I have been here in Kuala Terengganu (KT), a small coastal city on the Terengganu river, since Tuesday. The state of Terengganu is about 95% Muslim, which is much higher than most other parts of the country. Above you can see several mosques lining the bank of the Terengganu river on the edge of town. There is a Muslim prayer house across the street from where I am staying and they broadcast the five daily prayers over a loudspeaker starting at 6am. But on the same street there is also a Hindu temple and a Presbyterian church!
On Wednesday I had the opportunity to attend a buka puasa (breaking of the fast) banquet here in KT. Everyone sits down with their food and waits until the announcement of the official end of the fast at sundown. Then they break the day-long fast by drinking and eating dates before starting into the rest of meal. I got a traditional baju kurung to wear to the buka puasa. It's very comfy to wear. The woman attending the dressing rooms told us it was the first time she had seen a white person wearing baju kurung! Here are the TCC ladies: Pelf, Dr. Chan, and me, all dressed up for the dinner.
Two days ago I paid my first visit to Kampung Mangkuk, the village where the Turtle Conservation Centre's Mini Turtle Museum is located. Mangkuk is on a narrow spit of land between the Setiu river (home of the turtles I will be studying) and the South China Sea. Goats, cows and chickens are all running around, and the houses are scattered among coconut palms like these (below, seen from the TCC building with the sea in the background). There is a large group of elementary school aged boys who like to come hang out in the Mini Turtle Museum whenever we are there. They are so full of energy and were excited to teach me Malay words and to learn the English ones.
I have found a 
place to live in the village and will be moving there in the next couple of days. There were a number of people eager to rent me a vacant house or room, but I ended up deciding to rent a room from a family who live near the TCC building. They are two grandparents, two parents, and four kids. The mother understands some English, but none of them speak it, so my first few weeks with them will be an intensive introduction to Bahasa Melayu, the malay language.
I am looking forward to immersing myself in the language and getting to know TCC's neighbors in Mangkuk. Internet in Mangkuk is VERY SLOW at best, so though I will be online only occasionally, I'll be sure to update when I can.
Aside from taking care of official business pertaining to my arrival in the country, most of what I have done in Malaysia so far is eat. It is Ramadan so restaurants are pretty quiet during the day (although I did manage to get some amazing Indian food for lunch yesterday, and satay chicken today!), but toward evening there are collections of stalls around on the street, called pasar ramadhan, selling food for the breaking of the fast at sundown. I met Jaki, a fellow Fulbrighter and fellow North Carolinian, for dinner this evening. We picked up an assortment of foods from a nearby pasar ramadhan and took them back to her apartment to eat. We got chicken and nasi tomato (tomato rice), a sort of bready vegetable omelette
type thing, plus some noodles, and everything was fantastic! On the way home I bought for RM5 ($1.60) a half kilo each of rambutan (above), which looks like a red and green koosh ball on the outside and tastes like a more tangy version of a leechee, and mangosteen (right), which is sort of like a creamy cross between a tangerine and a peach. Everything I have eaten here is so delicious!
Fifteen hours on an airplane is a very long time. For me it was long enough to try out every possible comfortable position for napping, watch three movies, study Malay vocabulary, get to know the old man sitting next to me, and wax amusingly philosophical about the adventure I am beginning:
"On the second leg of my trip to Malaysia—NewYork to HongKong, a 15 hour affair—it begins to dawn on me that Malaysia is VERY FAR AWAY. Not just physically, although that would be enough in itself, but truly different—different history, flora and fauna, religions, languages, different looking people. Back in June, a bus passed by me on a street corner in Washington DC and in that moment I suddenly realized that life is LONG (if you are lucky)—long enough for things to happen that you never even imagined that you hadn’t imagined, long enough for completely unexpected hundred and eighty degree changes of heart and tortuous three-sixty homecomings. With a similar sense of gravity, the knowledge settling into my bones right now is that the world is WIDE: wide enough to encompass the utterly inconceivable. Right now I am flying over the eastern edge of the Gobi desert, as near as I can tell. Somewhere down there people live their whole lives. Fully human beings are born and learn what normal means and do everyday things and love and grieve and die. And to them anything other than living in the Gobi desert would seem foreign and beyond the pale. We are malleable creatures—shaped by everything we encounter—and I realize that I am entering a period when new hands will knead the playdough of my soul. Whatever lies ahead, I prefer this morphing and reshaping to lying untouched on the countertop so long that I become a dried out rubbery crust."
After a mad last few days of packing and logistical preparation in Raleigh, my arrival in Malaysia went very smoothly (despite my perilously short layover in Hong Kong). I was relieved to arrive in Kuala Lampur (KL) after over 24 hours of traveling and get some sleep. It is not even as hot here as it was in Raleigh when I left, though the sun is more intense. My taxi driver from the airport had a little stuffed turtle hanging from his windshield, which seemed like a welcoming omen. I am looking forward to leaving on Tuesday for Terengganu province where the real turtles await.
The picture is the view looking down from my hotel window. I love the palm trees!
On Wednesday I had the opportunity to attend a buka puasa (breaking of the fast) banquet here in KT. Everyone sits down with their food and waits until the announcement of the official end of the fast at sundown. Then they break the day-long fast by drinking and eating dates before starting into the rest of meal. I got a traditional baju kurung to wear to the buka puasa. It's very comfy to wear. The woman attending the dressing rooms told us it was the first time she had seen a white person wearing baju kurung! Here are the TCC ladies: Pelf, Dr. Chan, and me, all dressed up for the dinner.
place to live in the village and will be moving there in the next couple of days. There were a number of people eager to rent me a vacant house or room, but I ended up deciding to rent a room from a family who live near the TCC building. They are two grandparents, two parents, and four kids. The mother understands some English, but none of them speak it, so my first few weeks with them will be an intensive introduction to Bahasa Melayu, the malay language.
