about how the construction companies raced to be the first to complete their assigned Petronas tower, and how the winning group covertly topped out their tower under cover of darkness. 

The Bukit Tinggi shopping mall is 6 years old and has just about everything you might like to buy from American and European designer and brand stores.  It is interesting to explore these malls and we thought we’d share some observations – since again we didn’t take any pictures.

Restaurants:  Papa John’s Pizza, McDonalds, Starbucks, Pizza Hut, KFC along with several Japanese, Chinese and even a Barb-B-Q Mongolian style place, with lots of families inside eating.

Kid’s toys, stickers and clothing all have western style faces and clothing. One store had a Minnie Mouse Bedspread.

Most clothing stores display the clothes on western-looking mannequins and most pictorial advertisements feature western models; until we show up at the mall, they must think all of our women are blondes and all of our men lost their razors.  The clothes have price tags with all the Asia country currency amounts listed (HK, SG, AUS, THAI – no US$) while the clothing sizes are U.S., and the clothes all say Made in China.  There are really no great deals.  Woman (mostly Brits and Germans) on the cruise come to these malls and are all excited about finding something on sale – but really we did not see any deals. 

The young people all dress just like young people anywhere else in the world, unless they are Muslim, and then the woman and girls wear their stylish head coverings, long tailored western slacks, and nice shoes with socks¸ all  while carrying trendy colored purses. What legions of western soldiers and governments cannot accomplish in centuries, a few designers in New York and Paris accomplish in a generation.

Our thought is that there really are fewer ‘local’ markets because with the younger generation, this is the marketplace they want shop – air conditioned and marketing Western clothing and Asian technology.

Not sure I ever mentioned the woman’s bathrooms have the special toilets – a porcelain lined hole in the floor that you stand over.  And don’t forget the TP before going in to the stall; it’s on the wall over near the sinks, silly girl! I wonder why this Asian-style toilet facility is still the core design, even in a fairly new shopping mall selling mostly Western-style goods?  And in Vietnam and Cambodia they called this the “Happy Room” which also let them describe to us westerners when ‘this is a not so happy room!’

Tomorrow the ship docks in Penang, Malaysia, where there are many World Heritage sites we will be visiting.  Pictures will be worth taking tomorrow; think I’ll sleep tonight with the camera attached to my wrist so I won’t forget it!

(Congratulations to Tom & Kristy on their new daughter Caitlin Anne!)