Thursday, June 21, 2007

Malaysia, Truly Asia

The Time is Now. The Place is Malaysia. Truly Asia.

That's the tagline of Tourism Malaysia, which is promoting an industry that's the second highest money spinner for this Southeast Asian nation. This is a small nation -- 2.6 crore people across an area of 3.2 lakh sq km. It's a very multicultural society: Malay and other indigenous making up 58%, Chinese 24%, Indian 8%, others 10%. It's truly Asia.

This is the 50th year of Malaysia's independence. And the government there has year-long festivities, majorly directed at tourists, both domestic and foreign.

It's no wonder that the country is such a hot tourist destination for people from across the world. Not merely because of the impressive natural beauty, but because of the fantastic infrastructure the country has. We aren't talking of capital Kuala Lumpur alone here, but smaller towns.

What strikes you first are the broad roads with neatly demarcated lanes. Not only are there no potholes, but there'sn't any litter anywhere. And when you observe closely you find, part of the reason the heavy traffic moves smoothly is because of the good roads.

The size of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport dwarfs you. It's so big that you don't find any people in the airport! I'm sure it has been designed with some real longterm planning going into it. It is located on 10,000 hectares. After four and a half years of round the clock work, it became fully fully operational in 1998. A section of the road that leads to the airport has 12 lanes -- six on each side of the road divider!

The weeklong tour of Malaysia is weighing quite heavily on me still. I am sure it will take some time for me to sift through the photos and notes. But, surely this blog will acquire quite a bit of Malaysian flavour from now on. I don't think I can shake it off so soon.

3 comments:

  1. pradeep,
    you took me from Malleswara to Malaysia!

    nice to know about the roads and 'litterlessliness'!

    now that the rains have started here, the potholes act as 'catchment areas'! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am glad you had a good time. Do post pics. Never been to Malaysia!

    ReplyDelete
  3. it is a pretty interesting place, hope you took a ride up the petronas towers...remember the catherine zeta jones movie?? how about genting highlands and the cave with the muruga temple??

    ReplyDelete

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