I recently stumbled onto an online travel journal kept by one of UMR's recent graduates as he travels around the world. I have yet to read all his articles but I was interested in this.

The link is to a bunch of articles written about his visit to Malaysia (my homeland). It was a rather new and unique experience reading them simply because I have never really seen Malaysia through the eyes of a tourist.

It is amazing how simple little things have never really registered as "different" to me because I have been around it my whole life and it has just been part of my life. Things -- like how so many shopowners tend to use solar calculators or how tables from a restaurant are placed even on the sidewalk to the point of hindering walking pedestrians -- have never really crossed my mind but obviously made enough of an impression on someone else that they decided to write about it.

Some of his articles I found to be despairingly honest. Like getting ripped off! It made for a horrible example for the country. I know that people ripping others off is an act that can be found anywhere regardless of a nation's borders, and especially to foreign visitors, but it was sort of a slap in the face to realize that it could happen even in my beloved Malaysia.

I found his travels in Malaysia to be somewhat limited. I don't know... perhaps it is just me. If I were traveling around my country, I would have gone for more naturey spots of interest. Beaches. Forest reserves. Watching orang utans. But I supposed that is because growing up, I had gotten my fill of temples and such.