The End of Part 1 – South East Asia

12 July 2010 - So that’s the first 3 months gone and the first part of the trip completed.  We have travelled through 6 very different Asian countries covering  14000 kilometres since landing in Tokyo.  We have seen some of the most amazing things that man can accomplish as well as some of the worst.  We have met some interesting and wonderful people along the way that have inspired and entertained us in equal measure.

Interestingly, of all the different nationalities we have come across who have also been travelling, there has seemed to be a majority of Brits, with Australians and Americans not far behind in numbers.  We have also been surprised by just how many people there seemed to be from one particular European nation, who have also won the prize for how many times we have seen these people being generally rude to the locals and extremely arrogant in their attitude (we will let you guess which nationality that could be?!!!).

It’s fair to say we have had our low points, with the first week in China being tough due to the people, language and the food.  And Cambodia was hard at times as we were often treated like walking wallets, but these lows have been far outweighed by the highs, too many to list here.

So before you ask, no we are not home sick.  We are still loving the trip and have still not had a full on row (at most maybe a little bickering) which is pretty impressive when you think we have been in each others pockets 24/7 and had to deal with some quite trying experiences. 

The next 3 months of blogs will be all about Australia.  The first 5 weeks we will be driving in a campervan from Darwin to Perth, then a 3 day 4x4 adventure trip from Alice Springs to Uluru (Ayers Rock) and then 6 weeks from Cairns to Sydney via the Greyhound bus and hostelling again.

As you can see from the date of this blog, our ability to get online is limited so please keep coming back to check and we will publish when we can.  And if this is the first time that you are reading the blog then you will have plenty to catch up on so get on it!!!

Singapore

Singapore - country or city?  Occupying its position a few metres off the south coast of Malaysia and contained on a single island only 45km x 25km in size, you could say its not a big place.  As soon as you cross the causeway you can see that you are in a different land, the people, the architecture, how clean everywhere is.  

Singapore is famous for two things…..its cleanness and its obsession with chewing gum.  As with most countries, on entering Singapore you have to sign a declaration that you are not bringing in more than your allocation of certain substances like alcohol or tobacco.  Singapore, however, take it one step further and make you declare any retail amounts of chewing gum probably in an attempt to prevent its pristine streets being sullied with it.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for not treading in the damn stuff especially when it is freshly spat out and at its most viscous, but it did make me laugh as I had visions of seeing men in dark alleyways asking recovering chewing addicts if they want a hit of Wrigglies! 

You can really get the tone of a country by watching its local TV stations and as with most countries down this way they tend to provide an English channel of some variety.  Singapore, was to be the winner of “our favourite thing we have seen on telly so far” award.  It was an infomercial by the Singapore government warning its people of a major punishable offence.  The 3 minute advert starts with the look off a loving mother watching as her son grows into a young man. Next the mother crying with pride at the scene of her son picking up his diploma from college, what a future her son has.  Next we see she is being dragged away in tears by a stern looking official while her son is being sentenced.  What could he possibly have done?  How could it have gone so wrong?  Was it drug dealing?  Was it assault?  The final scene is of the young man in prison scrubs, locked up in a chain gang picking up litter from the ground.  Yes, that’s right, he was caught littering and this was his punishment!  I’d like to be able to say that I am exaggerating.  I’m not.

Along with Hong Kong, Tokyo and Shanghai, Singapore is one of the key financial and business centres for the region.  All you have to do is look up and you will see that the sky line is filled with sky scrapers dedicated to the banks and financial institutions both local and international.  It is also clear that from the numbers of cranes that we saw that building is still continuing at a rate of knots….recession, what recession.

With land at a premium here they have even created a new harbour front area on reclaimed land from the sea imaginatively called Marina Bay.  Along with the usual office and residential tower blocks being built here, they have also built an extremely impressive hotel called the Marina Bay Sands hotel. 

