Backpacking, Part 1

Our adventures began Tuesday night, flying from Hyderabad to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  We had a 18 hour layover there so explored the city in as touristy of a fashion as you can get:  a hop on, hop off, double decker tour bus.  Malaysia is one of those places that sounds cool, but I knew literally nothing about.  We found little India, where our breakfast was a whopping $1.25, and then hit the national museum where I learned that apparently Malaysia was a British colony back in the day.  (I don’t think the word “Malaysia” was ever mentioned within my school history books, or at any point other than my semester of geography.)   

The architecture in Kuala Lumpur is incredible and varied and I loved it.  It’s a blend of British colonial meets Arab world meets modernism meets beachy bungalows.  So, after drooling over the buildings, we had lunch at a place we picked because it smelled good. I literally pointed to random Malay words on the menu to order, and thankfully the food was delicious!  

Malaysia is a Muslim country, and one of the highlights of Kuala Lumpur was visiting the national mosque.  To enter, everyone is required to wear loose, flowing clothing, so visitors are given hideous-yet-comfortable lilac robes and hijabs.  One of the women there was able to talk with us about the mosque, and it was interesting to hear her perspective.

Thursday:  we reached Seoul, which is the capital of South Korea. That night, we had a piicnic at the park/river with Yuna, who I’d lived with at Mizzou. And then we crashed pretty hard, because sleeping 2 consecutive nights on airplanes is not overly restful.

Friday was our DMZ tour.  First, we got to speak with a North Korean lady who had escaped a few years earlier with her daughter.  Hearing her story and being able to ask questions was an amazing opportunity.  Then, we went to a place on a small mountain where they had binoculars set up so that we could look into a North Korean town.  The weather was a little hazy, so it wasn’t the best, but we could pick out the monuments and even see workers in the rice fields.  Overall, it was difficult to fathom that the two countries are SO close, literally just separated by a few hundred meters of river at parts.

Through the haze: that white tower is a monument to Kim Il Sung, and on the right you can see some houses.

Then, we went to the DMZ (demilitarized zone), which is the boundary line between North and South Korea, as well as a couple kilometers of buffer zone on each side.  South Korea’s side of the DMZ requires visitors to go through 2 checkpoints where soldiers verify your passport (after doing a background check upon booking the tour.) Then we were required to go through a briefing and transferred from our tour bus to a military bus, complete with military escort. Yet, as strict as the whole thing is, there is actually a village of farmers who live and maintain the rice fields within the DMZ--and a South Korean soldier visits their homes nightly to make sure all family members are counted for.

There are several buildings along the South’s side intended for offices and meetings related to the reunification of the two Koreas, but they have essentially remained empty.  We followed orders and walked through one of these buildings in 2 single file lines.  But as soon as we set foot outside, there was an eerie, intense silence that is unlike anything I’ve experienced.  A set of blue buildings were right in front of us, with a concrete line drawn between them to indicate the border.  Just past those blue buildings was a foreboding, massive building with a North Korean soldier standing guard. We also got to enter one of the blue buildings and, while inside, stand “in” the North.  I wish I could have some way to capture the intense, eerie, silence, but pictures will have to suffice.

That night, Liban and I were still feeling adventurous.  So after the tour, we got street food, which involved pointing to things on other people’s plates. Turns out, we ordered spicy pig intestines (not horrible, but not delicious).  We also ordered the still-alive-in-the-tank-before-us octopus that she chopped up and added sesame seeds to.  Because of the chemical reactions, it continued to wiggle around on your plate, but didn’t do as much in our mouths.  The taste was fine, but I chewed so much my gums were bleeding before I spit the last bit out!

Saturday we went to a Korean comedic play with Yuna and then had dinner with one of Liban’s friends from MSU.  We then all dressed up in Korean traditional clothing “hanbok” and toured Seoul’s main palace.  Seeing the palace/lights reflect on the water as well as the silhouette of the palace against the backdrop of the city is amazing, but the best part was getting to be with our friends!