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Published: March 11th 2009
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Hi guys,
Singapore is a shoppers paradise-malls everywhere;lots of sky-scrapers; a very well kept subway; very clean-substantial litter fines in place; and a very spacious, futuristic airport. We stayed in Little India-a great place-buzzing with energy. Sunday night seems to be the big market night-it was packed on the streets-everyone stocking up on their vege and spices or just standing around chatting. The food was great-eating off a banana leaf with your fingers-nothing like Indian at home-much nicer and lighter! The Ancient Civilsation Museum was well worth a visit-we learned a bit about the different religions and cultures of Sth East Asia. Singapore's downfall I guess is it's expense in comparison to it's neighbour-Malaysia. I reckon a lot of backpackers limit their stay due mainly to the high cost.
Our first stop in Malaysia was Melaka- a pretty, historical city a couple of hours below Kuala Lumpar. Malaysia is primarily a Muslim country, made up of Malays, Chinese and Indians. Melaka has a huge number of museums . It was extremely hot and humid there so we spent a lot of time chasing air conditioning. Our hostel was our first experience of removing your shoes before you enter, and cold
showers, which was to become a common theme in Malaysia . The light and sound show that we signed up for gave us a good insight into the history of Melaka and Malysia-pretty impressive! They've been ruled by the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English.
In order to cool down a bit we made our way towards the Cameron Highlands, where tea is grown. To get there we took 2 buses-first one to Tapa and then onto Tanah Rata. Our journey started out with a 9am Halloween film followed by another horror-v strange entertainment for a weekday morning bus ride. We caused a great stir in Tapa-seemingly most tourists go a little further to Ipoh to board the second bus. This was the first of the stares, the waving, the school children giddy with laughter-all in a completely unthreatening way. After cooling down in KFC's air conditioning (everywhere in Malaysia-they eats a huge amount of chicken), we boarded the very rickety bus to Tanah Rata, a 2 hour journey. We both loved the Cameron Higlands-our 2 night stay turned into 5 night stay. The temperature
was only in the early 20s and it was so much fresher. We stayed
in Father's Guesthouse, which had its own on sight restaurant and a really nice chill out tv room. We watched a dvd at 7 every night and then the tv was put off. Every night we spent chatting to people, having a beer, playing cards ad scrabble-met some lovely people there. During the day we trekked in the jungle (getting lost on one occasion), enjoyed tea and fresh scones and the lovely inexpesnive food ( a very tasty indian dinner was about EUR1) We visited tea plantations, strawberry fields, butterfly farms and rose centres. Really lovely place with such freindly people.
On Monsay we took the bus tranfer to Kuala Tahan to visit Taman Negara, the oldest rainforest in the world (130m yrs). Met a very interesting French lady, Jacqueline. Probably in her mid 50s who had travelled from Sth Africa to Malaysia by land. Pakistan was her favourite place because no-one hassled her!!! The boat from Kuala Tembiling to Kuala Tahan took over 2 hours-makeshift boat-pretty scary but wonderful too. It seemed like any imbalance would topple it over so we had to make sure we made no sudden movements. It was something else to see life on
the river-people and animals-swimming, drinking washing fishing. Kuala Tahan was not very impressive-had rained so it looked very dirty-lots of rubbish lying about. Accomodation was hard to find so the chalet we ended up in wasn't the best- we had the company of what seemed like a 1000 ants and points of entry, in the form of huge gaps/ holes/ windows that wont close dotted around the room. We took a night safari - boarded the back of a pick up with our guide and his big torch seated on the roof. We spotted a king cobra killer snake, wild pigs, wild tiger cats, small snakes and a kingfisher bird. most of the animals in the jungle are nocturnal so its the best time to catch a glimpse of them. A sleepness night followed for both us of as apart from the ants, we were placed beside a sewer and could here all kinds of creatures hanging around plus the King cobra had been spotted about 100m from our chalet. The next day we ventured into the jungle and what a place! you reallly get the feeling of how old it is-we trekked for while and then took the canopy
walks -ladders made of rope extending across the jungle about 50 metres plus above ground level-great fun-there was I think 6 of them.
Later that day we took a bus to Jerantut, stayed overnight, a bus to Kuantan and then a bus to Mersing. The driving here is "a little crazy" as 2 of our buses here were involved in minor accidents-both while overtaking, removing mirrors from both a motorcycle and a lorry. We stayed overnight and then got the boat to Pulau Tioman (island off the south East) We spent 3 nights there chilling out -really peaceful and enchanting-place and people. There is nothing taxing about sitting by the beach watching the sun go down with a glass of rum and coke in hand and bob marley tunes in the background. Here we spotted 2 metre monitor lizards and lots of monkeys. We stayed in a lovely chalet at Nazri 2s place on the ABC part of the island. After 3 nights here we headed back to Singapore to catch our flight to the Philippines for Martin and Layla's wedding.
Overall, Malaysia is one of the nicest places we have seen-really friendly people, really inexpensive, beautiful places
to see, good food, a great history, great roads and nice beaches. On the downside would be the littering and the crazy bus drivers!!! Definitely worth a visit!
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