About training and exploring in KL

“How do you feel about taking your AirBnB adventure to Malaysia?" my manager texts me in October. "Sure," I reply, "how about December?" 

My AirBnB hosts are waiting for me in the lobby of their apartment complex in Bangsar (a suburb southwest Kuala Lumpur's city center). I’m their third guest and they go out of their way to make sure I’m comfortable. They show me around the complex; educate me on the train and bus system; point me to the nearest ATM and even take me out for a quick bite. “Welcome to Malaysia!”

It feels like a warm summer night and I walk over to Bangsar Village, a local area with plenty of restaurants and a mall, while listening to some feel-good music. I get some monopoly-like money from the ATM and a familiar feeling brings a smile to my face: a new adventure! Where in the world did I end up this time?

I sit down at an Indian restaurant to order some food. “It is spicy, is that OK?” Having spent eighteen days in Thailand last month, I feel brave. “There are only two kinds of spicy in Asia”, comedian Ronald Goedemondt likes so say, “not-spicy-at-all and screw-all-the-white-folks kind of spicy.” My dish belongs to the latter kind and I sweat like a water tank. Luckily there is chili pepper to make it bearable. The jetlag is no longer bugging me: I'm wide awake!

Friday turns out to be a national holiday in Malaysia, so I’m working from home to prepare training classes for the next two weeks. Around 10PM I decide to take a subway ride to the city center, to see the Petronas twin towers and walk around Changkat Bukit Bintang. 

There is a food market; bars and restaurants are everywhere, and girls are trying to lure tourists into their shop for a massage. I gently decline and go for some bar hopping. There is an appealing sound coming from Havana bar and I decide to give it a try. Inside, I meet Mario, a Malaysian guy who has lived in London for a while, and is always looking to meet new people. He tells me how much he likes Malaysia because every religion and every nationality is welcome. I guess I’ve come to the right place, as he introduces me to his friends, who are glad that I can help them with their bottle of whisky on the table. The place turns into a dance party and I somehow end up with  face-paint all over my face. I just can't help myself.

The rest of the weekend I take it easy; hang out at the pool and walk through the city and its parks. Although the 'colder' season has started, it is still quite hot and humid. Despite the fact that I have lived in warmer climates in the recent years, it still feels weird to walk outside in shorts in December. Later that week my co-workers can't believe their ears as I tell them I walked about 10KM. "Why would you do such a thing? We prefer to go to the mall. There is plenty of food and air conditioning!" I simply enjoy walking. 

The next day I grab a cab on my way to the office. The cab driver practices radical honesty. "How has your day been so far?" "It's OK, the same as yesterday.. Look at this!" pointing to the newspaper next to him, "people from Bangladesh are trying to come to Malaysia. It's a problem!" I guess we all have our integration challenges. Maybe I should introduce him to Mario.

I’m welcomed by the local consultancy director who introduces me to his team. Even though I’ve never interacted with them before, they have been my co-workers for many years. The atmosphere is relaxed. We 'install' ourselves in the board roam where I connect my laptop to the projector to show different concepts. We discuss different aspects of the software from a functional perspective and how we can do some programming to extend functionality using our software development kit. We start discussing topics in concept, followed by exercises to get some hands-on experience. There are also a few business cases we are able to solve during the training. 

The office is located across the 'Megamall' which is the home of almost a hundred restaurants. Every day we go out for lunch and alternate between the Malay, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Taiwan, Vietnamese and Thai cuisines. There is so much amazing food! I get to ask my coworkers a million questions about culture, religion, habits, beliefs, etcetera. It is fascinating. Kuala Lumpur is a mix of cultures and religions as about 60% is Malay and Muslim, 30% is Chinese and Buddhist/Christian and 10% is Indian and Hindu. It's great to see how it all seems to work together without too much trouble. At least that is the perspective that I've got. 

I may have slipped that I turned 33 this week. While we are working through some exercises, the consultancy director enters the room with a birthday cake and everyone gets up to sing "Happy Birthday" in Chinese. Wow, what a fun moment! I don't care too much for my own birthday, which makes it extra awesome if other people do put in an effort to make you feel special.

Later that week my manager arrives in Kuala Lumpur and we share the apartment. When the weekend comes around we go out for dinner and stumble upon a delicious bottle of rum from Venezuala (and perhaps another dance party with face paint). 

A 45-minute train ride takes us to Batu Caves. The caves are one of the most popular Hindu shrines outside India. We start with the Art Gallery Cave, which houses numerous Hindu statues and paintings and tells Rama's story. Rama is the seventh avatar of Hindu god Vishnu. 

I don’t know much about the Hindu religion and therefore the temples, paintings and statues have little meaning to me, but I can appreciate the craftmanship, which is incredible.

To enter Cathedral Cave – the largest cavern in Batu Caves – we have to ascend about two hundred steps. There are bricks and buckets at the foot of the steps, waiting to be carried up, as the temple management kindly requests all visitors and devoted supporters. We haven’t done our workout today, so we may as well help out a little bit in the process. Wild monkeys are running around and chasing each other while we are making our way up.

Back in the city, we decide to go for a ‘Dinner in the dark’ experience. We start with a warm-up game, where we have to - being blindfolded - find two paperclips in a bucket of rice. Then we enter the room, where we are guided to our table after placing our hands on the waiters' shoulders. It doesn’t matter whether we open or close our eyes; the sight is the same. While seated, the waiter gently directs our hands to the location of the glass of wine, our silverware and the plates. We enjoy four courses and have good conversations. Not about work this time. It’s nice to get to know your manager on a different level. The dinner is an interesting experience. Every bite is a surprise, as you have no clue what flavor or texture to expect. It is sometimes a little uncomfortable eating as we can’t see a thing and I feel like I’m making a big mess of my food. It is a good thing nobody can see it anyway. It makes me appreciate our waiters ability to serve us properly even more. “We memorize the whole lay-out of the room and the exact location of each element,” he explains, “and we make clapping sounds to make sure we don’t bump into each other”.

When dinner is over and our eyes are adjusted to the evening light, we get to see the menu to reveal what we’ve actually consumed. My manager is disappointed to find out that we actually had some duck liver, something he didn’t enjoy the day before. I promise him we'll have a burger soon. 

As we get closer to Christmas the Megamall gets more festive with added decorations and people singing Christmas carols. I guess you have to come up with something to get into the Christmas spirit if it is thirty degrees Celsius outside. 

When I joined Exact in March of 2009 I felt bumped, that they just had decided to no longer have their 'onboarding' period in Malaysia. I was exactly one year too late. Interesting how I ended up here after all. At the same office!