Suprise Destination - Malaysia

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December 21st 2008

Published: December 21st 2008

I was planning to go to Singapore on the 1-2 day train and fly out to Brisbane....I swear my intentions were honourable. But then it all started when I said Lisa should come with me on the train, we'd have a giggle and she could explore Malaysia and possibly Indonesia. Her plan ws to stay in Thailand and head up North. So she pretty much decided within 10 minutes that she wisnae doin that and she was comin with me instead. But then, she asked a very naughty thing of me.

So I said yes and re-booked my flights to Brisbane (at no extra cost - woopee!) for the 21st December so that I could see some of Malaysia with her. Man what a good idea that turned out to be. It was also an expensive idea but I shall not linger (nor worry my arse off) on this. We decided a 2week whistle-stop tour of Malaysia was in order, finishing up in North Borneo for some island/diving shennanigans. So we got on a pretty nasty sleeper train to our first stop, Butterworth. I have to say I was really looking forward to the train journeys but they werent 'all that sister'. First of all it was night-time, so ye canna see a thing....second, the beds suck, third, the toilet....well I cant really go into detail about that, fourth, ANNOYING KIDS screaming and fifth, being woken up at about 5.30am even though the train may not arrive for quite a few more hours. Pah. Rant over

We got to the border and got through customs and it was nice to see that Selamat means hello in malaysia, cause I know that word - brownie points for me eh?! We safely arrived in Butterworth and decided that we could afford one night of kippage there. Jumped on the 8minute ferry across to the lovely Georgetown where we had a bloody awful time of finding a room. Sweaty and tired as hell we got one in the end, thankfully one floor up from the stagnant, repugnant stench of piss emananating through the corridor next to the restaurant....yup. RANK.

Little India was first on the list and we had a slap up currytastic feast of feasts. Its safe to say that this was the naughtiest we had been since our fast, and we filled up so quickly - hmmm all those carbs. But it was twaddily worth it. An early night was in order and so we retired in prep for our 'full day' in Penang. Turns out we didnt rise until 10 and then had a leisurely brekkie of poached eggs on toast (oh how I miss them) but they were pants, utterly pants. This took us until about 1.30! So we hopped on a bus and stayed on it for a good hour and a half to get to the national park. The ride was lovely, Penang is a great wee island and there was lots to see. We trekked for about 40mins at the park and then ended up at Monkey Beach only to find a pair of the little blighters copulating at the end of the walkway. Upon closer inspection it was clear that the female just wasn't enjoying herself. We took some piccies of them (not copulating of course heh heh) and said hi in Monkey speak and then lay down on the beach, obviously suffering from withdrawals after at least 4 days of no beach action since Haad Yuan :-)

We arrived back in time to have some street food fare (although our taxi driver was none too happy about the 15 minute wait for our rice) and then hung out at Butterworth station for a wee bit. I dont like arriving at stupid o'clock in the morning but arriving in KL was one of those times. We were in the train station, it was 6am and everything was pretty much closed. So yes what Im trying to say is I did go to MacDonalds and I did eat shit. Im sorry.

So when the LRT opened we were on the first train to Chinatown where we had a lush (or so we thought) room booked for one night. It certainly cost enough but when we walked in we noticed that there was a receipt in the bin (bin-raker bin-raker) from Feb 2008. FOOSTY! We slept until about 10 and then got out there to see a wee bitty of KL. Eating in Chinatown is very interesting, Lisa ate some beefy noodle soup which tasted wicky wah and I went for a cloud. A cloud is a big puffy thing full of either pork, veggies or sweet stuff like cocnut. I call them clouds cause thats just what they are like, and I love them.

We popped over to the Petronas towers for a wee gander and that was nice, then we tried to find somewhere to hang out for a bit that wasnt too expensive.....impossible! We ended up in the Pavilion Mall which quite frankly hurt my eyes - the prices, the prices indeed! I did find an interesting way to spend your money though, fish therapy. You pay to dip your footsies into a pond of ickle doctor fishes who get to work massaging your feet and removing dead nasties etc I thought it would be cool to try but then decided that i shouldnt be spending cash on such extravagancies. I just thought I would tell you about this idea in case you feel the need to have your feet doctored by fish. So Lisa and I went to eat ice cream instead. I noticed that since the fast we were eating a LOT of ice cream, and liked that fact. YUM.

We then thought it was high time a visit to the piccies was due. So we watched Twilight....and blimey it were good. I mean in terms of quality of movie, script, storyline etc it was a bit on the weak side but holy monkey the lead role was hot, a hot hot vampire. So we were very happy with our choice. We took a leisurely stroll home through the streets and decided we really liked KL. By the time we got back we were pretty knacked and so grabbed a small chinatown bite (very very tasty) and popped home. We were up at 5am to get our flight from KL to Kuching (Sarawak, Borneo).

So by the time we reached Kuching we had already decided we wanted to go up towards Kota Kinabalu where all the good stuff is. Surely we should have just flown there? Yes, that would have been a great idea, but thats not what we did! So whilst at the airport we booked onto the evening KK flight and headed out for a day of Kuching fun.....unfortunately, there wasnt much fun or anything else to be had in this little quiet town. I did enjoy my first bowl of Laksi which were right good and we sat down at the waterfront for a bit. The only thing we both liked about Kuching was a lovely little gallery/cafe where they played cosy nostalgic tunesa and served lovely drinkies. So Lisa and I camped out there for a while. I ended up getting a haircut and it felt weird to have it styled and straightened again, weird indeed. We then ate and headed back to the airport for our flight.

