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Published: January 31st 2009
Our flight from Melbourne went without a hitch.. well almost, if you don't count the lady in front of us on the escalator to the plane getting her sari stuck in the mechanics, falling over then causing a backlog as everyone else on the escalator behind her (including us) fell on top of each other in a heap at the bottom.. quite funny and thankfully noone was hurt!
The flight was probably our best yet, we enjoyed great views of Australia as we flew over it, a beautiful sunset and Quantas have to be the top airline for their service and what you get .... at the beginning of the flight we all got a little card which listed the timetable of events during the flight plus the food we would receive for our 2 meals! We got ice creams after our first dinner and this was followed by hot chocolate complete with a marshmallow.. great!! They also had pretty good films too so our 7 hours to Singapore flew by in an instant because we had so much fun.
We arrived in Singapore at 10.30pm and immediately made our way to the hostel we'd booked, getting there so
easy as we just jumped on the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit = tube), got off at the 4th stop and our hostel was pretty much opposite the station.. doesn't get much easier than that! We knew there and then that we were back to dubious no window accommodation but it was cheap and resonably clean so we didn't grumble too much.
We spent our first day in Singapore exploring as much as we could and must have walked about 10 miles during the day going here there and everywhere. After planning to walk to Chinatown from our hostel we had been going for about 15 minutes before we realised we were going in totally the wrong direction to resorted to the LRT and got there in double quick time.
As with most Chinatown districts around the world it's a great place for cheap food and random goods.. fake handbags, sunglasses and watches being the favourite articles for sale. We wandered round the streets and Dale got to sample his first Asian street trader dish but rather than go for the pig offal soup he settled for the more appetizing seafood noodle soup which was quite delicious. Chinatown was
particularly beautiful as they were just setting up for Chinese New Year so there were hundreds of banners and red lanterns lining the street. Dale also found one of his top ten drinks here.. green tea with milk and funny pearl things in the bottom, Sophie found it a little funny tasting for her liking and because we weren't altogether sure what the 'pearls' were she left Dale to explain the taste rather than sampling them herself!
Most of our day was actually spent trying to find the best and cheapest way to get from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, first stop was the train station but when they said the cheapest ticket was S$49 Sophie was not impressed when she had seen tickets as cheap as S$19 on the internet.. ok so there were none of these seats left on the internet which is why she hadn't booked them but she didn't agree with paying so much more so off we went in search of the bus agencies to find out the prices there. This was right up the other end of the city but we decided to walk it because there were quite a few sights on the
way.
So off we went in the 31°C heat bound for the far North of the city... the walk really took it out of us and we instantly built up quite a sweat and pratically ran for the shade at every opportunity. On the way we passed many amazing skyscrapers of all shapes and sizes until we came to the Esplanade Theatres which are set on the water, these are buildings to rival the Sydney Opera House with their wacky design and beautiful setting and we really enjoyed walking round this area taking in all the sights. Another good one was the futuristic Supreme Court which looks like an alien spaceship from Independence Day and is quite a sight when you see it hovering over the City Hall ready to attack!
Another stop on the way was one of Sophie's must dos for their trip... visiting possibly the most famous hotel in the world and sipping on probably the most famous cocktail in it!! So we first walked round the outside of Raffles taking in the beautiful white building which looks like it hasn't really changed since it's erection in the 1880's. We obviously couldn't go in the
rooms but just the terraces & verandas were amazing and we wonder how often they paint the walls to keep them so white in a city with so much traffic?!
We weren't sure if we would get into the Long Bar because we were both wearing flip flops but we strolled in there and got a seat under the waving fans and amongst the monkey nut shells littering the floor. Yes we both ordered Singapore Slings and sat back taking in the atmosphere. While Sophie loved her drink and savoured every drop, Dale didn't really think all that much to his and wished he'd ordered a beer.. this was made worse when the bill arrived!!! We had both anticipated that it would be a bit pricey but at S$55 Dale nearly fell off his wicker chair and was very glad he hadn't ordered another round!!! Opposite Raffles Hotel is Raffles City Shopping Centre so we made a quick stop in there too and Sophie was quite excited to find a range of British stores in here.. Topshop, Warehouse, M&S and Mango were all found with Dale a little bemused as to why she was so excited when we saw
these every day in the UK!