The hotel is 56 stories tall and is made up of 3 towers, which are connected at the top by an curved deck that doesn’t look too dissimilar to a ships hull.  This deck houses a restaurant, sun deck and one hell of an infinity pool that apart from a half a meter edge basically drops right down the side of the hotel. At 56 stories this is not a swimming pool for those with vertigo.  Not to miss an opportunity to make money, tourists can go up to the deck and take in the fantastic views and gawk at the people who have paid thousands to sunbathe in such an amazing place and have some solitude.  It was rather like some weird people zoo where the peasants come to view the rich and their luxurious habitat.

In previous blogs we have talked about the shopping opportunities we have been presented with in many of the mega cities we have visited, but Singapore definitely wins the award for the most shopping centres ever.  We even completed our game of crossing a city without stepping outside, which was no mean feat considering the complexity of the route.

A must see for me whilst we were in Singapore was to touch and admire the hallowed tarmac of the Formula One street circuit.  As it’s a street race much of the circuit is returned to normal city roads after race day with the only sign that its something different given by the overhead gantries that hold the thousands of lights to make the only F1 night race possible.  The only permanent race structure is a 500m section of track which include the pit lane, start/finish line and the first corner.  As the place is not cordoned off in any way and all of the other people are in the malls, we were able to walk around this section of the track in solitude and see just how narrow the track is, and imagine what it would be like to come out of the pit lane and rejoin the race at speed.  When I see the race on the telly in September I will be able to say “I stood on that line”  every time they go round and bore the hell out of Emma.

With Singapore being an old British colony, you can still see the influences everywhere from very traditional English street names to certain areas having a very London feel about them.  The time in Singapore was a good wind down from (at times) quite a “in your face” experience in the rest of Asia preparing us well for the ultra laid back approach in Oz. 

Next:  Darwin and the Land Down Under.

One very long day

The journey to Singapore:

Our final long distance travel day before Oz would also be the most interesting.  We prepared to leave the Perhentian Islands with a heavy heart.  We had spent a week doing nothing and loved every minute of it, partly because we knew that it would be the last time we would have any significant down time for quite a while to come.

The journey was going to be a difficult one, but after asking around and reading our trusty guide book we hatched a plan.  We had nothing booked, no tickets, no hotel and planned to wing it….how hard could it be?!  We left our accommodation at 12pm and wasted some hours in a beach cafe whilst waiting for the taxi boat that would take us back to the main land.  The boat arrived as per schedule at 4pm and picked up about 20 other people maxing out the capacity of this small boat.  As the boat reached open sea you could see that the mill pond surface that we had enjoyed when we first arrived had been replaced by a rougher sea.  As the boat hit the bigger waves it would take a nose dive into the water drenching the occupants and their luggage.  Thankfully, we were on the slighter drier side.  The journey on the way to the Islands had taken 20 minutes, and with this journey taking 50 minutes it showed just how much the waves were slowing us down.

The port we arrived at was at Kuala Besut, a sleepy little place with one main street and the jetty for the speedboats.  So, following the information given in the book, we marched off in the direction of the local bus stop to catch the bus that would take us the 30km journey to the main town and the long distance bus station from where we could get the overnight bus to Singapore.  As we walked to the bus stop some of the locals came out to see what was going on and to offer advice on where the bus stop was and the time of the bus.  We found a spot to sit and then we waited….and waited and waited.  The locals had reported that the bus was due at 5:00, so by 6:30 we decided that either the bus had already come and gone or was never coming. So again, using the book as a guide, it recommended a taxi fair of 60 Ringgit to get us to our proposed destination.

We flagged the next available taxi down and after a bit of haggling agreed a price of 30 Ringgit to take us there.  Excellent…or so we thought!  After 20 minutes or so the taxi pulled up in a different town at a bus station with no buses, saying this was it.  A small argument ensued as this was clearly not what we agreed, so we got out of the car and refused to pay him (we actually gave him 10 Ringgit for his time in the end) and I went and found another taxi driver to take us to where we wanted to go. After yet more negotiations starting at 80 Ringgit we finally agreed on 50 Ringgit and we jumped into another taxi hoping that this one was reliable.

