By Lucy

Not gonna lie, I was very nervous as I boarded the first of two flights across Malaysia.

The thought off the top of my head was Malaysia flight 370, which disappeared in 2014 after leaving Kuala Lumpur (another Malaysia Airlines flight was shot down by Russia later on in 2014. It was not a good year for Air Malaysia). It’s still never been solved, although the prevailing theory is that the pilot was suicidally depressed and decided to take the plane with him, practicing scenarios that would evade detection for weeks, and the flight crashed somewhere in the Indian ocean. Which is what scares me, the idea that someone could methodically plan to take 300 people with him and no one noticed.

The flight was fine. I was automatically assigned a seat in the middle of the row, although the window seat was empty, and an Asian woman in the aisle seat. I debated hopping over to the window seat, but the PA system asked us not to move seats because it would unbalance the plane. I debated asking the flight attendant and decided against it. It’s only 2 hours.

The man in front of me waited until the flight attendants had done their checks and flipped open the tray table of the unoccupied seat to his left. People do realize the point of having the tray table stowed and your belongings beneath the chair is to prevent them from being launched into your face if we crash? Even a small crash like the Air Canada flight in NYC is enough to embed your iPad into your skull. And he was watching “Mountainhead”!

It occurs to me that watching The Pitt on a plane might be rude to the people behind me.

The flight itself was uneventful. Small plane, flying low. Lots of turbulence. As we landed, an AirAsia jingle played that was so cartoonish that me and the Asian girl looked at each other and burst into laughter.

This time, the country shift put me back an hour, so I was 12 hours difference from Thunder Bay again.

After we decanted from the plane, some of the signs in the airport are in English, but not in any helpful way. I discerned that what I wanted was terminal J, so I kept following the signs for that. Kuala Lumpur airport is a labyrinth of hallways and escalators. I also appeared to be the only person getting a domestic transfer, so I walked alone down white, sterile hallways, feeling like I was somehow wandering into a horror movie (Hostel; airport edition?).

Eventually I found a customs desk of sorts, where a bored guard could barely be bothered to glance up from her phone to tell me to use the automatic kiosk. It scanned my passport and my face and let me through. Then I found myself in a baggage scanning area that was so unused both officers were sitting around a corner, chatting. I had to yell and wave to get their attention so I could get through.

Finally I found myself in Terminal J.

There were not a lot of options. I picked a coffee shop that served fried noodles, and ordered a lemon tea and some fried noodles.

I killed about an hour there, then walked to my gate.

This flight was about 20 minutes late, which made me nervous, mostly because I was worried I had missed some announcement in Malay. It didn’t help that there appears to be a flight out of this gate to Kota Kinabalu every hour.

Eventually we were loaded on. I discovered an old lady had taken my seat – the flight attendant said it was to be next to her husband, who was across the aisle, and asked if I minded. Which put me in the middle seat again.

Grumble… I suppose not… why didn’t she just select a seat next to him? I guess because selecting a seat is 50 bucks…

This flight was also short and turbulent. I watched a family with 4 kids in front of me be very uncontrollable. The small girl – maybe 4 years old – wouldn’t sit in the seat properly or use her seatbelt effectively, and it made me nervous. The older girl, maybe 7, got annoyed halfway through the flight when she tried to use her phone to access something that required internet, and didn’t seem to understand that there wasn’t any internet to be had. The father appeared to be using two phones at the same time… for… business?

Some people asked if visiting a majority-Muslim country is concerning. I will say, Malaysia is not Iran. A good chunk of the women do not wear headscarves, and many that do also wear trousers. The government occasionally issues scary edicts, like women should not wear trousers or do yoga, but as the number of Instagram posts from Bali will show, no one enforces that… especially not for tourists. Like badly behaved Farang, there is a double standard of not really caring what tourists do. It’s also worth noting, the Muslim majority is a thin majority; only 60%.

Landed with no fuss, got through customs with no fuss. I didn’t want to glance at my passport – my biggest concern is that I’d get a 30 day visa and have to renew it for conference – but I got a 90 day one.

Cool.

Walked out of the airport and tried to hail a Grab to take me to my hostel. Kota Kinabalua is a small city, but it’s spread out laterally along the seafront.

