Opportunities Today :- November 2007 Issue

Discovering Malaysia

 

 

Mr. Dinesh Balsaver- an octogenarian is a practicing Organic Farmer. He has farms at Kamshet which is 110 km away from Mumbai. He is not only the founder of the Cooperative Society for Organic Farming (with 20 members at present) but is also a retired Vice President of a Petrochemical Company where he started his career. Mr. Bulsaver is a well travelled person and besides travelling to Malaysia, has also travelled to South Africa - the Compact Travels way. Here is his first hand account of exploring Malaysia.

Being a Farmer by profession, my main purpose in visiting Malaysia was to see their tropical rain forest regions which are 130 million years old and are also supposed to be the oldest in the world. Keeping this interest of mine in mind, Compact Travels designed a tour for me which included a two day stay in the Rain forest region of Taman Negara.Taman Negara is a forest reserve and the travel time from Kuala Lumpur is approximately a 3 hour coach ride plus a 3 hour boat ride. The resort where my accommodation was booked had comfortable air-conditioned wooden huts and excellent food geared to international taste.

 

The tours organized by the Resort included a forest trek under the guidance of a `forest guide' who could bring out the bio-diversity of the forest, explain the medicinal values of several plants and point out some of the unique plants such as the `peacock fern' which changes colour from green to blue to purple depending on the intensity of sunlight. The trek included a `Canopy walk' where you walk over a rope bridge suspended 150 feet above ground level. Walking over the canopy of trees you get a bird's eye view of the thick forest. The tour also included a `night-walk' through the forest to hear the orchestra of insects which can be heard only at night.

Besides Taman Negara, I visited Genting and Langkawi. Genting is a hill station with amusement park facilities and Langkawi is a beautiful island with excellent beaches. Everywhere the arrangements made by Compact Travels went off without a flaw and therefore my visit was indeed an enjoyable one.

 

Malaysia is a lucky country and due to its location on the globe and of the land mass of Indonesia to its west it is able to avoid the fury of the south west monsoon. It gets rainfall almost evenly throughout the year and there is not a single month when the rainfall is less then five inches and not a single month when the rainfall is more than 11 inches. This even rainfall is a big asset that has resulted in thick tropical forests and fertile soil. Malaysia derives its wealth from Palm Oil, Rubber and now Tourism. Due to its more or less uniform rainfall throughout the year, Malaysia is a year round tourist destination which gets its tourists from Australia, New Zealand and also from Europe especially during their winter months. Realizing the potential for tourism, the Malaysian Government has made heavy investments in infrastructure leading to a modern international airport, excellent roads and rapid transport systems, all built within the last 15 years!. The people of Malaysia are very friendly and their standard of cleanliness is far above ours. There are no garbage heaps on the roads of Kuala Lumpur and there are no slums whatsoever.

 

In conclusion, I would like to say that Malaysia has an interesting mix of cultures - there are Chinese, the original Malays, and surprisingly enough Tamilians from India. Once, I asked for a typical Malay dish and was instead served Chinese fried rice on a banana leaf in a plate, with `papadams' as accompaniment. Here was Chinese fried rice served with a distinct Tamil touch and that is the mix of cultures in Malaysia for you!