As the new taxi drove on to the main highway, we suddenly spotted a road sign giving the mileage to our destination town as 130 km not the 30km the book had told us it was.  We then began franticly checking the book to make sure we where going to the right place.  We were, but the distance given in the book was wrong by some margin and with all the guide books having been so accurate we were both aghast as to just how wrong this was.   Now with the distance clear to us, it didn’t take long for our brains to start whirring and to figure that it was going to be a very tight call as to whether we were going to catch the night bus, which we believed to be leaving at 9pm.  By this stage it was gone 7pm and we had the equal distance of Milton Keynes to Leicester to drive and no ticket bought.  What also occurred to us was that we were now embarking on a approximately an hour and half drive and it had only cost us 50 ringgots which is about 10 GBP…..it made us feel really bad about haggling and lucky that the driver had even agreed to take us.

The taxi driver sensing our urgency drove with all haste (or maybe it was just the way they all drive out here) and he got us to the bus station at 8:35.  Bravo we thought!!!  Like the well oiled machine that we have become I paid the taxi driver out and moved the luggage whilst Emma ran to find the ticket office.  She retuned with news, the bus did not leave at 9:00 it had left at 8:30!!!  Arrrrggghhhhhh!!!

Whilst deciding on what to do next a couple of people gathered round us obviously seeing our panic and tried to offer help or just listened to our plight.  Eventually someone from the bus station joined in and suggested catching a bus to Johor Bahru which was just the other side of the causeway from Singapore.  It left at 9:30, so he proceeded to take us to the ticket office and even showed us which bay the bus went from.

This incident and many more during our stay in Malaysia has been in contrast from the rest of our experience in the rest of Asia.  Malaysians are extremely friendly and in the most part just want to help. Due to some of our other Asian experiences we have become slightly sceptical when someone comes up to offer help, in that maybe it’s a con and that they just want our money.  I guess that this does still happen in Malaysia but we haven’t seen it.  They are genuinely nice people who are interested in you and you can imagine going for a beer and chatting without fear.

We jumped on the bus for our 9 hour journey knowing from experience that no sleep would be forth coming.  We arrived in Johor Bahru at 6:00am at another large bus station in the middle of another large city.  Tired, but happy to have arrived we quickly found the right ticket office and we only had to wait 15 minutes before we were on another bus that would take us into Singapore.

Even though Singapore is a country, it only occupies an island off the southern tip of Malaysia and would easily fit inside the M25.  However, another country meant another boarder crossing.  The bus journey was only 15 minutes before it stopped in this enormous building much like an airport terminal in the middle of what looked like spaghetti junction.  Elevated motorways criss-crossed around the building inches away at times feeding it with people who wanted to cross to the border. 

We left the coach with luggage in tow and joined the thousands of other people, mainly Malaysians who for them it would be part of their daily commute.  We went through passport control and departed Malaysia into no mans land.  The queues for the different bus companies were long and finally finding ours we got on a very packed bus for the 3 km journey over the causeway to Singapore.  Being 7:30am the traffic was awful taking us 20 minutes to make this journey. No mans land is just a motorway winding its way though industrial area of Johor Bahru.  The only way you would know you weren’t on a normal road was the 6m high razor wire and CCTV cameras pointing in every angle.

We arrived at Singapore customs and again got off the bus with all our luggage and queued with thousands of other people to enter Singapore, repeating the process we had just done.  At passport control the border guard asked me where I was coming from.  Where do you think I am coming from as the only way into this building is via a road from Malaysia, how else would I have got here, do you think I was just beamed down from space…..“Malaysia” I said trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.  I have come to the conclusion that one of the universal constants in life is the intellect of immigration officers!!

In the end it took 2 hrs to do 5 km with all the queuing and faffing with buses and passports and luggage and pertinent immigration questions!  Imagine having to do that everyday just to get to work….twice in fact.  Makes a 2 hour commute on the M1 look appealing!

