Malaysia - an insight from a buddhist life

When I landed in Malaysia on Monday late afternoon and not knowing what to expect as I had nothing planned for the following 10 days, I was overwhelmed with joy and happiness caused by the kindness and cordiality of the people I was about to meet the following days.
This week I had the amazing opportunity of staying in two different Buddhist temples, enjoying Buddhist chanting, sitting on a motorcycle and driving around Kuala Lumpur and visiting many more Buddhist temples.

One of the temples where I stayed

The bedroom, I slept on the floor

So after staying two nights at two different Buddhist temples (free accommodation and free food) my Chinese-Malaysian friend (who I met more than 3 years ago in Vietnam) and I went to Cameron Highlands. This part of Malaysia has lush forests and the climate is much more comfortable, temperatures only as high as 20-25 degrees and humidity much lower than in Kuala Lumpur, where it is almost 100%. So I took the chance of climbing a hill (or mountain, whatever you prefer, the height being around 1800 meters or nearly 6000 feet) and enjoying the mountaintop view. My friend was waiting for me in the meantime down below, as he is already over 50 years old and his feet don't take him very far anymore.

Overlooking the valley

Right now I am in Penang, an island in the northwest of Malaysia, staying at Edwins (my malay friend's name) house for the next couple of days until I will be flying to Sabah and Sarawak (formerly known as being a part of the island of Borneo), where I will meet my dad for a 3 week hiking trip. As Edwin has dedicated his last 20 years to Buddhism and his Buddhist temple in Penang, therefore I have had a chance to meet a lot of his Buddhist friends and get a better insight on the Buddhist way of life.

This is what we did most of the time:

This weekend I will spend in Thailand, enjoying Thai food and nightlife, so I will continue this blog when I get back early next week.