Flying out of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

In my infinite traveling wisdom, I thought it would be just fine to book an Airbnb right by the Petronas Towers, because in theory we could pop out for food and it would be super easy. But KL is not like the rest of Malaysia. Every building is either a shopping mall or a condominium. We went out for lunch a couple times, but otherwise we had groceries for breakfast and ordered Grab Eats for dinners because it's just so easy. Besides, Mr. Go was starting to feel under the weather and coronavirus had started blowing up in a big way, so we decided not to feel too guilty about staying in and watching movies.

We found surgical masks (after a thorough search because all the pharmacies were sold out) and sought out a child-sized cloth mask for Babs to wear in the airports.

With the last ounces of our adventurous spirits, we went for a walk around a nice lake (Taman Tasik Titiwangsa) and stumbled, wholly unprepared, onto a splash pad. Beyond caring, we stripped Babs down to her shorts and let her play. We wrung her out as best we could afterward and let the tropical sun dry her the rest of the way.

At a weird contemporary art museum we went to because it was free, Mr. Go tricked Babs into sounding out a swear word that was in one of the art installations. Truly the best things in life are free.

We were stretching for things to entertain Babs at this point, tired as we were. The KLCC park was close to our apartment, but it was just so hot in the afternoon, so we found an indoor playground in one of the shopping malls. We sat for an hour drinking Starbucks and let her run off some energy.

Grab drivers were becoming very concerned about coronavirus too. One even called us to check that we weren't Chinese before coming to pick us up, and said most drivers were refusing to pick up Chinese people.

Our evening flight was a welcome struggle. We got our last Boost smoothie and had a brief stopover in Singapore. I was sure I didn't sleep at all on the 15 hour leg, but Mr. Go assured me he caught me sleeping once or twice.

We arrived in Los Angeles and went through the same kind of culture shock we experienced coming home from Spain last year. There was toilet paper in all the bathrooms, and soap! We could read the signage and menus. Barely anyone in L.A. was wearing surgical masks yet.

We'd booked separate tickets to get us from L.A. to Chicago, then a rental car to get us to Green Bay, where we'd arranged to have Grandma pick us up.

Travel went very smoothly, until the flight to Chicago. About halfway through I felt a malaise overtake me.

I closed my eyes, thinking I was simply tired and gassy from the Wolfgang Puck Express hummus box in LAX. Would that was all. Just as I thought, boy, this might end in a vomit, and stood to stumble back to the lavatories, it overtook me all at once.

I flopped back in my seat and yanked the blessed vomit bag from the seatback pocket in front of me, then proceeded to fill it nearly to the brim. Babs slept like a rock the entire time, thank God for small favors. I could barely open my eyes, could barely speak. Between the utter exhaustion and whatever else was making my body NOPE out, I was a useless lump.

Mr. Go asked the stewardess (thank you again Alaska Airlines staff for your kindness) for a blanket and some crackers for me. He wrangled Babs and our luggage to the shuttle and through the rental car office. I stopped off for a quick vomit while Mr. Go secured us our wheels, and then did once again in a McDonald's parking lot somewhere in Southern Wisconsin.

At the Super 8 in Saukville, WI, I passed out before the pizza arrived and slept for the next 13 hours. When I woke at 4 a.m. the pizza had already been eaten for breakfast several hours earlier and I was semi-coherent again.

It was a strange sensation to feel the cold air. We had only our rain jackets and it was probably the illness making my body shiver so violently, but I felt wholly unprepared for the bitter cold, while at the same time being quite thankful for getting out of the equatorial heat.

Home was blissfully comfortable. There's something about travel, especially the bare bones way we travel, that makes us so grateful when we come home to all our familiar conveniences.

We've spent the next weeks processing all we saw and did and how it changed the shape of our perspectives. We kept Babs out of school for a week, limited our contact with people and checked our temperatures regularly. We were in the clear.

Asia was so wildly different from anything we'd experienced before. The unfettered friendliness and hospitality is something we may even brave the long flight for again in the future, which is really saying something. But for now, we're enjoying the perks of our home base and looking forward to all our home-state summer adventures, like gardening (and growing some Thai chiles, holy basil and lemongrass for my kitchen), canning, camping and living the good life.

Taiping, Malaysia

With reviews like "dark, creepy hotel" my expectations for The Potato Hotel were low to say the least. Perhaps that's why I was so delighted to find not a dank, dirty Piyaporn-esque place, but friendly staff, spacious room and mostly clean sheets.

"They probably wash these," Mr. Go said of the afghans we were given for blankets. At least there were mattress pads under the sheets and we didn't feel the need to sleep on towels.

We strolled along the highway, expecting to have a hard time finding dinner due to CNY, but we found a place packed with locals and ordered food just before they closed down for the evening. Char koay teow (sometimes called Koay teow goreng), nasi goreng and Mr. Go's favorite, laksa. Then an ais kacang (shaved ice with condensed milk, tapioca jelly, beans and corn).

Mr. Go mused on the importance of bad experiences. His first ais kacang (sometimes called ABC for reasons I don't understand. Ais (ice), beans corn perhaps?) in Penang was not good, which made him appreciate a delicious one all the more. Just like our bad durian experience in Thailand made for such a contrast and such a delightful surprise with good durian in Malaysia.

Babs made friends with some nearby girls, then we watched a movie at the Potato and turned in early.

I made a plan for Taiping the next day, so we took a Grab to the Larut Makang Hawker center for some breakfast, then walked to the Taiping Lake Gardens. There was a playground for Babs and a nice breeze as we strolled along the lake and the pathways to the many islands. The 100+-year-old trees curved sideways onto the roads and cast enormous canopies. We saw a couple monitor lizards, turtles and monkeys in the trees.

