Nearly Time for Another continent!

23rd November-6th December 2008

All too soon we were heading towards Malaysia and the last leg of our South East Asian journey. The border crossing was simple, we hopped on a train from Hat Yai and soon enough we were in Butterworth, Malaysia.

So, first stop Georgetown on Penang (an island off the coast of Malaysia, connected by a handy road but we caught the more interesting ferry). Whilst there we saw the largest temple in Malaysia, a national park, sampled some local food delights (surprise, surprise!) and met the friendliest hostel owner. After talking to a few travellers in Georgetown we decided to change our route slightly and head the the famous Cameron Highlands...mainly for the talked about tea and scones!

The bus journey was quite wiggly and the rain seemed to be catching up on us but the scenery was amazing. With a couple of fellow travellers we managed to find a brilliant guesthouse ran by Suresh and Wan who informed us of a 'walk' which would lead us to our tea and scones. The walk was slightly misleading as it was more of a muddy scramble up tree roots but it was great fun, we even saw some wildlife, no, not Lucy! Eventually, we found the tea and scones and after having our fill we walked through the plantation to the nearest road and our lift home...this ended up being a hitched lift (it's safe to do this in Malaysia) in the back of a truck. At the point of getting our lift it started to bucket it down, it was a good job that we bought ponchos in Vietnam!

After a couple of nights in the Highlands we headed to Kuala Lumpur where we stayed in the noisiest hostel yet, especially for the price, so being on a budget (and needing some sleep!) we decided to move. Whilst in Kuala Lumpur we; visited the Batu Caves where we saw a Hindu wedding, some very greedy monkeys and lots of stalagtites and stalagmites; got up at 6.30am to queue for our free tickets up the Petronas Towers (the second highest building in the world); got a feel for the city on an open top tour bus; sampled some local Malay food (is that a surprise!?). We also met some new friends in KL, otherwise known as bedbugs...our sleeping bags came in handy for keeping them out-yuk!

Our last stop in Malaysia was Melaka where we toured the sights, went up a revolving tower, tried even more Malay food and come across some quite large monitor lizards in the open drains. We were informed that in some areas of the city the fire brigade were regularly called out to remove monitors who had become jammed in house drains!

Suddenly, we were on our way to Singapore and our last destination in South East Asia. Our family for 5 days were Val, Jamie and Matt Reeves (the real family of Rachael's friend, Kate, from university) who really spoilt us rotten. Matt was our evening tour guide and took us to the famous Raffles bar for a Singapore Sling, you could also eat your weight in peanuts...we tried, as well as various temples, food courts and bars! We experienced some nature by visiting Singapore Zoo and Sungai Bualu (a wetlands nature reserve), as well as the Botanical Gardens where we saw some terrapins and turtles.

We were sad to leave South East Asia and surprised that our time there had gone but very excited about the up and coming fun in Australia...especially the 10th December (Lucy's 30th birthday!) and of course Christmas. Although, South East Asia has not seen the last of us!

Have a very Merry Christmas and a great 2009!

Rach and Luce xxxx

---

---