Malaysia
The rest of the Malay Peninsula is occupied with Malaysia, and this part of the country is home for 4/5 of the Malaysian inhabitants, the other fifth of the country is located at the Borneo Island and many other tiny islands. Malaysia has soaked in all the best from all the Asian countries. This is why, to a great extent, it resembles some of Thailand, some of China, some of Indonesia, yet, with its own unique features.
Just like Thai, Malaysians come from whole spectrum of civilizations: Chinese, Cambodian, Java and Sumatra. The oldest of Malay families is orang azli, coming from the Southeast of China. There are about 80,000 of people left from this tribe by now; they live in small groups at Malay Peninsula. Once Malaysia has been counted one of the colonies belonging to Great Britain, and this is when tin mining industry began to grow. Tin invested the most in the development of the country, and especially its capital Kuala Lumpur, which formed as a miners’ village in 1857 in the confluence of two rivers - in Malay Kuala Lumpur literally means “muddy confluence”. Right now, it is a contrastive city with Moor architecture, Muslim mosques and Petronas Twin Towers, the highest buildings of the world, which are a good example of architecture influence on business: as soon as the image of the city gained its modern looks, investments and development were immediately there to follow. Kuala Lumpur has also kept the British colonial rule legacy in architecture: there are private houses and even entire palaces which now are being involved in the new form of tourism: paranormal tourism, performances of English ghosts.
Malay culture has been influenced by the mix of different religions: there are local pagan roots, Buddhism traditions from India and Islamic movement brought here in 14th century with the Muslim merchants; in 15th century they formed Malacca sultanate. By now it is federal constitutional elective monarchy, the sultanate, too. Nine of the Malay states are led by the sultans, from which the king is elected, the other four are led by the governors; each of the states has its own constitution and Sharia – the body of Islamic law. Different religions are living along in Malaysia: Islamic mosque can stand next to Christian church or pagoda. Sometimes the religions even mix together since the state is trying to enhance Islam among local inhabitants by financial and social support, which is rather unusual for the Islamic traditions. Even shamans may import some recital of Koran in their rituals every now and then. Also Malaysia is known for its shaman traditions; besides, it is not necessarily the feature of low life level: many of the shamans come from rather highly developed provinces.
Malay Peninsula is rich with water resources, especially rivers. However, they rarely are long and because of the rainforest they mostly function as water routes all year long. Being full of rapids, these rivers are also useful for power plants, of which the biggest in the world is being built these days in the state of Sarawak. This will be a good addition to the highest towers and the third longest bridge in the world also located in this country. Realization of this project will take another 27,600 hectares of rainforest, which is already being the most intensively cut here, in Malaysia, and inneighboring Indonesia. By now, the area of rainforests covers 60% of the country. The highest point of the peninsula is 2,190 high Gunung Tahan.
Malaysia consists of thirteen states, and our expedition is going to cross few of them in southern direction: the Kedah state with its large rice fields, the Perak state which has been the state where tin mining first began. Then the team is going through Selangor, Negeri Sembilan and Johor states, to Causeway Link Bridge that links Malaysia with their next stop, Singapore.
Elizabete Neimiseva for enduroadventure.lv
Photos from www.svali.ru