Malaysia, unlike the rest of Southeast Asia, doesn’t really use Grab. They don’t really use anything; Maxim is making a big push for relevance, but they’ve only had a license to operate since December. For food, Foodpanda is universal.

Eventually I managed to get to my hostel and immediately regretted it. You have to be buzzed in through not one, but 2 sets of security doors. There’s a sign taped to the desk about what to do if you get bed bugs. The whole place just felt grimy.

I also discovered, I’d made a goof and accidentally booked for two people, not one. So I ended up in a private room.

I quickly checked the room for bedbugs – clear – and ordered some food. There’s some sort of extractor vent near the ceiling that’s quite noisy, but turning it off didn’t help. Like many buildings in Southeast Asia, there are sections of the hallways and stairwell that were designed to be perpetually open to the elements, and we were along a busy road.

Somehow I managed to get to sleep, but I was awoken early by what sounded like a football rally. I went to the hallway ‘window’ – it was a military parade on the street!

Turns out, March 30th is a holiday in Sabah, the province of Malaysia I was in. It’s the governors’ birthday.

I went downstairs for the free breakfast. There was toast with peanut butter that had been adulterated with sugar (because I bought a jar of the same peanut butter later and it tasted different) and some instant noodles. Reviews indicate the free breakfast used to include eggs, but there were no eggs in sight.

Alright… now that’s over with, time to figure out where I’m going.

The host had given me instructions on how to get to Kota Belud, which included going to the square now currently occupied by the military parade. I wandered over to the side of the road to see what I could see.

Turns out, very informal bus system in Malaysia. There was a bunch of minivans by the side of the road, drivers flagging me down. They are the ‘bus’ I was to take to Kota Belud. You pay them 20 ringgit and they leave whenever they feel like it.

Alrighty then.

I still needed cash. I tracked down an open ATM and withdrew some.

Malaysia is weird because it’s kind of like Singapore – affluent and English fluent – but it’s also still grimy, like the rest of Southeast Asia. Or at least, Sabah is. I was kind of walking the line here – any further east, and I’d be into the triangle of Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines that were plastered with warnings about pirates.

The last thing I needed was a charger. I was so sure I’d seen the wall plugs they had here, but I didn’t seem to have it with me (I later realized that’s because they have British-style plugs, but I hadn’t brought mine with me). I found some electronics store that was open despite the holiday, and spent extra on a beast of a plug that could fit multiple different types. Score!

Then I went back to the hostel, checked out, and walked back to the bus stop. Onwards!

I had a moment of misgivings – maybe getting into a minivan full of Malaysian men and going into the jungle wasn’t a smart idea – but I found a bus with three women in it, so that’s ok. We waited about an hour for him to have enough people and decide to hit the road.

I don’t know why, but I always end up in the vans and tuktuks driven by the people who have places to be. Even in Siem Reap, I was confused by my driver overtaking all the other white people. Do I just seem like the kind of person who demands to get there fast?

An hour and a half ride through winding jungle roads because an hour ride, clutching the ‘holy shit’ bar for most of it. The seats were just couches bolted to the floor and there was no seatbelts. The driver spent the first 20 minutes talking very loudly to the woman in the front seat with him, who as far as I could tell never acknowledged anything he said.

Then we were deposited in the centre of Kota Belud, a small town. I still had further to go, though. Technically, I was headed to a hamlet called Taun Gusi.

I debated offering the driver another 10 ringgit to take me to my final destination, but I hesitated too long. I hopped out of the minivan with my luggage and stood around, blinking in the noon sun. I opened Grab, but there was literally no drivers. Now what?

“Excuse me, lady, where you going?” A man asked.

Ummm… “Taun Gusi?” I said.

“Taun Gusi… oh, Ismail’s place! I know him well, he’s my brother.” He said, shaking my hand. I’m sure he meant brother metaphorically. He gestured to a random dude sitting nearby. “He can drive you. 20 ringgit.” He gestured for the man to stand up and started talking to him in Malay.

The man came over, grabbed my luggage and threw it into a car. I debated trying to haggle and decided against it. At least it was a one-time cost.

Taun Gusi is not far from Kota Belud, at this point I’ve walked it more than once, but luggage. Also, the footbridge isn’t on Google maps.

We ended up in what I presume is a standard Malay village. Down a gravel road was a small complex, a wide courtyard under an awning, and some white buildings. The driver unloaded my luggage and I paid him.