It was midday and brain-meltingly hot, so we got some snacks at the shopping mall and went to see Dolittle in the air conditioning. Afterward we took a grab to Simpang to find Mr. Go a barber.

While a taciturn young Indian gentleman sliced Mr. Go's face, Babs and I strolled to scope out dinner options. We waved at the girls whom Babs had befriended the day before when they called out to her from across the street.

Then two young Malay girls stopped on their motorbike to strike up a conversation. Izzati and Afiqah shyly asked to take pictures with us, then recorded the remainder of our conversation. They scored my WhatsApp number and we have been chatting ever since.

We got a couple bags of food from roadside stands, the ubiquitous nasi lemak in cone-shaped banana leaves, some fried sweet potato slices, the nice lady threw in some potato-coconut balls for free (and it cost a total of 4 ringgit). We snagged some finger bananas along the way and called it dinner.

The next morning, we checked out of the Potato. The nice girl at the front desk confessed that she had to check the name on our reservation to be sure Mr. Go was not soccer player Harry Cane (not the first time he has gotten this comment) and asked to get pictures with us all.

Our Grab driver was convinced we would not be able to find decent breakfast around the bus station and also sagely told us we should have got on the bus at the bus stop just up the road from the Potato rather than taking a taxi all the way to the bus station. Yes, he was right on the latter, but how was I to know?

It turned out alright, because there was a street market going on right beside the bus station. We nabbed some char koay teow, potato wedges, chicken balls and kuih and it was delightful.

The bus did indeed stop to pick up passengers at the StarMart office just by the Potato. C'est la vie. There's only so much information available online to a confused traveler.

Hot Tip: When booking bus tickets, try searching for your bus company's ticketing offices rather than just the central bus station.

This bus was just as spacious and comfortable as the last StarMart Express, except better because we were 3 of the 5 people on board. It took 3.5 hours to KL and we stopped twice for the driver to have a smoke break, which suited us fine. We pottied and got meat on a stick snacks.

Once in KL we Grabbed to our Airbnb for our last 4 days of our trip in Malaysia.

Traveling to Malaysia with Kids - Prep

This year, to make it a real challenge for ourselves, we decided to go to the other side of the world. My initial plan was Thailand, but the tourist visa process after 30 days can get a little complicated. So to avoid that completely, we decided to shift our focus a little further south. U.S. citizens can travel to Malaysia visa-free for up to 90 days.

We secured a house-sit for an expat couple in Chiang Mai, Thailand, for 9 days, so we'll get our jaunt up into Thailand for about 2 weeks before heading back to Malaysia.

More on House Sitting abroad Here.

Vaccines
The BIGGEST drag in prepping for this trip has been figuring out vaccination needs.

Yellow Fever is a concern if you're traveling from (or have 12+ hour layovers in) a country with associated risk, as of now that's parts of South America and Africa. So this wasn't a concern for us.

Typhoid: 1 injection or a 4-series oral, Typhoid will run anywhere from $70-$160 and that's not including the travel clinic's consultation fee. Many Walgreens carry this one and if they don't, many can order it and have it in next day for you.

Japanese Encephalitis: I'm so tired of saying this word. A 2-series, each shot costing between $241 and $322, the JE vax was about to run my family $1500. I called 5  clinics, made and cancelled a bunch of appointments and annoyed my family doctor with questions. Then Mr. Go had a brainstorm: What if we waited and got the JE vax when we GOT to Malaysia? It's bound to be cheaper, right? RIGHT!

The Twin Towers Medical Centre in Kuala Lumpur offers all the vaccines for a fraction of the price (170 MYR = $41 USD). I emailed them some questions and got prompt answers. No appointment is necessary, but if I Whatsapp message them before coming in, it can cut down on wait time. Also bonus: for reasons beyond my understanding, at the TTMC the JE vax is only 1 shot, not two. Babs was suuuuuuper happy about that. I'll post about that experience in a couple weeks!

We decided to get Typhoid in the states, because it's transmitted by improperly handled food and that's something we want to be ready for the moment we land. We figured we could wait on the JE vax, since JE is transmitted by mosquitoes and in the heart of KL they're not as big of an issue as the more rural areas. The skeeters that transmit JE bite at dark, so we'll employ more caution at dusk until the vaccine takes full effect (about 1 week after receipt).

But finding a clinic to give my 5-year-old a typhoid vax was easier said than done. Walgreens won't vaccinate kids under 7 and the oral typhoid vax is for kids 6 and older. The closest clinic was a 500-mile round trip overnight jaunt. The International Society for Travel Medicine has a directory of clinics, but a Google Maps search of "Travel Vaccine Clinic" will turn up some facilities not on the ISTM list.

Weather
Malaysia is pretty much right on the equator, meaning the temperature doesn't change much during the year. Highs will hover around the mid- to high-80s while lows plummet to about 70 Farenheit at night. Oh and being a peninsula on the ocean, it's super humid! That, combined with the cultural restrictions below, means things might get sweaty.

Culture
Malaysia is a fairly conservative culture. Metro areas like Kuala Lumpur have fewer implied restrictions, but if you don't want to get stared at in rural areas, women should cover their knees and shoulders. Especially in religious temples.

I plan on bringing a scarf to cover my shoulders and leggings to go under my dress and shorts. Time will tell if that will be enough, but it will be easy to buy clothes, especially in the 32-million-population Kuala Lumpur, once I poke around and figure out from the locals what's appropriate.

Packing
I'm in the process of making a spreadsheet, but this blog post has been super helpful and informative. There are plenty of things I'll be waiting to buy until we get there, which is both freeing and stressful. I do like having everything I might possibly need at my fingertips at any given moment, but when restricted to 2 bags, that's not possible.

20 days until we leave from LA on this new adventure!! 😬


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