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Asia » Malaysia
November 20th 2011
Published: December 16th 2011
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I think I can consider myself equal amongst friends and family when I say I know nothing about Malaysia. We had never planned on spending a great deal of time in this country, using it more as a way to get to Singapore. I now regret this naivety. The peninsular part of Malaysia that we travelled through is a wonderful country, and I'm sure that Malaysian Borneo is the same. Just with added orangutan.

We arrived in Georgetown on the island of Penang in the north of the country, late at night. Got luckily dropped off at the end of the road that our prospective hostel was on thus trundled towards it. Top notch hostel, free wifi, free breakfast and tea/coffee all day long, and very comfy air-conditioned dorms!

Penang, and Georgetown in particular, is a former colony of the UK/Netherlands and used during the 19th and 20th Century as a major port along the route of the Dutch East Indies Company to Japan and Batavia (now Jakarta). The town also has it's own districts for the Indians, who worked here for the British ,and the Chinese communities. This Global influence is very prevalent in the town's architecture, layout and religious beliefs. Great colonial buildings that wouldn't look out of place in Edwardian London, Chinese influenced terrace houses with European touches such as clapperboard windows and the bright colour exterior paint. The religious melting pot of this town is especially fascinating. Great mosques stand next door to a cathedral, in turn next to a Chinese temple. We did a 'walking tour' that starts with a quick history lesson in the marvellous History museum and then continues along a street that contains sites of worship of 6 different religions. Confusingly, this street's name is translated from Malay as 'four religions street'...

At night the Chinese and Indian areas come alive with streetside 'restorans' serving incredibly authentic food from their respective homelands. On our first night we dined on tandoor chicken and felt like we were back in India with the smells and tastes all around us! During the day should you find yourself feeling hungry then throughout Little India you can find hawkers selling amazing snacks (bhaji, pakora, samosa etc) all fried to perfection just like when stopping at a rest stop on a long-haul bus journey in northern India, as well as traditional sweets such as Mysore pak; a sticky, buttery cube of goodness.

Due to our lack of preporation for Malaysia we had resigned ourselves to only spending 2 nights at each of 3 stops. We were both sad to leave Georgetown, but excited to see what the rest of the country had in store.



The ferry back across to the mainland was free (take note Red Funnel) and landed us right next to the main bus station and within seconds of being through the gate we had tickets to Kuala Lumpur (locally and conveniently known as KL) thrust into our hands and were ushered onto a bus! Probably the best long-distance bus we've had since we started this trip, with leg room galore and seats so comfy that I fell asleep in (this NEVER happens).

5 hours later after a rather incongruous switch of buses somewhere on the outskirts of KL, we had arrived in a city that I had never given a moment's thought to before or during this trip. To emphasise my lack of knowledge of this country, the only thing I knew about KL was that it had some very very high twin towers. Kuala Lumpur to me felt a bit like a more grown up, 21st century version of Georgetown. Large Indian and Chinese communites dominate central KL (we stayed in Chinatown and ate in Little India), all easily navigable via the city's metro. On our first night after noshing on chicken curry and washing it down with masala tea, we headed out to find the Petronas Towers, the world's 5th tallest building. We got off at what we thought would be the closest metro station, and quickly found ourselves in a huge shopping mall with not much in the way of an exit. After walking around for ages we found one that led out into a nice lake and fountain display set against a pretty good backdrop of KL's skyline. It took us a minute to realise, but when we turned around we were lost for words. The towers are absolutely magnificent. It is near-impossible to look away from them even when your neck starts to hurt from trying to see the top. At night they are brilliantly illuminated, bringing tourists to it like moths to a flame, all trying to get the best photograph. We spent a long time here just staring, comprehending where we were, and how we'd ended up getting here. It felt like a real landmark of the trip, despite never really considering it beforehand.

The next day we just walked around central KL taking in the day-to-day life of it's citizens. There isn't a great deal to 'see' during the day in Malaysia's capital so we ended up going back to the towers but decided to do a bit of window shopping and watch a movie whilst we were there (Tintin.. 9/10). That night we went for a mooch around the famous night walking street (the Thai/Malay term for a market it seems) which is where you can buy anything you want, all knock-off of course, but undetectably at first sight.