A man came down the steps. “Hello, Lucy?”

“Yes! You must be Ismail.” I offered him my hand to shake, and after a moment, he accepted it. It later occurred to me that contact between unmarried men and women is probably frowned upon by a devout Muslim (Malaysia is one of the places where a fake wedding ring will help a lot).

He showed me around. His English is good but not perfect. There’s his house, with a patio, the guesthouse with 4 rooms and the kitchen – only for my use – a small outhouse, and a small bamboo hut that was for volunteers.

It was beyond rustic. The kitchen was cement, with a grate door, a single tap with no hot water, a fridge, and a single gas element. There was a rice cooker, and a panini press for some reason. A lot of the utensils were broken or cheap plastic and the back was open to the elements.

The hut was also a little sketchy. The walls were not solid, presumably to allow air flow, but it also meant there was no sound resistance at all. No AC either, but a single fan, a single light bulb, and a single socket for my use. There was a chair, a bed with a mosquito net, and a table with a speaker on it (I later moved the speaker so I could use the table).

There was a male and a female side to the outhouse, but Ismail said he closed up the female side because it didn’t get a lot of action. Rooms 1, 2 and 3 have their own bathrooms, and only room 4 would be sharing the outhouse with me. There was a group of 3 men staying there; they were tiling the courtyard for his brother-in-laws place, which was next door.

He requested I tidy up the kitchen and otherwise left me to settle in.

I hauled my luggage up into the hut. There was a list of tasks on the wall, but it was not long. Actually, scanning it, I doubted any of this would actually take me 2 hours.

The other signs made me nervous.

Non Halal food and alcohol strictly prohibited.

Hmm. That’s novel.

For a few minutes, I immediately thought I’d made a mistake. I’m ok with the non-air conditioned hut, the gravel roads, and the bidet. But I don’t know much about Halal!

A quick Google set me somewhat at ease. Generally speaking, Halal means no pork and no non-Halal butchered animals. Since it’s mostly Muslims in this area, I assume most meat is Halal unless I go out of my way, and pork will be impossible to find anyway. Since I try to avoid beef, that just means chicken and fish. And I don’t plan on drinking. There are other, more specific rules, depending on one’s personal preference; for example, not eating a cake made with vanilla extract, as extracts are often alcohol based. And like kosher, the main problem lies in the idea that once something has been tainted, it can never be “clean” again. So if you use a knife to cut up pork, it can never be used in Halal cooking. But I don’t imagine I’ll be doing anything fancy in that kitchen.

I unpacked a bit and dozed off in the heat.

My little patio is nice… mostly. When Mount Kinabalu shows up (it’s often hidden behind clouds) the view is spectacular. But the set up inhibits me in other ways. The ‘desk’ is outside, so I can’t plug in my laptop, and it’s not much use once the sun goes down at 6:30. Also, this is the kind of place where I should be very wary of mosquitoes. I wouldn’t mind hitting the hay by 8, and waking up before the sun, but being right by the road, it’s too noisy.

The place was also plagued by stray dogs. There’s a pack of about 4 of them, 3 female and one male, and at least one of them was visibly pregnant. They got into the garbage and were just generally in the way and annoying. More than once, I was woken up because they decided to howl at the moon.

I’ve also neglected to mention the geckos. There were geckos all across SEA, but they’re common as birds, so they become part of the scenery. A fair number of geckos have figured out that bugs are attracted to artificial light and hang out around human dwellings for all the tasty bugs. They also make a number of strange chirping sounds. One big fellow with red dots I started referring to as my pet, because he’s always hanging around at night to save me from mosquitoes.

I still needed some food. I cleaned up the kitchen – just putting away the rack overflowing with clean dishes – and took stock of what was left. Everything in here is mine. There’s salt, sugar, cooking oil and rice. Some tea and coffee. I’ll need milk.

I walked down the road. There was a stall open, but they didn’t have much on offer. I walked a bit further to another store. Mostly non-perishable goods… noodles, rice, chips. Maybe I need to be earlier for fruits and veg and protein. I got some instant noodles, a can of condensed milk, some bananas and a loaf of bread. There was jam in the fridge already.