The final bus station was right next to Little India in Singapore which was perfect as this was where most of the hostels were.  With nothing booked we started the job of finding somewhere to stay.  After asking at the first four places and finding “no room at the inn” Emma went off with the book in hand to look for the stable while I stayed with the luggage somewhere out of the way (no, not in a pub).  Singapore being a very major city is not cheap, but finally Emma found a hotel that was above what we had wanted to pay but still within budget.  The final nail in the coffin for this mammoth travel day….we couldn’t check in until 12pm! 

So more than 24 hours after we started our journey we finally stopped moving and sat down on the bed,  very, very tired - now all we need is another 7 days on the beach! 

The Perhentian Islands

The Perhentian Islands are the furthest away from Singapore you can get on the east coast of Malaysia and around 6 hours by road straight across the top of the country from Georgetown.

Our pick up time was 5:00am but was changed to 6:00am at 10.30pm the night before, giving us one of those “you know what’s going to happen here, don’t you” feelings.  So, with the alarm set for 5:20am we get a phone call at 5am telling us our pick up was here!  Ten minutes later we were down stairs, grumpy and sleepy (I will let you work out which of us is which out of the seven dwarfs).

With only one other couple in the minibus we found a spot and settled down to get some sleep after our impromptu start.  As it seems to be with all our bus (or train journeys for that matter), this was not to be.  After about 30 minutes we awoke to the minibus swerving over the road because the driver was falling asleep!  He did stop a few times and kept taking coffee and chocolate and splashing water in his face, but nothing seemed to work.  Not wanting to be involved in a head on collision with a truck, myself and the Joel (the other male passenger) took it in turns to sit up front and keep the guy talking to keep him awake and to grab the steering wheel if need be.  Emma and Eva (Joel’s girlfriend) helped by studying the insides of their eyelids.  Six hours later we arrived at the port in Kuala Besut to catch the speedboat to the Islands.

The Perhentian Islands are around 20 miles off the coast with the two main islands being occupied.  Kecil is the smaller and cheaper location which has two main beaches with all the hostels lined along them.  The bigger island, Besar, has around ten larger more expensive resorts.  As soon as we stepped onto the boat and noticed the two massive outboard engines we knew this was going to be fun.  The boat did the journey in around 20 minutes which was no mean feat as it was carrying about ten people plus all their luggage.  It was helped by the sea being almost completely flat, but still, the boat driver really gave those engines a good hammering.

Due to the remoteness of the place it is difficult to book accommodation ahead of time and so you just have to turn up and see what you can get.  So unusually for us on this trip we went for it with no real plan other than a return boat ticket.  The islands were pretty much deserted apart from the few hostels/restaurants with no roads, no ATM’s, no anything except jungle and beach.  Thankfully, the book had got it right this time and warned us of this so we had stocked up on cash, Pringles and Oreos (just in case the food was terrible).

We had already decided that we were going to look for somewhere to stay on the more populated Long Beach on Kecil as it had a bit more going on (just) and a larger range of lower cost accommodation.  The speedboat stopped a few hundred metres from the shore even though there was a perfectly good jetty and smaller boats came to ferry us to the beach….for a small charge of course!!  On the way in we had spotted some huts up on the hill overlooking the beach and so decided that would be our first port of call.

They offered us a simple hut with twin beds and an attached bathroom, fan and balcony with a sea view for 18.67 per night…..a little higher than what we wanted to pay but the sea view made up for the price!

As part of the room deal we also had to share the hut with a family of geckos who spent most of their time walking across the ceiling and making loud clicking noises as they fought for ceiling territory at night.  We became so attached to our new friends that we named the larger one Ken and the smaller one Barbie.  There was another fatter one that made celebrity appearances which we called G.I. Joe.  I have no idea why we choose those names as none of them looked like plastic toy dolls….must have been heat stroke.

Long Beach wasn’t that long, only about 500m with around 10 other establishments taking up the limited space between the beach and the jungle.  I’m not one for gushing, Mills and Boon style writing but this place deserves it so here goes……The sea was shallow, electric teal in colour and so crystal clear you could see the bottom.  The sky, dark blue tainted by neither cloud nor pollution.  The sand was as white as snow and so clean it looked like we were the first people to ever walk on it.  We had truly found a special place and our tropical paradise.  Due to this, we ended up spending 6 nights here, the longest of anywhere so far.

