Blogs from Malaysia, Asia

May 2; Not the best departure we've experienced. It now seems but a distant memory when we planned this foray to the northern hemisphere. Then, we scheduled our departure similarly to others; a flight to an Asian hub, stay a day or 2 and then head west. In this case it was a daytime flight via AirAsia from Coolangatta to Kuala Lumpur . Some months ago we got a message that our flight had been cancelled and replaced a day earlier with a night time flight! As Judy is prone to DVT (blood clots), we try and fly during the day so she can move about the cabin and minimise the risk. On review, there were no daytime departures at all. In other words, AirAsia had altered all flight departures from Coolangatta. Our 'solution' was to ... read more

Georgetown has a colourful vibrant feel about it. Narrow streets lined with restaurants and food sellers. There's a mixed array of traffic meadering along along the roads and streets no matter how narrow. Buses, huge posh cars, old broken down cars, bikes galore and cyclos all share the road and pedestrians chance their luck to cross in-between! In contrast close to the port and several grand looking Colonial buildings, built by the Brits many years before Malaysia got independence in 1957. There are several Indian and Chinese temples scattered amongst the old heritage buildings that house the Nasi Kanda restaurants. If you follow your ears in the evening you come across cute bars with live music and chairs and tables spilling out onto the street. A great place to meet up with fellow travellers. Penang is ... read more

For a day away from the hustle and bustle of Georgetown, Taman Negara, Penang is a good choice. Getting there involved a local bus ride that took one and a half hours due to the many stops followed by very twisty uphill roads. Not good in a bus with barely any suspension. Once off the bus, and having got the feeling back in our numb legs due to the bumpy ride, we set off to the national park entrance. As we entered the park we were greeted by a family of monkeys, we were a bit wary at first but they stuck to their side of the path as we passed by. The first path took us to some beautiful white sand beaches, over the sea we could see the towering buildings of Georgetown. We'd heard ... read more

I wanted to do something different and signed up to volunteer for two weeks in the jungle of Borneo. I mainly wanted to see the orangutans, but also learn about the life and the culture of the island of Borneo. We were three volunteers and stayed with our guide in a small camp close to the Kinabatangan river. The cabins were simple, but cosy. We were surrounded by nature and only a small village of 100 people was near by. Every morning we had to get up at 6am and take a small canoe like boat down the river to an empty plot of land for clearing and planting new trees. We usuallly spend the whole morning helping with reforestation of empty plots of land left by the timber or palm oil industry. Within two weeks ... read more

Day 5 (13/03/2023) Last day of our trip. Husband bought some pastries from the cafe next to our hotel. They were pretty delicious. After breakfast, we had to rush off to the airport. Our initial plan was to shop at the airport, sadly we didn't have enough time and my husband's Youtrip card had issue making payment (plus we didnt have enough cash), so we only bought a bowl of noodle for A and had to rush to board the plane already. On a bright side, A was feeling much better.... read more