People keep waving and yelling hello at me. The store owner guessed I was Ismail’s volunteer. Apparently we are that far off the beaten track…

As I wound down for the night, I thought about the last time I’d had a drink. What counts? I don’t consider having the shot at Bob’s… that was just being polite. Pu Luong? I haven’t gotten drunk drunk since Hua Hin… that’s almost 2 months, right?

Turns out there is a man in the other room in the hut. Around midnight, he gets dropped off and then whoever dropped him off honked several times. Forgot to pay his driver? After that malarkey, he then lay in bed and started listening to loud videos. I yelled at him and it stopped.

I was up around 5. Several times a day, there are Muslim prayers piped out of the mosque nearby. They aren’t long, but they are loud. But then, I definitely want to be up before the sun.

I made myself a breakfast. Bananas and bread with jam.

There’s no can opener, so I beat a hole in the can with the handle of a ladle, then another. Good thing I only need enough of a hole to pour!

Ismail came out and talked to me a bit. Then he decided to buy me breakfast, so we hopped in his car.

Malaysia produces its own gas, so the global shortage and price hike isn’t felt here. They don’t walk anywhere; they spend 5 minutes letting the AC cool down the car before going anywhere, even five minutes down the road. It would have taken me less time to walk the distance. We stopped at a roadside kiosk that just opens for breakfast and sells street food; noodles and a fried egg wrapped in banana leaves, 2 ringgit. Fried bananes – 1 ringgit. Pretty standard southeast Asian food. Ismail buys me a bunch of things and tells me to just put it in the fridge and eat it later.

The list of chores is short. This won’t even take me 2 hours. Watering the plants, easy. I weed them as well, just some grass. Cleaning the bathroom, also not a long time. Sweeping the courtyard takes the longest due to shear volume, but still no longer than half an hour.

Ismail is sitting on his porch. He doesn’t have anything else and tells me to relax.

Bah, relax!

He told me I could borrow the pedal bike, so I hop on it and go for a ride. More people waving and asking where I’m going.

The views of the mountain are so worth it!

For dinner, Ismail’s wife gave me some rice and some chicken, also street food. It was probably only one or two ringgit, but I was grateful nonetheless. I didn’t talk to her much; she doesn’t leave the house often and when she does, she waves me away with a “I don’t speak English”.

On Wednesday, the list of chores got even shorter. The bathroom didn’t need cleaning. The plants didn’t need watering. I could sweep the courtyard again, but it wasn’t that dirty.

I made up some tasks for myself. Since I’d seen Ismail use a lot of water, I filled up a bucket with some water and splashed it on portions of the courtyard covered in bird shit. After it had “soaked” for a bit, I used the broom to “sweep” the bird droppings away. It was reasonably effective – or as effective as I cared it to be, when I was making up tasks for myself. I also boiled a kettle of water, added some salt, and poured it on some of the spots where grass was sticking up through the cement. I could have done the whole portion, but let’s leave some work for other days!

Ismail headed out early. He stopped to write on the whiteboard before he left.

“This guest is arriving today. I have a meeting, I might be back before he gets here, I might not.”

Understood. Stick around until either the guest or Ismail arrives.

Around 11, the guest showed up, a British man named David. I showed him his room and we chatted for a bit before I left him to do his thing.

Around 4, I walked down to the store to grab the things I needed to make a curry.

There was some local Malay kid hanging around who found me interesting. We chatted for a bit and I asked him for help with my shopping. Chicken breasts were not to be found, but there were half and whole chickens. I grabbed half a chicken. 15 ringgit.

As I walked back to the homestay, he poked my arms. “I know what this is.”

“My tattoo?” I turned my arm over. He was talking about the As above, So below one.

“I should go!” He suddenly exclaimed, jumped on his bike and raced off.

That’s weird. I wonder what set him off?

The curry ended up being a mistake. The pan is poorly seasoned and there’s not much sense in seasoning it. My sauce stuck to it and the light is poor enough in the kitchen that I couldn’t tell if the chicken was cooked. I ended up having to cut it off the bone and cook it again, in the little pot.

The curry tasted good, though.

I also realized my other mistake when I went back to clean the pan. There’s no scrubby and no hot water, only the extremely used sponge. I suppose I could buy a steel wool, but it seems easier to just not need it. I boiled some water in the pan and left it to soak overnight, at Vlad’s suggestion.

Thursday morning was nice. It was cloudy when I woke up, and started raining. I finished my chores before 8:30.

