Blogs from Malaysia, Asia - page 750

Taman Negara is one of the oldest (the oldest?) natural rainforest in some sub-segment of the world...or maybe the whole world...any way you look at it, they tell you it's really really really old. It's also pretty close to Singapore and a great hiking opportunity for those of us who want more than an urban jungle from time to time. It's on the east side of Malaysia's "hinterland" and it's easiest to get to from Singapore by train, then take a boat and/or bus. I have to thank Thomas from Germany who did most of the organising and planning for this trip...I just followed which made life much less stressful than one of my usual "get up and go and figure it out on the road" trips. Anyhoo, on with the show. The Group: Thomas, Stefan ... read more

Arrived in Langkawi a few days ago from Penang, Needing some R & R, beaches and sunsets and I haven't been disappointed, not by a long stretch. Langkawi has just the right balance in the places we've been, not too touristy. Spent most of the time chilling out. Third Day we hired a hire car, a nice little proton number. You have to drive a proton in Malaysia, they are everywhere. We got the most knackered one we could find, with go faster stripes that looked like someone had scratched them onto the side of them. Had a drive round the island, its all good. We also went up a cable car to the top of the mountain, unfortunately as with everywhere we've been something goes pear-shaped, there was low flying clouds so we saw........sweet fa. ... read more

3rd Sept: I repacked all my winter gear into my other bags and left them in storage and repacked all my summer stuff and food into my backpack and found out how I was to get to Malaysia. I took the local bus into Malaysia ($2.50) and through the border and customs then changed my Singapore dollars into ringets about 1S$-2RR and got back on the bus to JB and the main bus centre for lower Malaysia arrived there at about 10.30, and found out the next bus to Mercing(where I had to catch the ferry) was only at 2.30!! I had read it was going to be at 11 but I had forgotten it was a Sunday to that bus didn’t run! So I bought a ticket and waited around in the food court and ... read more

Time to leave Kuala Lumpur again - this time for the Cameron Highlands, a temperate highland region two hours' drive to the north of the capital. We have been looking forward to visiting the highlands as the average temperature there is ten degrees below what we have been used to for the last three months ! That and the absence of humidity makes the Cameron Highlands a very popular stopover for visitors to peninsular Malaysia. As we get off our bus from Kuala Lumpur in Tanah Rata, the main "town" in the Cameron Highlands - more of a large village really - the drop in temperature hits us immediately. On go the jumpers - and they won't come off for our entire time here ! In fact on several occasions during our two-day stay here we ... read more

After Penang we crossed the short stretch of sea to Butterworth where we took the sleper train to Kuala Lumpur. We arrived very early in the morning after terrible sleep to be whisked off to our booked accomodation opposite the bus station in mingville. We made an immediate executive decision (helped also by some strange man skulking around us) to get into another cab to a nice hotel. Kuala Lumpur improved a lot after that. We went up to the sky bridge that links the two Petronas Towers, ate at the revolving restaurant up the KL Tower and got sprayed with foam and streamers by crowds of excitable teenagers in the streets on the eve of Malaysian Independance Day (Merdeka). We purchased more 'original' goods at the Chinese Market and enjoyed the cities various sites including ... read more