Street art, Georgetown
Off to Malaysia today. Another early start! Picked up at 7am by mini van to Hat Yai, 4 1/2 hrs, then wasted a few hours wandering around waiting for the train to Padang Besar on the border.
Got the 4pm train, got off at the border, went through Thai immigration to leave the country, then walked around the corner to the Malaysian immigration to enter, free 90 day visa. They checked our bags, then we went upstairs to buy tickets for the next leg and re boarded the same train. Easy. Jim had some Malaysian Ringets that his parents had given him (about 5.5 Ringets to the pound), it was 19 MR each for the next leg.
Got off the train at Butterworth at about 9.30pm, where we were aiming to get a ferry to Penang, an island attached to the mainland by a couple of bridges (one of them is the longest in Asia at 24km long). We were heading to Georgetown.
We got chatting to a guard on the train and when we got off he pointed us in the direction of a free mini van transfer to the ferry. It all seemed too good to be true, expecting it to be a con or scam of some kind, but no, it was a shiny new bus, the driver opened the door for us and loaded our bags and dropped us at the ferry port! The ferry is only 1.20 Malaysian Ringets (about 20p) across to Georgetown.
We met some great Malaysian guys whilst waiting for the ferry, had a good old chat, they were funny and super helpful. One of them, a retired Malaysian football player, told Matt that he needed to drop a few pounds, dress a bit smarter, cut his hair, and have a shave! Matt took it well! He then asked us where we were staying, got out his phone and phoned our guesthouse (Stewart Houze) and asked the guy to pick up 'his colleagues from the UK!' And sure enough he was there waiting for us when we got off.
Great little guesthouse, 80MR, free tea, coffee, toast.
Georgetown is the capital of the state of Penang and is named after King George III. It's an attractive place to walk around with lots of old colonial style buildings. By far the most civilised, English feeling place we've visited. Whilst we were there we hired bicycles and did our own tour, saw the clan jetties, 5 wooden piers that have been lived on for generations by the same families, the fort, and some of the street art of which there is loads.
Kung Fu girl, this is huge
Kids on a bicycle (with a real bike)
Bruce Lee kicking a cat
Bruce Lee kicking Jim
Trishaw man
A hairy building
Things on sticks. Not sure what some of those things are.
Century Egg. Appetising eh?
I know what you're thinking. Yes. It's a Clam.
Trishaw corner
Little cafe around the corner
We also took a bus to Penang National Park (4 Ringets, 1 hour bus ride). The trekking was hard work in the heat, boy did we sweat. It was a great day though, we saw Dusky Langurs, some with babies (which, strangely are ginger), they were so cute, Macaques, Monitor Lizards and at the beach there is a turtle hatchery where we could see some baby Green turtles. Had a fantastic curry in little India, all in all a fab day.
A drongo, not a great photo as couldn't get very close but you can see the long tail feathers
Dusky Langur
Baby Dusky Langur
April 19
Got the bus at 1pm to the Cameron Highlands, looking forwards to a cooler climate for a few days (40MR each) from Komtar Station. The Cameron Highlands are around 1500ft above sea level and are mainly forested. There are lots of tea plantations, farms and agriculture because of the stable year round climate. It was a bendy road and we had heavy rain and thunderstorms on the way.
Arrived around 17.45 and unloaded our bags from the luggage hold only to find them soaked through, all our clothes were wet. :-/
Found a fantastic guesthouse in the town of Tanah Rata called Gerard's Place, lovely rooms, nice lounge area, breakfast included. Jay and Gerard are lovely people and run this place so well, they really looked after us, bringing local fare for us to try for breakfast. One morning we had Nasi Lemuk (fried rice, egg, anchovies, chilli sauce), all wrapped in a banana leaf, another morning we had Apong, rice pancakes with coconut milk, they were yummy. We did some more walking here and followed trails 4, 5 and 6 through the jungle. It was pretty steep and hilly in places, (Jay told Matt it was 'only a little up and downy'. She lied. He moaned. We didn't see much wildlife, heard some tree frogs though!
Next day we did a trek in the mossy forest, so called because everything is covered in moss due to the height of the forest and being shrouded in clouds and mist a lot of the time. We also visited a tea plantation which was owned by a Scottish woman, it covered a vast area and produced one heck of a lot of tea.
A tea picker, there are a lot of Pakistanis working on the tea plantation.
On the bus to the Cameron Highlands we went through a police check point and an armed, balaclava wearing policeman came aboard and checked the identity of the Indians on board. He remove one guy. I guess he was an illegal immigrant, it seems they have a lot.
Tea, tea as far as you can see
Jim and Kathy loving Malaysia! Tea hee!