We happened upon Lucy's homestay at around 12.30 am and the poor lady had waited up for us, oops! It was a cute little place with a homstay feel. Lucy was a wicked lady, full of knowledge and questions for us. We spent a couple of days in KK and they were pretty relaxed. Lisa and I just wanted to take it easy after our constant moving around. We ate a massive and very expensive Italian meal with some red wine and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. It happens that an Italian boat racing team were sat next to us, they were taking part in an international competitionin KK that weekend. There was one dude who wouldnt stop staring, it freaked me out at first but then I found it kinda funny. We got a bit tiddly and had a laugh with them. Next morning we got a boat out to one of the little islands, Sapi, which was nice but a wee bit touristy. It was here, however, that I had the AMAZING idea of putting my camera in my waterproof pouch and taking some underwater piccies!! Lets just say that out of about 50 there were 2 or maybe 3 ok ones though. I couldnt see what I was taking pics of so it was a bit of a point and blindly shoot scenario. I have since polished up just a little.

We decided to brave trying to dive on Sipadan over the next few days and hopped on a night bus to Semporna. We had also met a Swedish dude, Anders, at the hostel who accompanied us there. Turns out we were set to be room-mates for the rest of our time there. The bus journey was nasty but nice at the same time. There were amazing views going through Kinabalu national park. It was the night of the full moon so we saw such vivd details of the counrtysideand the clouds resting below us along the valley. The moon was beautiful set against the backdrop of the mountain, it was really something special. I really wanted to climb the mountain but just didnt have enough time.

We arrived at 4am in the BUTTHOLE of Malaysia, only to be greeted by an unhelpful taxi driver who was trying to charge ridiculous prices to the nearest hostel. Luckily there was a bunch of us so we basically told him to get stuffed and walked. It wasnt the easiest option by far. It was a ghost town that time of the morning and any places we did find had not many english speaking folks. We ended up in Scuba Junkies and booked into the dorm for the night. We were led into a shoebox full of bunk beds, some inhabited. The dude just switched on the light and gets to work clearing all our beds from other people's crap (mine was the worst - the guy below me was such a messy bugger). When we had got it all sorted the lights went out and all you could hear was crash bang as Lisa's ladders smacked the guy in the bunk below her on the face! She hadnt realised that the ladders were just resting against the bunk and weren't attached, but what made it so much funnier was that the next day we discovered that the guy was a bit of a tosser! Yey, go Lisa :-)

We had a pretty rotten sleep and decided to spend the day checking out diving etc We were pretty disappointed to find out that diving on Sipadan was not ont eh cards as the dive shops only get a certain amount of permits per day. Anders, god bless his cotton socks, managed to find a place, the perfect place! Uncle Chang's Diving resort. This was an even better find than we envisaged. We paid up for a couple of days and headed out to stay on Marbul Island. The only condition for the diving on Sipadan was that we pretend to be someone else!! Permits are bought and paid for a couple fo days in advance and when people pull out the names cant be changed, So, I was Lonneke De Best from Holland, Lisa was Barbara Scabo from Hungary and Anders was Gabor Sheitz from Hungary. I am not making these names up! We of course had a lot of fun with this. I was callin Lisa Babs Scabs and Babo Scabo!!! But, after we had arrived on the first day, we edned up talking to this very pretty lady who ended up being Babs Scabs!! She was there with here partner Gabor and when Anders introduced himself as Gabor from Hungary her eyes nearly popped out of her head in amazement! I felt bad for using her name in vain but Im pretty sure she didnt hear me. After they left I went back to calling Lisa Bab the Scab.

So we spent an amazing few days on the beautiful little island, diving, snorkelling, laughing, drinking, sunbathing and generally being happy little bunnies. Anders provided quite the source of amusement for the night-times and Lisa and I found ourselves howling in the middle of the night like we were at a pyjama party or something. It was really cool being there cause most of the people were Filipino, so I could almost say I was inthe Philippines, and we were only a few hours away from Zambounga. They made me some kinilaw on my first night there and played Tegalog songs for me even though no one else knew them. Special treatment indeed.

The diving was totally awesome and I saw loads of sea turtles, sharks, rays and lots of the most colourful lil fishes and coral. Diving on Sipadan was real special and I can see why people name it one of the best spots in the world. One day snorkelling I spotted three eels and a blue spotted ray and I was well chuffed :-)

It was a perfect end to the most amazing time of my life and I was sad to leave Mabul. Im now in Singapore getting set to leave for Brisbane this evening. One brilliant thing happened last night though. My good friend and former house mate in Manchester, Sarah, had been volunteering in Malaysia with Raleigh international and had just finished up around 1 week ago. When I knew I was gonna be in her neck of the woods I sent her a quick message to ask where she was and it turns out she was not far away at all. Then I found out she was gonna be in Singapore the same time as me and we met last night for a massive catch-up!! It was so weird, we were both knackered, me from travelling for hours on end with no sleep and her (more deservedly) from climbing mount Kinabalu a mere 2 days ago!! Anyway, even though we were exhausted we were still real excited to see each other and to deconstruct our time in Asia. I feel so lucky to be able to meet friends whilst travelling, they bring me back to reality a little which can't be all bad......or can it?! Anyway, it was only for a couple of hours but I was so happy to see beautiful Sarah-kins.

So I meet Nicky in Brissy on the 24th and we are having a traditional ozzie mexican christmas eve feast at her boyfriend's dad's mate's house. Yup, I cannae wait ;-) Have a great christmas y'all, sending long distance hugs and loads of love to you xxxxx

P.S Sorry about my atrocious spelling.

P.P.S checkout my new albums on facebook for piccies for Malaysia and Vietnam - it takes too long to upload on this site!

Bye bye!

Suprise Destination - Malaysia

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