Visiting Indonesia, he got to understand his country a bit more, Malaysian writer Karim Raslan once said. The reverse could be applied to me: visiting Malaysia helps me understand what my country--Indonesia--is all about. Sort of.
My quest for solo adventure began when I realized, belatedly, that my passport would soon to be useless. My passport would expire in eight months, and it's still empty. I reckoned it would be awkward when the time comes to renew my passport and the immigration official finds it yet to be used. Where to go then? The common opinion was Singapore, but what the heck would I do there? Shopping? Gawking at its modernity and displaying what a bumpkin I am? Thanks, but I'll pass. The next candidate was Malaysia. It's close, I don't need a visa to visit the country, and my parents wouldn't needlessly fuss over it too much (what with it being my first time abroad and all by myself to boot, my attempt at coaxing a friend to join me had previously failed). So Malaysia it is. I've been wanting to go to Malacca for some time, and a friend said that Penang is a must-see. So up I went.
Landing at Penang after a two-hour flight, I was greeted by a blast of humid air upon stepping out of the airport. It's a small island after all, I mused, with sea all around it. The arrival of Rapid Penang bus soon afterwards confirmed that I was indeed in a foreign country. Indonesian buses aren't much to look at, but Rapid Penang is so sleek and clean, and . . . Oh, look! Gigantic letters of T, E, S, C, and O on a strip mall! Not just any foreign country then, but a foreign country that was once a British colony!
The bus took me cruising down neat, wide streets to the conspicuous KOMTAR--Kompleks Tun Abdul Razak, named after the former Prime Minister--the tallest building on the island, in Georgetown. I had a map in my person, but thanks to my terrible sense of direction, I got lost within five minutes of getting off the bus. The fact that Malaysian road signs are parallel to the street--in contrast to those in Indonesia, which are perpendicular to the street--didn't help either.
After a couple of wrong turns--well, more than a couple--I finally found the place I was meant to stay in. When my declaration of having made a reservation in Bahasa Indonesia was met by blank stare from the attendant, I realized once again that despite the linguistic similarity, despite the common roots, Bahasa Indonesia and Malaysian Malay are two different entities, mirroring two different paths the two nations had taken.
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