Under the title, A Day to Remember – tour to Kuala Lumpur, was organized by INTI International College Subang Campus for the 38th batch students. It was a one-day tour to various destinations in the capital of Malaysia with participation of 22 international students. The idea was to help international students learn about Malaysian cultural diversity, history and business hubs, but more to arrange fun-event for students. And I excited about the tour, managed to convince one of my fellows “Varshan from Sri Lanka” to join the group; surely to enjoy the trip along with me. 

As planned, we departed 8:00 AM on a bus and divided in groups of 4 – 6, I had members from Sudan and a Malay from a different state. During the bus-ride, Varshan and I kept talking about Sri Lanka’s history, geo-political situation, evolving culture and how my people survived in Afghanistan. We did secretly talk about our fellows who we are comfortable with. It occurred to me, we had same tastes in that particular regard. Anyhow, we could not go to the King Palace as planned but I did like the idea of going to Batu Cave first given the cloudy weather of the day. One of the reasons I joined the tour was to visit Batu Cave as had heard a lot about the 42 m tall statue which did fascinate me for a while. Looking at the statue and Hinduism religious practices in and out the cave, I pictured how Bamyan would have looked like fifteen-hundred years back – God, it must have sparkled like heaven then.

The visit to King’s Palace seemed less probable with respect to later plans for the day and traffic situation on the weekends. Leaving Batu Cave, we drove to KL Central Market which was built as late as 1888 by the British. We enjoyed walking around and managed to chit-chat with our Malay member who then followed us for lunch and visit to shops. Sure enough, I did spot views for photography. After lunch, we headed to Chinese Temple where I sensed relief, harmony and oneness which I do in all religious temples regardless of their school of thought – do I not sound religious? Nope, man, it’s natural surely for many. Leaving the temple, I saw something interesting: a Chinese-Malay woman crashed into fruit basket of an Indian-Malay, whose anger was noticeable. What appealed me was the humble apology of woman to the man and picking fruits up from the ground. I usually find such accidents in my country, but hardly experience similar exchange of words between the people. Such accident usually end up in exchange of abusive & offensive words with hmmmmm different tone. 

The next destination was China Market, where I found all types of garments, home appliances and electronics at varying rates. I thought, I had to come here way earlier to do my shopping and save some money than what I had done at Sunway, Mid-Valley and Subang Parade centers. Better late, than never done, at least now I know where to shop for my convenience. Hah, finally, Varshan was convinced to purchase sun-glasses to whom I would say, “no pair of glasses have appealed in Sunway, KLCC and Subang Parade.” Errrrrrr, he would sound! Departing from China Market, we headed to KL gallery where stood the world’s second-tallest-flag-pole (Malaysia Flag). To my wonder, I saw a cricket stadium in Malaysia for the first time. I was like, let’s go and try out, alas, we had no bat & ball to play although there were Indian, Pakistanis, Bangladeshi and Sri Kankan students during the tour. Then we drove to Museum where I only extinguished my starvation with a chicken burger & sprite. 

The last destination was Kuala Lumpur Convention Center (KLCC) where Varshan and I had a walk in the park, enjoyed strolling in the rain, tried Malaysian wafers and tried cars displayed at the shopping center. But I wanted to stay longer at least to see the area in the light before we were called to get onto the bus and travel back to INTI. On the way back, who would talk, joke or chit-chat so I joined the team and had a short-nap which was filmed by Varshan (the naughty friend, ehhhhh!). On my insistence, he had me see the film and promised not to show to all except few of the fellows who we share almost everything. 

I really enjoyed the trip no matter how many destinations we had to visit on one day and thanks to the generosity of the college. It could have been more fun had I had more fellows. Anyhow, we made the most of it as our ex-lecturer used to say, “use anything which is free” so had to join the trip – but with the intention to learn about the sites and have fun which I did to some extent. 

Jawad Jahid