Our first couple days in Johor Bahru, Malaysia were lazy and wonderful. After a lazy wake-up, we walked to an open-air restaurant for roti canai (pronounced ‘rotti chanai’, a fresh-made flaky tortilla/naan bread dipped in curry sauces). The 15-minute walk included hopping a fence into the nearest kampong (village), past gaping Malay workmen (because that many white people together is an unusual sighting), over a bridge dotted with feral cats, and through thick green jungle. To accompany our delicious roti canai, we had a milky chocolatey drink  that is hot at the bottom and cold at the top. Once it’s all stirred up, I’m convinced that it’s just chocolate milk, but Richard claims this is me imposing my ‘odd Western ways on his culture.’ 🙂 

After our lovely meal, we headed down to the pool to escape the hot sticky weather. Quite a relief!

  
On Sunday, following the pool, we went down to the markets for my first ‘wow, this is different’ moment. The stalls were packed full of handsewn beautiful fabrics turned into headdresses for Muslim women and long beautiful traditional dresses. Then a loud booming ‘voice’ that sounded a bit more like an elephant in pain started playing overhead. This was the afternoon call to prayer.

Below the markets, a terrible stench indicated that we were nearing the food stalls. The smell was from the drying fish laid out in the baking heat. Although these smelled and looked disgusting, I quite enjoyed them on my tofu at the Chinese restaurant that evening. My favorite part of the meal, however, was having an entire duck cut in front of us and then brought back to us in three different courses throughout the meal. It was also fun to test how little you could drink from our miniature teacups before it was topped up by the waiters (answer: a teeny tiny sip!). I was shocked to see shark fin soup on the menu, and a prized shark fin hanging in the restaurant with a bow tied around it.

  
Now it’s Monday morning and we’re headed to Singapore for a touristy walk through the city and afternoon tea at an all-you-can-eat buffet. I’m pretty sure I’m starting to forget what it feels like to be hungry. And I like it!