Merdeka Day

Solo travel suits me, I'm not one to compromise and I like being able to do whatever I wish, whenever I wish.

 Saturday was Merdeka day, Malaysia's Independence Day.  Friday night there was a fireworks show right outside of KL, part of the International fireworks competition, that I had planned on going to but as I was walking to the door I ran into my roommate and she said that there was a group going from the hostel so I decided to wait and go with them.  Two hours later she was still out getting dinner, and everyone else had decided to go to a smaller, closer show that one of the guys thought was taking place at Merdeka square.  I considered still trying to make it to the show outside of the city and meeting some people from Couchsurfers, but by that point it was almost 10 and the shuttle wouldn't be running when I got to the town, so I resigned myself to just seeing a run of the mill fireworks show and hanging out with the people from my hostel. It is absolutely impossible to get a group of people moving.  There were about 8 of us and I we started talking about leaving at 11 to see the show which started at midnight.  Half of us got out the door at 11:55.  We got to Merdeka only to find that the show had been halfway across the city and we had missed it.  I wanted to go over anyway and see if anything else was going on and one of the guys, Mohsen, came with me but everyone else just wanted to go back to the hostel and drink.  So, I was a bit aggravated but every cloud has a silver lining.  Mohsen is a student and lives in a three bedroom apartment with another guy so I ended up staying in their spare bedroom for a couple nights and we took a day trip to Port Dickson which was fun.

People had dressed up for the occasion with wigs and masks and there were Malaysian flags everywhere.

Saturday morning I went back to Merdeka square to see the parade and ceremony.  The theme was sovereignty and the parade was a display of Malaysia's military forces including their air force which flew helicopters and fighter jets between the buildings which was pretty impressive.

There were also some dance and cultural demonstrations and speeches.  The mood was excited and the energy high.  The speaches ended with shouts of 'Merdeka!' through the crowd.

As we were walking around after the ceremony we stumbled upon a gallery with a room-sized model of KL which was interesting.