I asked Ismail if he had anything else for me and he showed me one of the taps in the yard. “This is the government water. That one is from the tanks.” He gestured to the bright blue tanks at the back of the house, before twisting the tap. Nothing came out. “I noticed yesterday. No water, very dry.”

But it just rained this morning, and the mountains had dark clouds over them every day. I wonder if the real answer is that, like New Zealand, the government shuts off the intake when there’s a lot of rain, to protect it from high silt levels.

“So just relax.” He says.

Aye, aye.

The guy in the hut left, finally.

David was outside, trying to make a tea.

“I have milk and sugar, if you want. Condensed milk.” I offered.

“Ah, that’s alright. We used to eat it with a spoon, you know, spread it on bread.” He took a drag from a cigarette. “Is there anywhere around here to shop, do ya know?”

“There’s a few places. Actually, I was going to walk to Kota Belud, since it’s cloudy. It’s only about 40 minutes, want to come?”

“Can we go at noon?”

My jaw fell open. “Noon? That’s too late.” Who knows if these clouds will hold?

“11, then?”

Even that’s pushing it. We’ll be out in the full noon sun.

Reluctantly, I agreed. (and in hindsight, I should have said no)

By 11, the sun was indeed on full blast. I slathered myself in sunscreen, but I still felt it. We also got lost on the walk (my fault, I admit) and a 40 minute walk became an hour and a half walk.

We had some good conversation on the way. And some terrible conversation; he thinks climate change is some conspiracy to reduce the population. He lived for 30 years in Denmark with his wife and kids, then she left him, he retired and went back to the UK and discovered his pension couldn’t keep him to the style he wanted. What style that is, I’m not sure, considering that Malaysia is not cheap. He also didn’t really seem to be enjoying it here, complaining about all the things that aren’t like England. I told him if what he wanted was tropical England, he should give New Zealand a go.

Once we got to Kota Belud, we stopped at a place for lunch. It was some sort of buffet style – you get a plate of rice, and point at what else you want. I got some greens, some tofu and a boiled egg; David heaped his plate high. We sat next to a stray cat sunning itself on the patio.

When we went to pay, the cashier asked us where we were from. When we said Taun Gusi, she mentioned her name as Noriah, and said one of Ismail’s past helpers had come to her island to help after there, in a *hint hint* kind of way.

Hmm… pass. But I’ll keep it in my pocket.

Next stop; Watsons! Ismail mentioned there was a cobbler near Watsons, and my boots have split entirely from side to side, to the point of being unusable. I found the cobbler, and he spent half an hour gluing a strip of rubber along the crack. David wandered off. I went into Watsons to grab some sunscreen and feminine hygiene products.

After everything was done, we wasted half an hour trying to get a ride on Maxim. The base price was 5.7 ringgit, but unlike Grab, Maxim also allows you to let drivers “bid” on rides. Clearly no one wanted to drive us for 5.7, and after a while we gave up and went into Ai-Cha for a cold drink and some AC. I finally opened it up to bids and someone jumped on it for 15 ringgit, and based on where his car was coming from, he was just chilling at home until he saw a call worth going out for.

Of course, after we got home, it started raining.

Despite my fastidious sunscreen use, I finally got a sunburn and a bit of a suntan.

In the evening, a carful of Malaysian ladies showed up for the night. They took over my kitchen, which made me grumble a bit, but they left it cleaner than I found it, so that’s alright. They’re from “peninsular” Malaysia, like KL.

In the morning, the ladies were up even before the sun and myself. They had taken over the kitchen again, and told me to sit down and they’d cook me breakfast.

Oh… ok.

This is where I earn my keep, being the fascinator. They were all eager to test their English with me. One said her English is pretty good because she likes American movies and they never bother dubbing in Malay. They wanted to know everything about my travels, but no one had reproach for me being an unmarried single woman travelling alone. As dishes started coming out of the kitchen, they all wanted to know what I thought of traditional Malay food.

To be honest… pretty good, but then I am weird. Fried bananas are normal. The gruel of watery rice – called congee – is so-so but much improved by the addition of salted fish. There were other dishes I don’t know the names of; some cuttlefish in a red sauce; fried, battered fish; some kind of curry. It was all very yummy.

