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The Petronas Towers
A spectacular sight at nightIt was a simple overland border crossing from Singapore to Malaysia. Still early, we decided not to hang around in the place that we arrived in, instead getting a coach north to the nearest major town on the tourits trail, Melaka. Our guide book gave Melaka a very favourable write up, and although the people were very friendly, I found it to be a fairly lifeless place.
It was evening by the time we were ready to go out so we only vetured as far as the big shopping complex that was close to our room. After a bit of grub we stumbled upon a large bowling alley where Arf and Howie took the opportunity to show me up as the amateur that I am! Bowling is a big sport in Asia and there were some people there who were spinning the ball like the professionals do on the telly. Quite impressive, but my method of fuzzing it down there as hard as I can is the real crowd pleaser (if not the points scorer!).
The walk home in the dark was an interesting one as there were huge open water 'gutters' that ran along most pavements. They don't
smell the best and they're big enough to fall down and do yourself some serious damage! Oh, and the bats that started flying crazily around our heads as we passed under an archway was not an experience that I wish to repeat!
Melaka is known for retaining some Dutch charm, the Dutch having colonised it for about 150 years in the 1600 and 1700s. I'd like to question that though as I didn't see one red light, tulip, or coffeeshop in the whole time that we were there! What we did see was 'the most imposing relic of the Dutch period in Melaka...Believed to be the oldest Dutch building in the East'. A big red building. Grrrrrrrreat.
I did manage to have some fun though when I got my hands on an iguana (sharp claws!) and an albino python. James, snake lover that he is, maintained a thirty metre safety zone when I was partaking in the aforemetioned animal handling, much to our warped amusement.
We weren't keen on spending too long in Melaka so we went to the nice temples that were recommended and we had a meal in the small Chinatown area on our final
morning. The name of the most attractive temple escapes me, but it will take me much longer to forget the woman that farted really loudly as she bent forward to pray there. It must have been (at least) a four gun salute and I felt really bad for having to slide off and snigger in a place where I was trying to be as respectful as possible. But, in fairness, she started it.
The next stop was Kuala Lumpur. We've been slaves to our guide book whilst we've been in Asia and I was quite surprised to find that relatively little had been written about 'KL' considering its size and importance as an Asian hub. There were probably an abundance of good things to see and do there but we were oblivious to them!
We went to a bar on our first night where we spent hours playing darts to a background of awful karaoke singing. The barmaid asked me when I was going to sing and I told her that I'd only sing when she did. Well, she called my bluff and I had to meekly wangle my way out of it, although I now wish that
I hadn't bottled it as it would have been a good laugh. I certianly wouldn't have been any worse than some of the shameless people that were 'singing'. Never mind, maybe next time.
We got back to our room late that night and it was freezing because our air con couldn't be adjusted or turned off. The place hadn't supplied any form of blanket or sheet so James went down to the night reception to ask if we could have some. The guy went to the cupboard and although he didn't have any blankets, James saw that he did have lots of mattress sheets. After learning this I went down to ask, nicely, if we could get one of these each to cover us for the night as it was so cold. He kept saying "No. Sorry." and offering no reason why, which resulted in me raising my voice in protest more than I like to. We gave up on the sheets, only to get a knock on our door about fifteen minutes later from the guy that I'd shouted at. He'd gone out and bought us each a brand new blanket! Now, I'm an advocate of trying to
The streets of KL
You can just see the top of the Petronas Towers in the background keep calm in order to get things done, but I guess this proves that sometimes a hissy fit can get results!
The next day was the obligatory tower day. First stop was the KL Tower, a 421m communications tower that has a public observation deck at about 275m. The audio tour (headphones) that was included in the price was interesting as it gave the background to most of the significant buildings and areas that were visible from up there. After that we got a cab to the Petronas Towers. I can't remember the exact wording of their claim, but it was something like 'the tallest towers in the world'. I know that they're no longer the tallest buildings, instead I think it was a carefully worded phrase that was intended to make people think that. For the stattos amongst you:
World's Tallest Buildings - a list that is made up exclusively of buildings in North America, Asia and the Middle East. But I digress. When we arrived at the Petronas Towers we found out that the Skybridge that links the two towers was closed for the day. It's the only part of the building that is open to the general public,
The cats of KL
They must have been super-glued there! but we weren't too fussed as we'd already been up the KL Tower.