Pitcher plants in the mossy forest
Wouldn't let him stand still too long incase moss grew on his beard
Had some lunch, then Jay dropped us to the bus station as we were catching the 3pm bus to the capital, Kuala Lumpur. We arrived about 7pm. Got a taxi to 'Raizzys Place' a hostel found on booking.com, £12, shared bathroom, aircon, coffee, tea and toast, clean and simple. It was in a great spot with a bus station and train station just around the corner (Pasar Seni) from there it was one stop to KL Sentral, the central travel hub, from there you could link with any train route or jump on the mono rail which was cool. The city of Kuala Laumpur was very modern, spotlessly clean, full of huge modern shopping malls, loads of them!! One of them had a small roller coaster in it. Most had cinemas and gyms. Crazy.
Our hostel is the one to the left of this place, Sri Mahamariamman Temple, the oldest, richest Hindu Temple in Malaysia. The 75ft tall roof is amazingly ornate, if you zoom in you can see the details.
The Petronas towers, the tallest twin towers in the world
This picture's for Beau!
China town street market
Mono rail
Jim buying tickets for Singapore. Matt liked this photo for some reason, something to do with the sign.
Kathy and Jim set off on an overnight sleeper train to Singapore for the day, then a night train back again. Meanwhile we sought out the Indonesian Embassy to sort a 60 day visa. Bad news, they've stopped issuing them here in KL. We applied for the 30 day visa (170MR, £31) whilst we were there, just to cover all options, unsure at that point how we would cross into Indonesia, by land or sea, or by which port.
Went to the cinema, 1st time since leaving the UK, saw the new Avengers film, Age Of Ultron and munched some popcorn, it's about 1/3 of the price of the UK here.
Rush hour
Nosh hour
April 24
Got the train to Batu caves and climbed the 272 steps to the top. Sweated. A lot. There was also another cave full of giant statues, not sure what the story was, all a bit weird.
Where's the flippin escalator?
Giant monkey man statue
Matt liked this guy. It reminded him of Raph.
We walked through the botanical gardens, the deer park and Orchid Gardens. Matt had a sudden urge for the loo. I teased him and said they'd all be squats, when he went in it went squat, squat, squat, western, much to his relief! When he flushed the loo, the plumbing came apart and water was spouting up like a fountain! He was panic stuck but luckily managed to get it back together. Haha.
Matt got his beard trimmed by an Indian guy on the way back to the hotel. What a shock, it looked so different. I cried. This stems from a childhood experience when I was 5. My dad had a beard and shaved it off. I didn't recognise him and wouldn't look at him. Sat with my back to him for a few days. I didn't quite go that far with Matt though!
April 25
Last day in Kuala Lumpur for all of us, we decided we'd fly to Borneo tomorrow and booked flights with Air Asia for 11.10 am. Kathy and Jim fly back to Bangkok tomorrow, then back home to the UK.
The month they spent with us has gone so fast, I think they've enjoyed themselves and it's given them a good taste of travelling.
Wandering around a Mall looking for something to do on the last afternoon because it was raining, Matt decided to get his hair cut!
Before........and after
Yep. Another fag break. There were lots of these.
A local pudding, looks better than it was!
OFF TO BORNEO....April 26
Said our goodbyes to Kathy and Jim and set off for the airport, got the train to KL Sentral, then the KLIA airport link train to terminal 2 which was easy.
Took off on time and landed in Kota Kinabalu, Borneo at 13.40, 2 1/2 hours later. From there it was a bus into the centre of Kota Kinabalu for RM5 each, £1. We got off at the last stop, near Australia place, which is where most of the backpacker places are.
Marlin roundabout on the seafront
Found a cool place called Borneo Backpackers, which had a nice vibe, comfy communal areas, a small kitchen and a great little cafe/bar downstairs. Met some great people there and swapped travel tips. £14 a night, free flowing coffee, tea and toast for breakfast.
And a cat to cuddle
The hostel cafe, does some good food too
Spotted a baby Monitor Lizard on the beach
We did trip out to a couple of the islands, you can catch a speedboat from Jettleson Pier, a 10 min walk from our hostel. We chose Sapi and Mamutik, where the snorkelling was great. We found Nemo! Two adults and a baby orange/white clown fish in their anenome home. The little'un was so small his stripes were nearly touching, soo cute! Also saw a huge Bat fish, puffer fish, squid, sea cucumbers, pipe fish, parrot fish, a pair of quite large black and white clown fish and loads of other colourful fish. It was great! The boat ride is really fast with speedboat smacking the water really hard! Got back to the jetty and had a pint of iced coffee and got back to the hotel just as it poured with rain. Perfect.
This is the beach near Kota Kinabalu, nice for a walk, but the sea is really cloudy, no good for snorkelling.
There were loads of these tiny crabs, they dig down and form perfect little balls of sand which they roll into neat rows leaving tracks between. Fascinating to watch.
Kathy got hold of us that night and told us they were safely back in the UK but the ambulance had to come out on the runway to meet the plane and take Jim to hospital because he was so ill!
We couldn't believe it and were very worried! They thought it might be Meningitis but it turned out to be a combination of a ruptured ear drum from a few months ago, still not healed, (probably aggravated by diving) and possible food poisoning. We reckon it was a milo chocolate milkshake baby from too much gorging! Thank goodness!!!
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