Ismail also asked me to make Tiktok’s for him. I don’t do Tiktok, but I discovered Instagram’s new side-app, Edits, allows you to make Tiktok/Reels style short videos and then download them to post anywhere, which is fun. I can make a video for Insta and then post it to Discord, and send it to Ismail to do what he wants with it.

One of the ladies, Siti, is around my age, and she offered for me to come with them on their next trip to Indonesia. A road-trip around Indonesia with a bunch of Malaysian ladies? That’s an opportunity that doesn’t come up often!

It didn’t end up coming to fruition, sadly. I got Siti’s Whatsapp and we chatted a bit; turns out she actually just wanted me to bum around Indonesia with her for a bit once the other ladies went home. Which I wasn’t opposed to, either, but it became clear we weren’t on the same page about some things and it fell through. Oh well! It was fun to meet them. When they checked out, they gifted me a bag of rice crackers and a bowl of fish-head soup as well.

Napped around noon.

At 2, Ismail drove me and David to the beach. There’s some sort of public works going on there; trying to clean up the place to attract tourists. We thought we’d be helping out a bit, but he really just drove us there to be kind. We went swimming for an hour; David brought a snorkel with him, but there’s no reefs around here and not much to see. There’s not even much in the way of shells. Lots of crabs and sand fleas, though. Then we rest for a bit, and Ismail brought us some coffee and a take-out container of noodles that were spicy in the worst way; painful without being flavourful. Ismail was busy for another two hours, so I went for a short swim and a walk along the beach. I took some videos for another short video as well, but I doubt I’m going to make Kota Belud a tourist hotspot.

I’m kinda surprised I still have all my bracelets from the temples in Thailand. Some part of me thought they’d fall off by now.

Firecrackers are a problem. The kids around here can buy them anytime, so they do. Every night, around 8 PM, there’s a symphony. Also, the tiler’s car starts with the sound of a jet engine; probably missing a muffler, since multiple things on it are held on with a twist of cable and prayers.

On Saturday, David asked me as I was working on my chores, if I’d be available to walk to town around 9. He’d learned his lesson the other day.

We took off at the appointed time, this time taking the bridge and arriving within 40 minutes. This was the first time I wore my boots since they had been repaired. Ismail loaned me a pair of flipflops.

You know what I do miss about Vietnam? The fruit. In Thailand and Vietnam, fruit was plentiful and cheap. Not so in Malaysia, for some reason. Since my only option for cooking was the gas hob, I was hoping to bridge the gap with some fruit, since cheese and deli meats are also hard to come by. No dice. Most stores didn’t have much in the way of fruit; I finally gave up and bought some Asian pears.

Of course, the other problem is that we can’t buy anything that won’t survive the 40 minute walk back in the full sun.

Like my boots.. the repair did not last the walk back.

David wanted a thick sewing needle to fix his rucksack. He already broke one of mine, but they were a cheap travel kit, so I don’t care. Somebody convinced him to buy a sewing awl that would work, but I knew right away he wouldn’t have the skill to use it (I was right).

After we walked back and I had lunch, I set about doing laundry. Ismail doesn’t have a washing machine, but he does provide a tub and detergent for free, so I tried my hand at hand-washing.

I am not good at it. Of course, I’m not really ‘dirty’, I’m just rinsing the sweat out of my clothes. The amount of available clothes I have has shrunk even further, because I don’t want to wear anything ‘immodest’, which presumably includes my off-the-shoulder shirt.

Despite there not being a water heater, the water being cold isn’t a problem. Funnily enough, around noon, the water is hot from sitting in the lines in the sun all day, so you end up having a hot shower when you want a cold one!

For dinner, me and David made mashed potatoes. Yes, potatoes are common in Malaysia, curiously. We couldn’t find milk or butter, or even margarine, but I know how to make fluffy mashed potatoes by emulsifying an egg. We made a whole 3 or 4 pounds of mash, and I set David to soft-boil some eggs in the rice cooker. We ended up with a decent amount of food and invited Ismail to join us; he ate a plate of mashed potatoes and an egg to be polite, but clearly found the meal strange.

After dinner, David did the dishes and I fixed his rucksack. As predicted, he was useless with the sewing awl but it was a simple fix for me. He gifted me a couple of resistance bands that he wasn’t using as thanks!

Thus I completed my first week in rural Malaysia.