Days were spent sleeping, swimming, lying in the sun, writing blogs, reading, a bit more sleeping and eating.  Nights were spent sitting on the beach, listening to dance music whilst drinking monkey juice (the local liquor….I hope?!) and watching locals practice the art of swinging fireballs around their head on the end of chains (answers on a postcard please as to what this art is actually called, because Emma and I have drawn a blank).

To say the pace of life was slow is an understatement and after only a day we realised just how tired we were.  After 3 months of constantly moving every few days and sightseeing in between we have not really stopped.  This was just what we needed.
Now we get Malaysia!

Georgetown

The transfer between Cameron Highlands and Georgetown was another early start with pickup at 6:00am.  With only 4 of us in the minibus we had some room for a change and a chance to spread out to get some more sleep.  After only a few minutes, we gave up on trying to sleep and began to do our transport prays instead.  The minibus had no brakes and you could hear metal on metal as our driver tried to slow us whilst descending the mountains along extremely windy roads with nothing but a flimsy looking metal barrier protecting us from sheer drops! 

To add insult to injury, the aircon was on so cold that the bus was actually steamed up on the outside and they were playing the hits of the 90s covered in a lift music stylie at ear bleeding levels.  For any MI5 agents out there reading this, you may want to consider this as a new way to illicit information (couldn’t possibly use the word torture….human rights and all that!)  A shiver now goes down my spine every time I hear Untame my heart by Toni Brackston.

Penang is an island 6 hrs north of KL on the west coast not far from the Thai border.  The book described it as a mainstay on the backpacker trail with quaint Chinese buildings and a foodies delight!  As we passed over the bridge connecting the island to the mainland we saw a far more industrialised and high rise city than we expected.  As you drove through, looking at yet more malls we had to double take when seeing a large Tesco’s sign.  The sea front had tower block after tower block catering to the package holiday crowd and again there seemed very little else to do.  So not so quaint then!!  

The first day we wandered the streets looking at the mixture of Chinese, Indian and Colonial architecture and although there was a certain charm about the place, we both were wondering yet again what all the fuss was about and that the book yet again had hyped this place up. 

The second day, desperate to find something to do, we decided to take a local bus along the coast to a small fishing village and the location of Malaysia’s smallest national park.  Teluk Bahang was a 45 minute journey that passed through the major beach area and its associated massive resort hotels.  A few miles before reaching Teluk Bahang, the hotels stopped allowing the sleepy backwater fishing village some space.   On arriving we walked through the village in the general direction of the sea and found the most beautiful, idyllic beach with NO ONE around.  We walked along the beach and eventually came to the entrance of the Penang National Park and decided that a little hike into the jungle would finish the day off nicely.  We grabbed some supplies from a local shop and headed off into the park in the direction of a remote beach and a meromictic lake (contains both fresh and sea water).  The paths were well defined and signposted with different tracks to the same places.  As we had left it fairly late in the day to do this walk, we had a strict timeframe as we did not want to get stuck in the jungle after nightfall.  As we kept walking thinking the beach and lake were just round the corner, it never appeared only offering more dense jungle and steeper paths.  After 2 hours and sunset closing in we had to admit defeat and head back to the village not seeing the lake or the beach.  It’s a real shame we only found this gem on the last day as we could easily have spent a few days exploring this park and the many sights along its coast.  Finally we are starting to find our mojo in Malaysia….no thanks to the book.

With only just under 2 weeks left before our flight to Oz we decided to go all out and booked transportation to a bona fide desert Island on the east coast - the Perhentian Islands.

Test from Live Writer

The Cameron Highlands

The Cameron Highlands are 4 hrs north of KL and are a premier resort for mountain trekking and general outdoor pursuits. On the advice of the hostel in KL we not only booked our transfer but also the accommodation through them, taking the more expensive option as the other backpacker hostel we were told was very basic.

