Continuing with the theme of children, this week’s travel photo of the week features some Malaysian children that I met on my Air Asia flight between Chiang Mai and Kuala Lumpur in November 2008.

I was admiring their beautiful T-shirts with the stylized elephants - simple but elegant - so I asked them where they got them. Smiling, the older one said “We bought them at a boutique in Chiang Mai.” Taking out my camera, they hammed it up while I took a picture of them.

Just my observation, but Malaysian children (of Chinese ethnic origins) seem to be somewhat more mischievous and more animated than their Thai counterparts. Crawling all over their seats like “little monkeys”, the Malaysian kids could not sit still at all. I believe their parents were two rows behind them.

Visiting a foreign country for the first time, there is definitely an adjustment period – it takes a while to get a feel for the culture, the lifestyle, the cuisine and the idiosyncrasies of the people. Overall I have visited 26 countries in my lifetime, and each country has been quite unique in its own way. I am sure you’ve heard the expressions no two people are alike, well no two countries are alike!

MALAYSIA , a predominantly Muslim country, is quite different than other countries that I have visited in the Southeast Asia – Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos – in terms of its history, culture and people. I guess you could say that my reference point is THAILAND in Southeast Asia, as I have traveled extensively in the Kingdom of Siam during my eight excursions to this geographical region.

My learning curve for Malaysia started with my flight on Air Asia from Chiang Mai to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s bustling capital city. Observing some of the Malaysian children on the plane, I came to the conclusion that they are a somewhat more animated/wilder than their Thai counterparts. Now I’m not saying that this is good or bad thing – it could be that Thai and Malaysian children have a different temperament. The children sitting across from me were part of a Malaysian school group, and they all were wearing a rather spiffy t-shirt with a very stylistic elephant design that they purchased in Chiang Mai; the children sitting in back of me were fidgeting all over the place as I felt my them constantly kicking the back of my seat.

Compared to Suvarnabhumi, Thailand’s gleaming new age international airport just outside of Bangkok, the international airport serving Kuala Lumpur is a rather drab affair, but it is considerably larger than the airport in Vientiane, Laos or Chiang Mai, Thailand. Curiously enough after deplaning from Air Asia, all passengers have to walk across the street, clearing two lanes of traffic before entering the airport terminal for immigration. That struck me as being a little unusual.

After clearing immigration, the next step is to pick up your luggage from the baggage carousel. As in most airports, there are small baggage carts available to all passengers. Watching the other passengers (mostly Malaysian Nationals) take a baggage cart, one thing struck me as being most peculiar - in the most forward cart, there were a number of empty plastic water bottles in the upper compartment. As each passenger selected a cart, they carefully transferred the empty bottles to the next cart in line, and so on and so forth. You’d think that at some point, one of the passengers or somebody who worked inside the airport terminal would throw the empty plastic bottles in the trashcan. After watching the empty bottles transferred at least 5 times, I almost couldn’t stop myself from laughing. I guess this must be a uniquely Malaysian custom as I have never (ever) seen anything like this at any airport during my many years of traveling. Talk about passing the buck…