Results tagged “Malaysia” from Intelligent Travel Blog

For many people, Southeast Asia conjures up images of ancient stone temples, vibrant colors, spicy cuisine and warm, musky rains breathing life into lotus ponds.

But imagine instead hiking for miles shin-deep in mud, fending off bloodsucking leeches and existing on a diet of tarantulas and cockroaches, while risking infection, heatstroke and malaria. Not exactly your typical camping trip. For most people, such an excursion would sound treacherous and even insane, but for young herpetologist Perry Wood Jr.  it's simply a passionate pursuit of knowledge in the name of science.

When Perry (aka JR) Wood began studying Southeast Asian amphibians and reptiles more than eight years ago, he never imagined the rough trails and beautiful landscapes his fieldwork would lead him to. As a graduate biology student specializing in taxonomy and molecular systematics, Wood regularly makes trips to Malaysia, Thailand, and Cambodia in an effort to identify new species in what he explains is an understudied region for herpetological diversity.

Greetings, city-lovers! Nadiah and Ming live in Kuala Lumpur, and they tell us that their city is bursting with things to do, see, and eat.

Want to see your city on IT? Copy and paste our list of fill-in-the-blank questions into an e-mail, fill in your answers, and send your responses to IntelligentTravel@ngs.org. And if you're still waiting for us to feature yours, fear not! We're going to keep posting as long as we keep getting them (please include photos and links!).

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is Our City

The first place I take a visitor from out of town is The KLCC Twin Towers because that is the first thing people recognize.

When I crave random tidbits and knick knacks I always go to a night market where i can get anything from kimchi to DVDs.

To escape the crowds and hot city air I head to the Genting Highlands where I can drive really fast along abandoned winding roads.

If I want to eat banana leaf rice I go to Krishna Curry House in Section 14.

For complete quiet, I can hide away by having a picnic and reading a book at the various waterfalls and rivers just outside town.

If you come to my city, get your picture taken with any one of the random mat rempits (illegal motorcycle racers) that roam the streets after dark.

If you have to order one thing off the menu from Werner's in Changkat Bukit Bintang it has to be the rum raisin pancake.

Low Yat Plaza is my one-stop shop for great deals on electronics.

Locals know to skip Putrajaya and check out Petaling Jaya instead.

When I'm feeling cash-strapped I go to a kopitiam and order a white coffee and kaya toast.

For a huge splurge I go to the Spa Village KL.

Photo ops in my city include the night markets, the twin towers, and the decaying poorly maintained alleys, and the best vantage points are petaling street corner, the KL tower, and behind any mega-shopping complex.

Friend of IT Lisa Sonne recently had a close encounter in Kuala Lumpur that can only be described as illuminating.

There are several M words you can use to describe Malaysia - mysterious, mystical, magical, and, well, modest. An etiquette book for tourists going to Malaysia recommends, "no public displays of affection" (not even holding hands). It further suggests that women travelers to this equatorial hot zone not wear sleeveless tops or V-necked shirts to be respectful to local customs.

So I was rather surprised when I found out I could make arrangements to watch (but not participate in) a massive sexual orgy - thousands trying to seduce thousands each night, outside, in the dark. Even more intriguing, it's rumored to be one of only two large-scale group-sex gatherings in the world where the males' seductions are in a completely synchronous rhythm, like some mega-meta-choreographed sensory bacchanal.

For this, I boarded a plane to beguiling Kuala Lumpur, and then had a driver take me 90 minutes into the countryside. Then, to get to the titillating trysting target, I was told to step into a wooden flat-bottomed boat. A dark stranger thrust the paddles into the water. As he stroked, we pushed forward in spurts. After all this build up, I was afraid things might be anticlimactic, but we rounded a bend -- and then -- WOW!

Thousands of fireflies blinked on and then off in unison, a huge collective mating call to get the females' attention.