Onwards we went still heading for the bus stations... we walked for about another hour passing yet more wonderful buildings including one that looked like it had come straight out of a batman or superman film and we imagined Lex Luther standing at the top looking down on us! We reached the bus agencies at long last only to find that the prices for the bus weren't really that much different to the trains (d*amn it!) so after all that decided to take the train option after all!
We'd walked so far that day and decided it really wouldn't hurt to walk a bit more so made our way across the town to Little India as our tummies were rumbling by this time and the thought of a curry for dinner sounded very appealing. Of course they have millions of options for food here but Dale settled for the 'traditional' dish of Chicken Tikka Massala! It was however the best he'd ever sampled and we were both quite stuffed as we left the district bound for the hostel and to rest our weary feet.. by this time we really couldn't walk another
step so caught the MRT home again!
The following day Dale got up super early to go to the train station and book our tickets for that evening. Sophie had done a little more research and discovered that we could get the sleeper train with normal seats for just S$30 so we opted for the cheap seats and a sleepless night. We had another full day in the city ahead of us so first things we ventured to the Oxford Street of Singapore.. Orchard Road. This road is wall to wall shopping centres and designer shops that we could only dream of spending our backpacker ££'s in so we opted to window shop and shelter from the heat in the air conditioned buildings instead! The best thing we found along this road (which is a little sad!) was a huge screen which showed trailers for the upcoming films but what was amazing about this was that it had sound too so it was just like watching a huge tv in the street.. cool!
We spent the remainder of our day returning to Chinatown to eat in the yummy Maxwell Market Food Court where Dale got another of his
favourite weird drinks and we gorged on Thai food.. but by the time we'd eaten and from the 100's of miles we'd done the previous day we were both pretty whacked so returned to the hostel to make the most of the sofas and free internet until it was time to go to the train station to catch our train.
This was our first train journey we'd had since we set out so it was quite exciting even if we were in the cheap seats! We set out from Singapore with virtually an empty carriage so were optomistic that we would get some sleep and seats to ourselves.. wrong!! After we'd been stamped out of Singapore our next stop was Johor Bahru in Malaysia, at this stop an eternal stream of people got on filling up every seat so no room for us to stretch out. What was worse that there was a school group in amongst the group and they were predictably rowdy for the whole trip so we resorted to our earplus and eye masks to try to get at least an hour of shut eye. It didn't help that they felt the need to put the
There are lots of scooters here
for some reason they all wear their jackets on backwards.. if anyone knows why this is please tell us!air conditioning on maximum for the whole journey so Sophie was glad of her sarong that we snuggled under to try to avoid hyperthermia!
We arrived in Kuala Lumpur spot on time at 6.15am, this was a little early to be waltzing into a hostel so we decided to waste an hour or so 'enjoying' a McDonalds breakfast. We have found McDonalds to be a bit of a saviour at times like these because they offer free coffee refills so you can pretty much sit there as long as you want and enjoy hot coffee or tea at the same time... a good tip we feel that most travellers should take full advantage of! At one point we tried to take the cup with us with the full intention of getting 'refills' whenever we passed a McDonalds but the polystyrene cups don't travel so well in rucksacks so we abandoned that plan!
Once again getting to our hostel was a piece of cake on the LRT (Light Rail Transit), we hopped on at the train station, got off in Chinatown and followed the pretty accurate Lonely Planet map to where we thought our hostel would be. It was
pretty tricky to find due to the high signage but when we got there we were glad that they let us check in at 8am rather than the 12noon time they advertised on their website. Our hostel was right slap bang in the middle of the Chinatown district so we were well placed for cheap eats and seeing the run up to the Chinese New Year celebrations, the hostel had a lovely roof terrace too which was a godsend for cooling off after trekking round the city all day.
As with all the cities we visit we decided to do our exploring on foot despite the sweltering heat, Kuala Lumpur is a fantastic city with old buildings sitting side by side ultra modern skyscrapers which makes for interesting views. We also found the people here to be so friendly and helpful although as with most Asian countries they take great delight in staring at any white people as they walk past and sometimes even ask if they can have photos with us... quite strange, we can't understand why people would want a load of photos with random white people on they don't even know! Dale also made an interesting
friend when we sat down in one restaurant, an Afganistani refugee who offered Dale money if he could get him into the UK and resorted to offering Dale 1/2 of his UK income should he be successful.. needless to say we declined!