We arrived at our “hotel” with what can only be described as shock and horror….the place looked like it had been transported from Beirut but without the bullet holes. By far the worst place we have stayed so far this trip. Don’t get me wrong, we don’t mind slumming it when we have to but we don’t expect to have to pay a premium price for it. Our room consisted only of a very manky looking bed, with no other mod cons and no windows, instead just some dirty slatted glass covering a hole in the wall. To top this off the place looked like it had never been cleaned. We dumped our stuff (very reluctantly I might add as neither of us wanted to put anything down on that carpet except flee powder) and went for a walk to assess the place and hopefully find more joy in the town itself. After 5 minutes of walking we had pretty much covered it and realised that three nights here was going to be a challenge.

It took about a 30 second discussion to reduce our stay to two nights giving us one day to at least visit some of the jungle that this area is famous for. The guide book which has been our trusty bible whilst travelling so far had started to let us down, promoting places and suggesting that there is much more to do than there actually is. This we think is partly due to Malaysia not really being set up for anything other than holiday resorts where you sit by the pool, eat, then fly home (I know, that sounds your idea of a holiday too).

After something to eat and nothing else to do we had no option but to go back to the room from hell and try to settle down for the night. After about 20 minutes, lying on top of the covers on the bed both wrapped tightly in our sleeping bag liners in an attempt to protect ourselves from bed bugs, the noise started. The high street became after dark a race track for the local youff (youth for those not down with the kids) and their modified cars. Up and down the street they went drag racing each other with their popping exhausts and burning tyres. This lasted until 1am, during which time Emma and I had numerous conversations about wanting to shove potatoes in the exhaust pipes both on the car and the youff! We heard loads of sirens but non seemed to come to the aid of the town. This place is certainly leaving a lasting impression on us, just not a good one.

So with our one day to explore we embarked on a half day tour in a 4x4 to take us for some trekking, to see a tea plantation and a strawberry farm (yeah, we thought the strawberry farm sounded lame too). Our tour guide drove a long wheelbase Land Rover with cow horns attached to the front and he wore a leather Stetson. Bal was Indian by decent and had spent all his life in the Cameron Highlands. As the only guests on the tour it meant he could pretty much cater it to what ever we wanted. First stop was climbing the highest mountain in this region at 2100m (when I say climb I mean that he drove us to the top in the 4x4). On reaching the peak, there was a radio repeater station and a viewing platform which you could climb to get amazing panoramas of valleys and jungle clad mountains (yes before you ask, we did get our lazy behinds out of the 4x4 to do this).

Next was a walkway into the jungle. Bal told us that this part of the jungle was around 150 million years old and along with the Taman Negara jungle that is further east, it is some of the oldest jungle on the planet. At the end of the walkway the path turned to mud and descended much deeper into the jungle. Given the choice to stop and return or get a bit dirty we jumped into the jungle for something a little more adventurous. Its one of the many environments I have always wanted to visit to see what it would be like to walk in such an alien and difficult environment. Due to the many tree roots and wet areas filling in the low lying ground, progress was difficult and slow and very different to hiking up a mountain. Then there was the heat. Even with the tree canopy blocking out most of the sun light the heat and humidity was oppressive, making you very sweaty from the exertion. I can imagine it being extremely challenging spending any sort of time in this type of place. We were both glad we saw it but neither of us will be booking on to a week long jungle trek anytime soon.

Due to the high altitude and temperate weather in this part of Malaysia it is also the producer for many Asian supermarkets for strawberries, flowers, vegetables and tea. The tea plantation that we visited was first cultivated in the area by a Scotsman in the 1920s and they are still producing from the same tea trees that were first planted. There was a ultramodern visitors centre where you could see how the tea was processed from being freshly picked to ready to sell (just takes a mere 5 hours from start to finish) and also a little shop and café where you could sample the tea and taste how proper tea should taste.

The tour was free (a word that has been missing from most of this trip so far) and was guided by a very enthusiastic tea fanatic. As he explained the process and what we were looking at he asked questions about how we took our tea in our respective countries. Already knowing the answer, he would ridicule you and tell you how you should make a good “brew”. A nice guy who loved what he did and wanted to pass on his knowledge without anything in return. His enthusiasm rubbed off on us and we purchased our first souvenir to send home….some authentic loose tea leaves and we also had a cuppa in the café!

