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Published: April 22nd 2008
Singapore
When we arrived in Singapore we were still travelling with our friend John from back home. All three of us loved our visit to
Singapore. After so much travelling through Indonesia, Malaysian Borneo, and Brunei over the last few weeks, the clean streets and inviting atmosphere of this well-planned city felt like a breath of fresh air.
We arrived and checked into a hostel in Little India and strolled the area, stopping for a few beers along the way. Michelle had a drink called a "Jam Jar" - a mystery recipe that seemed to contain Malibu Rum and some red juice, Michelle gave it the thumbs up. Travis and John had beers. We were going to do some more exploring but a sudden heavy rain made us reconsider our plans. We stayed in Little India. We had the most delicious Indian meal - one of our favourites of the trip. After dinner it had stopped raining, so we walked around a different part of the city.
The
architecture is amazing, there are so many unique and interesting buildings, many of which have been around since the British Colonization. We were pretty tired from a long day of
travel - we flew from KK in the morning to a town on the Malaysian-Singapore border (cheaper to fly domestic - Malaysia to Malaysia) then we took a bus from there into downtown Singapore (about 1.5 hours). We could tell we were entering one of the cleanest and most beautiful cities in SE Asia as we drove down tree-lined streets all the way to the city core.
In the morning we moved to a different hostel down the street for a better deal - called The Inn Crowd! Luckily no rain in the morning and we headed off to tour the city. We walked around all day exploring the harbour, three riverside quays, chinatown, the business district and colonial district. All of the areas were beautiful and had their own unique charm. We loved that they have developed all of the waterfront areas to include shopping, parks and restaurants...we hope one day Toronto will do the same to extend the waterfront area.
In the middle of the afternoon, to take a break from the heat, we sat down for some Singapore Slings - when in Rome right? They were delicious! We had dinner at a nice seafood restaurant
overlooking the river at sunset. It was a great way to end our day.
The only thing we didn't like about Singapore was the heat - it was sweltering! However, we were happy to see all the sights and a quick visit to an air-conditioned mall gave us a bit of relief so we could continue our walking tour.
Kuala Lumpur
Seven hours after we left Singapore by bus, we arrived in
Kuala Lumpur (KL), the capital city of Malaysia. It was raining when we arrived. No surprise for Malaysia - it has rained every day we've been in this country! In the morning the sky is clear and blue, but the stormclouds roll in around lunch time and usually there is a shower in the afternoon that sometimes lasts well into the night. We had to walk and find a hostel. The bus driver pointed us in the opposite to our intended direction, but we ended up finding a nice hostel on the way. The hostel was great! Not great however were the 4 vulgar American frat boys in our dorm room, farting and giggling through the night! Show some respect!
After getting settled we walked
Kuala Lumpur - Petronas Towers
Locals are very proud of this impressive feat of architecture based on Islamic principles. We can see why, especially at nightto the KL tower, the fourth highest tower in the world. The CN Tower was still listed as the highest tower in the world in their exhibits, but (after holding the record for 31 years) was surpassed in 2007 by the Burj Dubai tower. We were able to get some great views and learn more about the city with the free audioguide tour. It started raining heavily again on our way to get some dinner, so we popped into the closest cafe for some food.
We woke up early the next day to line up for tickets to go to the skybridge of the
Petronas Towers. They give out a limited number of free tickets everyday so you have to go before 8am to get them. It was more for the novelty of going up because the views from the KL tower were better. However, it was neat to learn about the buildings and how they were constructed. Again, these used to be the tallest twin towers but they've just been surpassed by the Taipei 101 towers.
We walked to Merdeka Square (the colonial part of KL), chinatown and the central market and had a delicious Chinese-Malaysian lunch. John
had a bit of a scare with his camera and thought he lost all of his trip pictures (on the last day of his trip!). Luckily, we found a good camera store which used a software program to recover his photos. We were all relieved. It was our last night with John so we went for a nice dinner and discussed our favourite and least favourite parts of the trip - we all had a great time together, we just wish John could learn to smile a little more!
There is a street near our hostel that is lined with many massage parlors that solicit your business as you walk by. Every few metres you're asked "Hello, would you like massage?". As we were walking through for about the fifth time, Travis asked Michelle "Can you rub my neck while we're walking?", she said "alright ...".
When we were asked "Hello, would you like massage?" Travis replied "No thanks, I'm already getting one!" which got quite a good response from the workers on the street. We used this same joke a few times walking down the street and one of the workers said "Ah ha! That's beautiful!". Of course
Singapore
Three amigos! like all of Travis' other jokes, the person laughing the hardest, was Travis.
Well we travelled with John for 23 days through 4 countries. We slept in 14 different guesthouses over that time. All but two nights the three of us slept in the same room. Most of the time we slept in dormitory rooms. It was a bit of a whirlwind, and spending 24 hours a day with one person for 23 days straight can sometimes be a bit challenging, but not in this case! The three of us had a great time together!
We feel really lucky that we were able to travel with some good friends from back home on our SE Asian adventure. Thanks to Lianne, Laurie, and John for helping to make our travels so great.
Olympic Torch Relay - Kuala Lumpur
We returned back to KL to catch our flight to Macau, and happened to be in town at the same time as the Olympic torch relay. We decided to check it out and - remembering the weather patterns of our last visit to KL - grabbed our rain jackets and headed in the direction of the Petronas Towers. We
Kuala Lumpur - Torch Relay
The torch bearer approaches! Dr. Mikaail Kavanah is executive director of WWF Malaysia. He passed the flame to Marina Chin, former Olympic athlete and sportswoman of the year (Malaysia) in 1976. encountered the route ahead of the torch and managed to get under cover just as the heavy rain hit. We stood for about 30 minutes until the police escort arrived and we saw the flame making its way down the rainy street.
The athletes are driven to the area where they'll begin the run and after the torch was lit - very close to us - we followed the route and found another leg where the torch was again lit very close to us. We were lucky to see two lightings and although we got soaked in the rain we figured it was worth it! After the second lighting (at KLCC - the base of the Petronas Towers) we were heading inside the mall and bumped into one of the torch bearers:
Karam Singh Walia a local respected Environmental Journalist, who was nice enough to pose with us for a quick picture (again very lucky to bump into a torch bearer in that crazy throng of people!).
This has already been a controversial Olympics, with criticism of China over political issues, and the opposing argument that politics and the Olympics should be left apart. Thankfully the relay in KL was
Kuala Lumpur - Torch Relay
We were lucky to get to pose with torch bearer Karam Singh Walia - a local Environmental Journalist. The torch looked cool up close! mostly peaceful and had a large showing of Chinese supporters waving their flags, holding signs, and cheering. It was great to see.
The Torch Relay Route will head to Jakarta next. Way back in ancient Greece, the Olympics were created as a substitute for war. The idea being that if rival countries could put their energy into peaceful competitions rather than conquests, war might be avoided. From this perspective it's a shame that this Olympics has already become so political.
We'll post the entry for peninsular Malaysia as soon as we can ...
Thanks for reading!
Love Travis and Michelle
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