Advertisement
Published: March 8th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Hi everyone
Ok yes we've been neglecting the blog lately - so here goes on what we can remember of Malaysia and Singapore.
So due to visa restrictions we left the beaches of Thailand slightly earlier than planned and travelled down the west coast of Malaysia starting with Penang. After another perilous 15 hour journey which included boat, tuk tuk, bus and taxi, we finally touched down in Penang in a town called Georgetown which is connected to the mainland by one of the longest bridges in the world - 8.5 miles! We stayed in Chinatown which is right next to the very popular little India, which is really good for, surprisingly enough, indian food. Penang is famous for its food so we tried to sample a bit of everything, we also went to the Kek Lok Si Temple and up Penang Hill via the scenic railway. At the top was nice and peaceful, until faced with my utmost phobia - with an upwards glance at the sky I could only stand frozen for about a full minute watching in terror at loads of black tarantulas dangling from trees and cables - thus abruptly ending the nice and
peaceful setting, we fled the area!
The best thing about Malaysia, especially for the backpacker, had to be the amazing cheap food you could get at the hundreds of hawker centres in every area you went. For about £2 per person you could easily get a 3 course meal and not even have to tip at the end - the malay frown upon this! Hannah liked the ais kacang dessert which is like a snow cone with syrup poured over it with sweetcorn, kidney beans, jelly and icecream on top
So After Penang we left for the Cameron Highlands; a quiet little town in the cooler highlands where, for about 200 years, the locals have specialised in the exporting of tea and strawberry's from here. Think a mix between the lake district, except here the mountains are covered in tea and strawberry plants and swiss style housing all about you and this fairly sums up the Cameron Highlands. We stayed at the cottage like Father's Guesthouse which was one of the best hostels we've stayed in so far - they even served proper fry ups AND cheesy beans and toast - so good after you've not
had it for a while! The highlight was our trip through the mossy forest which is like a setting from Lord of The Rings - hiking through a thick lush green mossy forest only to come out at a raised clearing with an amazing 360 view of the forest mountain scenery. Afternoon tea, scones and the famous strawberry jam is a must here at the strawberry farms - any excuse to stuff our faces! We also had some fantastic Indian food whilst in the Cameron Highlands, and very cheap at that
After Cameron Highlands we headed off to Kuala Lumpar, we wanted to go to the Taman Negrada jungle before KL but apparantly the weather was too bad and there would have been loads of leeches yuk! Overall KL didn't turn out to be anything exceptional compared to some of the other places we've been (we've been spoilt!) our favourite was KL bird park, one of the biggest free-flight walk-in aviary's in the world. You walk about and there are peacocks and all kinds of tropical birds flying about and also a place to feed parrots and monkeys, I actually had a parrot on my head at one
point - clearly the highlight of the whole trip so far.
Melaka is a historic port town south of KL which has been occupied by people from many different countries over the years. As you walk around you can see influences from Portugal, Holland, Britain, China and India. Yet again the food was outstanding, especially the pineapple tarts, and there were some interesting museums.
Why oh why did we spend six days in Singapore??? The most expensive part of Asia??! We've managed to get by fine thus far not really having much of a set plan on where to go and how long to spend where and this is what it led to - having bought the round the world tickets we had to be in Singapore for our flight to Sydney. Anyway we checked out Raffles and the zoo and Chinatown and Little India and Sentosa and traversed the many shopping centres.
So, we arrived in Australia 5 weeks ago, spent a few days in Wollongong with Pat and Tash, a day in Sydney (more to come of that when Elaine arrives with us in June) and we've settled in Melbourne to work
for 6 months before heading to New Zealand.
So what do we know about Australia so far?
the wine is pretty tasty
BBQ is wildy popular
everyone calls everyone else "mate"
the rain in Melbourne causes department stores to flood
everyone says "how you going?" "heaps" and "cruising" a lot
the rain in Melbourne prevents people from going to work because the trams are delayed
the Sydney vs Melbourne friendly rivalry can turn into a heated debate
they stole the penguin biscuit and remade it into the much tastier tim tam
Advertisement
Tot: 0.109s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0428s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Parky
non-member comment
As usual, a brilliant jealousy inducing read! Eli will love the snow cone idea. That's all her favouite things combined... Next time though, bit a 'spider warning' in advance... I can feel then on me. Are they on me? Ahhhh!