Next morning we made our way to the right bus station after wandering around the wrong one for embarassingly too long, to catch a bus to Melaka. The final stop of our too-fast tour of Malaysia. Melaka Town, jointly with Georgetown, has been given the status of World Heritage Site by Unesco, the award which seems to be even more easily earned than a UK number 1 single. In the case of Melaka it actually deserves
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Extraordinary photography by Miss Cox
it. It's a very pretty town with 19th century Dutch buildings dominating the town square on one side of the river, and Chinese on the other. The riverside itself is enough to warrant coming here, beautifully lit and crossed by some delicately grandiose bridges. The buildings along one side have been painted with graffiti murals representing the great things the town has to offer (including it's ill-fated Eye on Malaysia. A giant ferris wheel that was repossesed by the government when it didn't make any money). We stayed in an awesome hostel, Ringo's Foyer, run by a great guy, Howard, who takes all his guests out to dinner every night to a different place to sample the food that Melaka has to offer. We were taken to a streetside place via bicycle where we ate like kings for peasants money! The way back was alongside the river which was a)very nice and picturesque and b)very challenging along the narrow path!

The next day we succumbed to a trishaw driver by the name of Cowboy Lin who was a real character! But cycling us around Melaka for two hours can not have been good for his old frame, nor his bike. He took us all around the town visiting the main sites including St Francis of Xavier's wonky church, St Paul's church ruin on the top of a hill which had a music and art's festival just starting when we arrived, and a Chinese temple where he showed us a magic trick with a cup of water which was all a bit bizarre. Funny fellow.

We left Melaka having really enjoyed our time in Malaysia. The variety of food on offer is incredible and never bad, the people are friendly and easy to talk to mainly due to the fact that a lot of them speak good English. I've heard other traveller's say that Malaysia is expensive. Well no it isn't. Yes there are world-class hotels and restaurants but that doesn't mean you have to eat/sleep in them. The same choices are on offer here as in the rest of Asia if you can be bothered to put the effort in!

Singapore. Now there's an expensive place!



We arrived on a bus from Melaka, having made the fatal error of not writing down the address of the hostel we'd booked the previous night.. And so proceeded a taxi ride to the area I thought it was in, a lot of walking around in the pouring rain looking first for an internet cafe, and then for the hostel itself. Which in true British comedy style ended up being around the corner from where the bus stopped. We ventured out sometime later once the rain had ceased for more excellent Indian food and a walk around Marina Bay with it's stunning buildings surrounding a harbour of sorts. It truly is one of the most spectacular skylines I've ever seen. The mish-mash of buildings somehow seem to fit in the grand scale, including the truly ridiculous Marina Bay Sands hotel. 3 pillars that don't appear to be straight or parallel supporting a space-age looking worm shaped boat slapped across the top of them. Very odd! A light show involving the hotel and the buildings in front of it kicks off each evening and is better, if smaller, than its Hong Kong equivalent and is watched by hordes of tourists stood out on a jetty overlooked by a statue of Singapore's symbol, a half lion-half fish concoction. A cheeky Chrismas coffee later and we walked back towards the metro station past the old cricket ground and it's very British pavillion.

I had been anticipating the next day for quite some time. Singapore Zoo. Supposedly the best in the world, and immediately after walking ten paces inside you can see why. Orangutans are free to roam in the tree tops above their massive open enclosure, zoo keepers handing food up to them on poles. Paddocks of kangaroos are free for you to walk through. The African Savannah enclosure is one of the best I have ever seen, with hordes of raucous, squabbling baboons running around amongst oblivious onyx on the rocks above. Throughout there is barely any glass between you and the animals, usually just a moat allowing you to watch with much more interest and wonder. The zoo is huge and has all the animals you'd ever hope to see in one park. All the classics, bears, monkeys, elephants, giraffes etc but with a few extra special ones, like their trio of white tigers, komodo dragons and the free-roaming orangutans. Undoubtedly the best zoo I'll ever go to!

That night we went to the famous Orchard Road to see what all the shopping-related fuss was about. Every building along here is a shopping mall, and you can walk the length of the 2km road completely sub-surface, maxing out your credit card in air conditioned luxury. It being Christmas soon, the fantastic street lights were up and the malls all had their own decorations illuminating the dark. We managed to spend 2 hours here and not spend a thing which must be a unique occurrence!

A fantastic city to live in, I imagine. All the modern amenities (safe-to-drink tap water!! WHOO!) and skyscrapers of any modern world city, but with a touch of flair and elegance, mixed in with it's traditional community roots. I shall definitely be returning here one day, hopefully to spend more than 2 days!

Next stop, Bali & Indonesia!!

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