Traveling is my passion. I find that traveling sooths and freshens my mind. It is also something that a brisk walk does as well for those budget conscious travelers. Many people when they travel prefer the tourist traps. For me, I prefer the "get lost" method. In my experience, this makes for a more exciting adventure. Obviously, I take my safety seriously so I would not go to the extreme of exploring a dark alley in the middle of the night. However, many of my memories of getting lost began with a subtle suggestive thought "Oh, that looks interesting."

My travels have been extensively in Asia. I have worked in China and Japan. Traveled to Bali, Hong Kong, Macau, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Singapore. In Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur), I recalled getting really lost on what started out as a stroll along the strip with my wife. Torrential downpours are not uncommon in South East Asia. Unbeknownst to us, we were caught in this downpour where the sewers clogged up and flooding was so apparent that taxi drivers were all huddled together refusing to drive anyone. Because the bus station seemed to be the place to be, we quickly wandered over. Inside the bus station it was so busy that it was difficult to move. The hawkers were peddling their wares and the pickpockets were jockeying around for better targets. We became uncomfortable with our surrounding so we decided to leave. We had overheard someone at breakfast that morning that the island of Pangkor was a beautiful place to visit. In light of our situation, we decided to take our chances even though we did not know how far or where this place was. This was where the subtle suggestive thought came to play. Our hotel was paid for already and traveling by buses was inexpensive so we booked our tickets and left. The buses were quite comfortable at first with air-conditioning at full blast. The air-conditioning was nice at first, but after traveling for four hours, we became hypothermic with our wet clothes attached to our bodies. When we finally realized it was going to be a nine hour trip, we bought new clothing at the next rest stop which was the town of Ipoh.

We were ecstatic when we arrived at the port town of Lumut, a ten hour journey from the bus station. We knew from talking to people it was only a fifteen minute crossing by boat to the island of Pangkor. We stayed a night on the island and realize that the tranquility of the island and the hospitality we encountered far surpassed what we experienced in Kuala Lumpur so we stayed. In fact, we stayed for the duration of the visit and had the best time ever.

Malaysia is one of my favourite destinations in Asia. The multi-ethnic population, the weather, the ease of travel, the food, and the inexpensiveness makes it a wonderful destination to "get lost". Remarkably, even with our detour, we still lavished ourselves and stayed within our budget.

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