The evening saw us don our glad rags and head to a suburb of KL called Bangsar. It's supposed to be a place where expats party, but we found it to be mainly locals that graced the dancefloors; not a bad thing of course. We ended up in a bar that sold five home made vodka shots for the equivalent of about 3.50GBP. The barman was an English guy who poured our drinks with a high elbow and even gave us a couple of free rounds. Luvvly jubbly.
After a bit of a lazy morning we eventually left KL on a coach bound for the Cameron Highlands. As the name might suggest, the Highlands are at altitude, and the higher the coach climbed, the worse the weather got. At one stage it was raining so hard that the water started to leak through the roof of the coach! What we didn't know was that the water had also leaked into the luggage compartment and although we escaped any serious water damage, Howie's bag got the brunt of the soaking.
When we arrived we found
View from the KL Tower
...of the Petronas Towers out that our first choice hotels were surprisingly both full, so we ended up in the attic rooms of a different place. They did the job, but it felt a bit like a treehouse and I couldn't even stand upright in the highest part of the room!
We did a really enjoyable adventure tour with a local company on our first full day in the Highlands. It started off with a trip to a huge tea plantation, followed by a walk into the 'mossy forest' which stays wet and damp regardless of the weather nearby. After the forest stop we were driven a short distance to the top of the mountain where there was a lookout tower, but we were up amongst the clouds and I could hardly see a thing. Lunch on the road (literally) was followed by a visit to the small settlement of an indigenous tribe. Although they were a genuine tribe, the authenticity of it was lost on me as one of the guys that came to meet us was wearing a 'Perth, Australia' tshirt! We got out of the car and our guide gave James a plastic bag full of sweets to pass out
View of the KL Tower
It was too big to fit it all in one shot! to the children, but the kids were wise to it and as soon as James took the bag they were jumping up at him and ripping it from his hands. Patience is clearly not a tribal virtue! The best part of the tribal visit was using the blowpipe - I was surprised to get my shot quite close to the centre of the target.
The last part of the tour was a hike in the rainforest. We were warned about staying still for too long because of the leeches but we soon realised that staying still was not an option because our guide set a brisk pace. It was a really hot and sticky few hours and I was glad that I had my hiking boots as it was very wet and muddy underfoot. Apart from exploring a rainforest, the main purpose of the hike was to show us the world's largest species of flower, the Rafflesia. We were there at the right time of year to see it, although it was a manky old thing. About one metre wide, it had a harsh spiky centre and it was crawling with mosquitoes and other nasties. You wouldn't get any
brownie points for bringing a bunch of those home to the mrs, that's for sure!
The next morning was a sad one as Arthur left us to make his way up to Bangkok. His trip was to finish at the end of July and he understandably wanted to pick up the pace a bit so that he could see as much as possible before he went. James and I saw him off at the bus station, waited until he was out of sight and then we did some whooping and hi-fives before getting a coffee and discussing how great it was to finally cut away the dead wood. And Arf, I know you're reading this - I'm just joking big guy :-)
I went on another (half day) tour in the afternoon while James went to play golf. My tour involved going to a lot of different farms: Butterfly, Insect, Bee, Cactus, Flower and Strawberry. The only ones that really interested me were the Butterfly and Insect farms, with the latter being the real highlight. I almost summoned up the courage to hold a scorpion (I HATE scorpions) but I didn't quite manage to. One of ze German
guys that was with me had the scorpion put on his chest while he was standing up. Apparently they can't sting while they're vertical. Apart from the scorpions there were various beetles, spiders, stick insects, snakes and other creepy crawlies. I liked that!Definitely a bloke thing!
We left on a bus bound for the north-east Malaysian coast the next day. From there we got a boat to a small island, which I'll rave about in the next blog.
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Charles
non-member comment
Hope you're not referring to me when you mention statto's