Malaysia

Butterworth
Penang
Perhentian Islands
Cameron Highlands - Tanah Rata
Melaka
Kuala Lumpur

Forget Thailand, come on Malaysia. We departed on the sleeper train from Chumphon and arrived at Butterworth the next morning. We then got a ferry to Penang, an island with a great colonial feel mixed with Malaysian, Chinese and Indian notes.

On Kate and Lee's recommendation, we stayed at the amazing Penang Guest House with the comfiest bed ever, air-con and hot showers! Lee had challenged us to devour 8 slices of toast at the free breakfast, which unfortunately we could not fulfill. 6.5 was Olly's max and 5.5 was mine.

Whilst in Penang, we hired a motorbike and went cruising around to see the sights of the city. We visited the Butterfly and insect farm, where we checked out some of the Malaysian jungle nature, including some of the local massive spiders. Next stop was the beach to top up the tan

With the challenge of climbing the largest mountain in Asia (Mount Kinabalu) looming, we decided in Penang that some serious training was in order. For training session 1, we decided to go for a walk around the botanical gardens and then climb Penang Hill. It was a killer climb in the heat, but there were wild monkeys all around which kept you going. Whilst Olly was cooling off, one of the cheeky monkey's took a shining to his t-shirt (or maybe his smell) and ran off with it! The views from the top of the hill were great and made it all worthwhile. We took the lazy way down via the funicular.

Every night we ate in Penang's Little India, with fantastic cheap curry, tandoori chicken and naan bread ... Olly's dream. We also found a little haven for me, a chocolate boutique where you could walk around and sample everything!

After 4 days in Penang, we decided we needed a break from all this traveling and headed to the idyllic Perhentian islands. Holiday time!!! Pure white sand beaches, ultra crystal clear waters, corals, fish, turtles and beach BBQ's every night, get in! A dream destination! 5 days soon went by sun bathing, reading books and doing bugger all. Great! We had arranged to meet Pete from Loas on the islands, so upon his arrival the drinking and card games commenced! Monkey Juice (local rum) was the island tipple, this was about all you could get your hands on as all alcohol is illegal in this part of Malaysia (unless you are Chinese!)

After spending a few days lazing around with Peter, Olly and Peter organised to go diving to see the underwater world. Then disaster struck ... at 7am Olly woke with a pain in his right arm. It was still dark,so with a torch we took a look, and there was blood everywhere. We turned the big light on and then saw a giant red evil looking centipede run across the bed under the cushion. The pain in Ollys arm really started to kick in then, his hand turned blue and he started to feel faint! We chased the centipede out of the hotel room, as it was too fast to kill and then went to get help. We found out that the bite was not deadly,just very painful. Olly could not move his arm for 4 hours, so the diving trip had to be cancelled
for another day.

A few days later, Olly could move his arm again and so he went off diving with Pete. Highlights of the dive included a huge Stingray and some tiny shrimp like creatures that cleaned the cuticle of your nails!

Via the dive school we met two Manchester girls, Lynsey and Jane, who reminded us both of back home in Didsbury (as they also frequent the Met). It was Pete's birthday on the island and so we all went for a nice meal and then got down to some monkey juice drinking. On the final day we all went on the compulsory island snorkel trip. We swam with turtles, thousands of different colourful species of fish and even a white tip sharks! It was a perfect way to end our time on the islands and move on to pastures new.

Next stop the Cameron Highlands, where the climate is cool and the air is fresh. We stayed at Father's Guesthouse, which was a great hostel, with a really homely feel and a nice garden to relax in. However, we had training to do!

We did a couple of jungle walks whilst we were there, one of which took in the sights of a strawberry farm and tea plantation. We picked our own strawberries and then we were subjected to a photo shoot by one of the workers ... which included the honeymoon pose ... biting one end of the strawberry each! We were as red as strawberries by the time he had finished. We then went up to the Boh tea plantation. We spent a couple of hours sampling various tea's, eating chocolate cake and devouring chocolate biscuits. The perfect way to spend an afternoon, although any calories burned trudging uphill to get there were soon put back on. We had to hitch a lift back and our first ride was with some nice locals in a nice car, however we finished the journey in the most battered in car I have ever seen and how we did not get high off the petrol fumes I will never know. Still we made it one piece and treated ourselves to a delicious banana leaf dinner ... basically a banana leaf on which they put your rice, curry slop and various other condiments - well I guess it saves on the washing up.

Before leaving the highlands, we decided that we had to give Durian fruit a try. This fruit smells so bad that it is band in hotels and on public transport, however it is supposed to taste really good. Well whoever decided that is seriously deranged, I have never tasted anything so foul (like purified garlic crossed with sick) and the texture is even worse.

We then headed to Melaka, a dutch colonial town which was really quaint. We did a walking tour of the city, taking in the fountain built for Old Queen Vic and a really good china town. We ate more tandoori chicken and Olly had his first Nassi Lamak (Malaysian breakfast consisting of coconut rice, veg and peanuts). We went to the cinema to see Terminator and it was so cheap ... we could even afford to sit in the 'love seats' at the back, which were basically a bit bigger and you could lift the arm up in the middle ... how romantic! Next, we had a characature done by an Asian artist and we now know what we would have looked like, had we been of Asian descent. We had a really good couple of days in Melaka and then
decided to head off to Kuala Lumpur to see Wes.

We arrived as Wesley's and the lap of luxury awaited us. His flat is gorgeous, the sheets were clean and it felt like being back at home. We spent the afternoon relaxing with Wesley and Jo, and then decided to paint the town red. Wes took us for some amazing tapas and then one too many G&T's, which was great! We even went for a midnight swim in his pool. We all awoke the next day feeling worse for wear, however Wesley had just the cure ... a banana leaf lunch, which was amazing and seemed to do the trick. Wes introduced us to 'curb (curb your enthusiasm)' and so we spent the rest of the day addicted to that ... we have bought the box set and so we will definitely be watching that when we get back.

The next day, Wes left for work at some ridiculous hour and we did the whole KL sightseeing thing. We went to the Petronas towers, the KL tower, China Town, Little India and the bird park. Unfortunately, wehave lost our camera and so there are no pics! We spent our final night with Wes, eating gorgeous food at another of his local haunts and buying DVD's. Then we said goodbye to Wes, goodbye to mainland Malaysia and headed to Borneo.

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