As everyone knows the most famous thing to so in KL is to visit the awesome twin Petronas Towers skybridge standing 170m above ground level. Entry to this is actually free but you have to get there pretty early as tickets are given on a first come first served basis with a limited number available each day. We arrived at 8am with quite a queue already there but it goes down very quickly and because the groups are quite large we were placed on the 9.15am group so waited in the exhibition area and killed time watching a video on the making of the towers. We were called up at 9am to go though to the '3D cinema room', here we were given some very attractive 3D glasses and watched a short film on the towers. This film was supposed to be in 3D but we found that the results were not very good and as we
were sat on the front row it just made our eyes go a bit funny. After the video we had our bags scanned and went up in one of the 29 double decker high speed lifts (check our towers knowledge!) to floor 41 and were let loose on the skybridge for 15 minutes to take snaps and drink in the incredible KL views. It was pretty exciting for both of us to be on the bridge after watching so many movies with it on and wishing one day you could go there yourself.. we love it when we have moments like that as it feels a bit like your dreams really have come true!
After the skybridge we went to window shop in the KLCC.. a 6 storey shopping centre that is part of the twin towers complex. Much like Singapores fabulous shopping centres this one houses names like Tiffany, Gucci, Topshop etc and is so clean and modern it really does put some UK shopping centres to shame (Grosvenor Centre take note!!!). After having a quick look round we visited the gardens that lie behind the complex and by far the best thing here is the swimming/paddling pool
that we stood in for quite a while to cool off as even by 11am it is so hot you are sweating just standing around.
As it was coming up to lunchtime we decided to take a walk over to Little India and check out the food options there.. it was here that we had our first ever experience of eating with our hands! We found a great little vegetarian restaurant which did a banana leaf meal for just RM7 (about £1.50), basically a misture of rice, popodom and lots of different curry sauces. They asked us if we wanted a fork & spoon and of course we did but then they said tht no we couldn't have one and really should try eating it with our hands like everyone else... so we did! It really feels wrong to eat wtih your hands though, much more so that we would have thought and it's pretty gross when you get bits of curry stuck under your nails but we enjoyed the experience all the same.
In the afternoon we ventured out to the Batu Caves 13km outside the city centre. These are huge caves which are used as Hindu
places of worship and attract millions of people at their prime festival times. The entrance to the biggest cave has to be the most spectacular thing though, there are 272 steps to the biggest of the caves and at the entrance is a huge gold statue as tall as the cave entrance itself. As you walk up the steps you see loads of naughty monkeys at the side and as cute as they look it was a bit scary when they all ganged up on you obvioulsy hoping you had some treats to give them.. they got pretty grumpy when you didn't have anything so we had to scare them away! The caves are quite amazing with lots of little Hindu shrines and temples inside and because much of the cave is open at the top as the sun shines you get lots or rays of light coming though which look so pretty. It is also really nice and cool inside so we hung around taking it all in for quite a while.
As much as we loved KL we didn't really want to stay for too long after we'd seen what we wanted to so went to the
bus station to attempt to buy a ticket to Lumut for the following day. What we hadn't really taken into account was that Chinese New Year has a huge impact on the country with people going here there and everywhere, what this meant was that every bus company we tried had no tickets available for Lumut that Friday.. or Saturday.. or Sunday.. or Monday! So then we started to worry that we would be stuck in KL for the foreseeable future and although we liked it we didn't like it that much!!! We didn't know what to do so lef the station to try and make a plan... not to be beaten we decided to take an alternative route instead and head up to the Cameron Highlands first then across to Lumut, we were going to leave visiting here for when we came back down again but it wouldn't hurt to go this time around so we booked tickets for the following morning.
Our final evening was spent eating out in Chinatown and watching the colourful dragons dancing around the street in preperation for the Chinese New Year celebrations in a few days time, the trouble is that these
celebrations go on until the very early hours and with our window backing onto the main street we didn't get that much sleep ahead of our early start the following day but nevermind.. we had a long bus journey ahead of us so can always sleep on there...
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James Kim
James and Kim
And they all fell over......
I love the comment about the woman falling over on the escalator!! I've always wondered what it would look like if someone got trapped at the bottom and everyone else fell over. ahahah. wish i saw that. Kodak moment! lol Singapore is a lovely places isn't it, i went 3 years ago. where u going to next?