It’s a shame about the Cameron Highlands because it was such a beautiful place and had so much potential to keep you busy for ages, but after a day we had pretty much done it. As Bal said to us, the Malaysians just don’t do outdoors and certainly not walking (unless it was around a shopping mall he joked).

Hoping for more to do at the next place we booked a 6:00am bus transfer to Georgetown in Penang, an island just off the west coast.

Kuala Lumpur

We arrive at Phenom Penh airport through early morning rush hour traffic, much like at home just with more horns and no body obeying any road rules. As we pulled into the airport we noticed a small administration building to one side with large letters above the entrance saying “S.C & A.M.S” which we decided was the department of government scams where the latest and best ones are developed and where locals go to learn new ways to rip off tourists. Not that we’ve become sceptical at all!

The airport is fairly modern by our standards let alone Cambodia’s. I have to say that we were glad to be finally leaving Cambodia, having been constantly asked if we want a taxi, food, drink etc. It had finally got too much. Also Phenom Penh (and Cambodia come to that) was much more expensive than we had anticipated, especially considering how poor a country they are. Unfortunately, it just made you feel even more aware that you are being ripped off and you’re not even getting a smile when they do it. The final indignation was a $50 departure tax for all passengers flying out from the country. After having to pay for two visas to get in, this really was rubbing salt into the wound.

We arrived at KL airport without incident and exited customs ready for the onslaught of taxi and hotel hawkers……nothing…..no one stood in our way to try to sell us anything….calm at last.

KL is a cultural melting pot with the population split between Middle Eastern, Asian and Westerners all living and working together in seemingly perfect harmony. Its fascinating to see, being around so many cultures in one place. The only down side is that most of the restaurants don’t sell alcohol as the dominant religion is Muslim. We‘ve been dry for 2 days and the shaking has finally stopped!!

Many countries have a national sport. Australia has cricket, Germany has football, England has…..??????? And Malaysia has walking round shopping malls. To facilitate this very popular sport they have so many malls that at times it seems like they are connected and you could walk from one side of the city to the other without seeing light. In fact, they take their malls so seriously that the local security you usually see patrolling these centres to move along groups of teenagers or loiterers, carry pump action shot guns. I assume shopping lifting just does not happen in KL.

One of the larger malls and more upper class in terms of the shops there was the Suria KLCC centre which also happened to be positioned under the iconic Petronas towers. The twin Petronas towers are the 5th tallest twin towers in the world (proudly promoted by the Malaysian tourist board J) and is the only real sightseeing in KL. To go to the sky bridge on the 48th floor (not even close to the top) that connects the two towers is free, but to get a free ticket you have to queue at 7:00am and try your luck. As we have done much taller buildings on this trip and as a 6:00am start to get there on time did not appeal, we decided to pass on this opportunity and just take some photos of the towers instead.

With nothing much to do other than wander the city and take in the ambience and daytime temperatures reaching a cooling 36 degrees, we spent quite a bit of time walking the malls and enjoying the air conditioning. The malls not only have the usual shops but the corridors and walkways are also packed with stalls. As I passed one of these stalls, the women came out to try and sell me something. With the reactions of Karate Kid I put my hand up and said “no thank you” and walked on not even hearing what was for sale. Emma was lagging behind looking at some shoes or something and heard what the woman had said…..“Hair loss treatment sir?” Emma was beside herself laughing at this little incident, retelling it several times during the next few days - Oh how I laughed. The sales woman obviously does not know the difference between a short haircut and balding!

As we had arrived in a new country we quickly started our usual routine of planning what are we going to do and try to see, so with guide book in hand we started mapping out where we could get to bearing in mind that we have to be in Singapore for the 12th July and our flight to Australia. After several false starts trying to book trips and onward travel, we finally decided to spend some time in the Cameron Highlands doing some trekking in the mountains and jungles of Malaysia.