Malaysia - Part 1

Apologies for the lack of blog action recently, I’ve been getting rather lazy to be honest. Its very difficult to focus on the blog when there are so many pools to swim and so much gin and tonic to drink. So, when I left it last time, we were heading from southern Thailand into Malaysia - so here goes:

Following another of our now-familiar ‘all-day when it should take 4 hours, Sir’ journeys, we arrived in Penang, a sort of island connected to the mainland by a bridge (is that still an island?), off north-west Malaysia. Although Penang seemed to have quite a monopoly of flea ridden, bed bug infested grot-holes, we eventually found somewhere quite cool near all the hustle and bustle. Penang is known to be the food capital of Malaysia, so after checking in, we headed out to a local food centre - great food available for normal people, but unfortunately not a lot of variety for the vegetarians amongst us. Whilst I had my head down in a local dish of pig, chicken, some other meat-stuff, sauce and rice, Lauren was picking away at plain rice (with little bits of chicken in it, but don’t tell her).

The next day, we went exploring Georgetown, the only real town in Penang. We went to a museum which went into the history of the place - quite interesting, then headed to Little India for some great snacks.

In the afternoon, we headed up Penang Hill on a dodgy little funicular railway.

The great views from the top were rather obscured by the cloud, but we had a wander around before heading back down to a nearby food court for supper. I thought I’d try a local speciality called rojak - I won’t be trying it again. It turned out to be all sorts of fruit marinated in a sweet fishy sauce - well rank.

Following a couple more days of looking at cultural stuff, including thee very attractive Khoo Kongsi Temple, and stuffing our faces, we decided it was time to head on.

Although we never witnessed anything, Penang was apparently very dangerous for females.

From Penang we caught a night-bus to the Perhentian Islands. It should have been called a ‘night and most of the following day bus‘. We managed a little bit of sleep on the first leg before being deposited at a place called Kota Bharu at 5.30 the following morning. It became apparent that we’d need to catch another bus from here to the port, Kuala Besut. Ignoring the advice of the local taxi drivers, who were telling us that there wasn’t a bus until 09.30, we headed to the bus station and found there was a bus leaving fairly shortly. After trying six atm’s, I eventually succeeded and legged it back to the bus station just as the bus we about to pull away - phew! We arrived at the harbour two hours later and waited for the 08.30 boat which eventually turned up at 10.30, and finally made it to Perhentian Kecil at 11.00, some fourteen hours after starting our journey!

We stayed on the island for three nights, and it was great. We dived on the second and third days, and saw loads of stuff - including a whip-ray which was about four foot long! The rest of the time was spent mainly on Coral Beach relaxing, or trying the local M&M shakes which were spectacular. In the evenings, all the bars on the beach sparked up barbeques - mainly specialising in pretty expensive (£4!) fish and very pink chicken. Luckily it was dark when I had my chicken, so I couldn’t tell if it was pink or not - it tasted good, and that’s the main thing.

Our plan from the Perhentians was to catch the jungle train to Kuala Lumpur, but to do this, we needed to spend a night back in Kota Bharu, a pretty dull town near the train station. After a day’s wandering around, which included a visit to the local wet market, we headed to an outdoor food centre for supper.

Agonisingly we had to wait until sunset before tucking in, due to Ramadan. When the sun finally disappeared, a feeding frenzy commenced. Debris was scattering our table from the chicken legs, murtaback and bits of beef I was devouring, whilst Lauren enjoyed her plain rice. Again.

Our train left the next morning at 04.15 - not very civilised, so the first few hours was spent fast asleep with the Sony walkman on loud trying to drown out the children sat too nearby. When the sun finally came up, the scenery on the jungle railway was great, though the windows were too dirty to take any pictures! After a good 11 hours on the train, basically travelling most of the length of the Malaysian Peninsular through the jungle, we arrived in Gamas where we hopped on a bus to Kuala Lumpur, arriving just before nine in the evening on Thursday 10th September - another very very long day!

We had a stroke of luck when looking for a guesthouse in KL - we were just walking up to a fairly grotty looking beast, when a chap leapt out of the shadows brandishing a flyer for a guesthouse that had just been opened five minutes down the road. After eight months on the road, we know that new guesthouses are the best! Not only are all the fixtures and fittings clean and tidy, but the bed bugs haven’t been given a chance to proliferate! Perfect. This guesthouse was also offering free breakfast which sealed the deal.

Kuala Lumpur was pretty cool. Our main objective whilst in KL was to sort out our visas for India, where we want to go in December. We submitted our application forms early on the first morning, and were told to come back a week later with our passports, when the visas might or might not be ready.

The weekend was spent sightseeing - the KL tower, the Petronas Towers, Little India (great food!). Our guesthouse was right in the heart of Chinatown - fantastic food and a great night market right on our doorstep.

We even ventured too a vegetarian food centre, which was surprisingly rather good. One evening, we went to a local martial arts demonstration which was all good fun. Unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed to play with the swords, but they we pleased to meet me!

We had about a week to use up before our visas would (probably) be ready, so we decided to head to a couple of places reasonably close to KL - Pulau Pangkor being the first. An island off the west coast of the peninsular, Pangkor was deathly quiet, though the fleet of gay-looking taxis were rather loud.

Luckily, when searching the ghostly streets for accommodation, we were spotted by a couple of chums who we’d met at the guesthouse in KL, and they showed us to a great place with a big garden and plenty of hammocks and a very friendly pet cat - purrfect.

We spent four days in Pangkor, just sitting in the hammocks, eating, reading and messing around with the kitten and admiring the local hornbills.

The beach was beautiful and totally deserted - perfect for vegging out, swinging on tyres and playing a new game we‘d invented called kicky-kick - watch out for it at London 2012.

The Cameron Highlands were next on the agenda, and after a gruelling 11 hour journey from Pangkor (which again, ought to have taken just 4 hours) we made it there late on the Friday evening.

We spent a couple of days there. On the first, we went off on a jungle trek and basically as soon as we’d left the village it started hammering it down with rain. The trek was good fun, though pretty deserted - the only things we had for company were the local creepy crawlies, including this rather large millipede.

The following day, we went on a guided tour of the region, which took us to the beautiful Boh Tea Plantation and factory,

and then some other stuff including a rose garden for the ladies and a place where you could hold a fully poisonous rather eggy-looking scorpion for the chaps.

So then it was back to Kuala Lumpur, where we hoped to collect our visas for India. After leaving our passports with the visa people and hopped on a bus and visited the Batu Caves, about an hour from KL which were spectacular.

The following day, we returned to collect our visas to find out that they’d made a right shambles of it! They’d mis-read our forms, and had given us the requisite three-month visa, but starting from today, rather than 1st December when we’d actually be arriving in India. Essentially, this was a right cock-up meaning that we’d have to leave India on Christmas eve, rather than in mid-January. Luckily, after a lot of gesticulation and not budging, they phoned some chap who told us to go to the High Commission the following day, Thursday 24th September. All this chap did was cross out the bit that said ‘three month visa’ and wrote in by hand ‘six-month visa’. Goodness knows if it will work, but if not, lay another place on the table for Christmas, Mum!