Adventures and Treasures Abound in this Southeast Asian Destination

BY LAWRENCE FERBER

Kuala Lumpur’s iconic Petronas Towers (www.petronas.com.my/internet/pett/pettweb.nsf) really are that spectacular, I say to myself while staring up at the pair of gigantic alien sparkplugs joined by a small skybridge, sitting atop the grand shopping and entertainment center, Suria KLCC (suriaklcc.com.my). That evening I’m wowed again in the bustling gay bar Blue Boy (utopia-asia.com) by a choreographed, enthusiastic quintet of drag queens performing Dreamgirls’ “Hard to Say Goodbye” and “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” Admittedly, their English lip-synch is off, like in badly dubbed foreign films, but let’s cut the Malay girls some slack.

The wows continued over my 10-day Malaysian visit as a guest of Tourism Malaysia’s annual Colours of Malaysia media trip, centered around a festival during which costumed performers representing each region converge in the stunning man-made city of Putrajaya (www.ppj.gov.my). But that drag queen wow could be seen as the most surprising, given the fact homosexuality is illegal in this Islam-ruled country.

Despite laws and conservative social/religious attitudes, gay bars and support groups exist, and legal loopholes provide same-sex couples with benefits and protections. Two women are allowed to adopt together, because one can be registered as a “domestic maid,” while two men can share property by filing as cousins. And while officially an Islamic country, some 40 percent of Malaysia’s population is non-Muslim, with Chinese and Indian residents making up sizable ethnic chunks.

I’m traveling with two American writers and a pair of local tour guides. We begin our itinerary in KL, but the first evening I venture off to have dinner with members of the Pink Triangle Foundation (ptfmalaysia.org), an HIV/AIDS prevention and support organization, at Palate Palette (palatepalette.com), a cute café/bar/art space popular with LGBTs.

Incredibly friendly, the PT members (many are Western-educated) do bar and club outreach almost nightly. I accompanied them to Frangipani (frangipani.com.my), a chic French restaurant/bar. Friday nights are gay, and it’s the most upscale (and WeHo/Chelsea-style) party venue in town, attracting fashionable queer males of all ages and ethnicities. Expats and Westerners are quite welcome in KL’s gay bars, sometimes with gropes and smiles. Current hotspots include La Queen, Marketplace, Maison (on Sunday nights), and largely Malay Blue Boy which is also popular with ladyboys (known locally as Maknyah, pronounced Mok-nee-ah). The Utopia Asia (utopia-asia.com) Web site provides up-to-the-minute guides to what’s happening, new and closed. So does the PT Foundation, whose members/volunteers are happy to offer advice to visitors.

I stayed at the fantastic Mandarin Oriental (mandarinoriental.com/kualalumpur), literally next door to the Petronas Towers/Suria KLCC, and gorgeous Grand Millennium (millenniumhotels.com/my/millenniumkualalumpur), located in the heart of Bukit Bintang (bukitbintang.net) in the city center. My tour began with the KL Tower (www.menarakl.com.my) offering a fantastic 360-degree view of the city. After braving KL’s near perpetual gridlock traffic we arrived at the Bata Caves (www.tourism.gov.my). Marked by a 140-foot-tall golden statue of the Hindu deity Lord Murugan, the 272-step walk up to the caves was eventful, as Macaque monkeys leapt up and down the staircase, snatching any food in sight. Inside, the dim caves were straight out of an Indiana Jones film. I savored a fresh, perfectly crisp dosai with chutneys afterwards from a nearby food stand. Malaysia’s cuisine is fantastic, with Chinese, Indian and Indonesian influences. Some of the best is street and vendor fare; The Star Guide to Malaysian Street Food tome, listing stalls throughout the country, served as a bible for us.

A daytrip to the city-state of Melaka (melaka.net) was as much about finding the perfect chicken and rice balls as sightseeing. That said, I must plug KL’s inexpensive and queer Betty’s Café (bettysgroup.com), which prepares a fantastic mutton curry on Fridays, and the gorgeously designed, upscale restaurants on the ground floor of must-see shopping center Starhill Gallery (starhillgallery.com). Firming up as a major destination for health tourism, Melaka is rich with attractions and history, including a Chinese graveyard—womb-shaped tombs occupy a hill, belief being the higher up the hill, the closer to heaven (and subsequently, more expensive the plot!)—temples, mansions, the Museum of Eternal Beauty (www.tourism.gov.my)—dedicated to body modification—and Wah Aik, a shoemaker who, as per his family’s tradition, still proudly makes foot binding shoes. “They’re like Manolos for Repressed Sex and the Forbidden City,” I quipped. (The hideous, über-misogynistic practice stopped in the 20th century.)

We next headed to Borneo’s exotic state of Sarawak (sarawaktourism.com). First stop: Kuching (kuching.net.my) the City of Cats, the home of many giant cat statues as well as the deliriously kitsch Cat Museum (www.dbku.gov.my/catmuseum.htm). Everything related to cats, from Garfield paraphernalia to ancient Chinese and Egyptian statues, is represented.

Sarawak Cultural Village (scv.com.my) is a one-stop “living museum” featuring different types of regional houses, crafts and performances, but the second day we ventured deep into Borneo rainforest for an authentic Iban longhouse visit. Along the way we stopped at a village market, where I sampled salak, aka snake fruit. Covered in a scaly, shiny reptilian “skin,” it contained pitted, off-white segments—semi-crisp, tart, almost perfumed.

Perched on a small island reachable only by a jetty, the downright cinematic Hilton Batang Ai Longhouse Resort (batang.hilton.com) is an upscale version of the classic Sarawak longhouse—a literally long house, half entails roofed communal space, the other half private apartments. Cut off from all wireless devices and Internet, this was truly a getaway: cute caramel-colored bats swooped about as we ate dinner on the otherwise peaceful deck.

The following morning we headed into Apocalypse Now territory, riding a longboat—an impossibly shallow sliver of a vessel—up a narrow river to a genuine Iban longhouse; some longhouse communities welcome tourists and their accompanying revenue. We began with a little tour, admiring handicrafts and random items sold by the various residents. Then we met the medicine man, a “retired” headhunter. That’s right. A few blackened human skulls hung overhead in makeshift wire nets, reminders of days (and victims) long past.

A half-day later we were back in Kuching, where there are a few mixed and LGBT-friendly bars, including The Cottage and Eagles Nest, (utopia-asia.com) but I was warned that some straights will play gay, go home with someone, and call their friends to come over and ransack/roll the sucker or threaten blackmail. Do be prudent.

Upon returning to KL, I enjoyed a 5-course private dinner extravaganza, entitled “Dinner With an Attitude,” at the Traders Hotel (shangri-la.com) rooftop Sky Bar with superb cocktails and company—including the impressive, glowing Petronas Towers in the distance. Yes, they’re that spectacular...

For more information on Malaysia, travel, see www.tourism.gov.my.