Blogs from Kelantan, Malaysia, Asia - page 4

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Asia » Malaysia » Kelantan September 15th 2010

Getting there… Due to the train out of Thailand running three hours late we were almost resigned to having to spend a night in the Malaysian border town of Khota Bharu and then getting to the Perhentian islands a day later than originally planned. Luckily, however, we found a taxi driver who some say, is the Stigs’ Malaysian brother, and assured us he could do the seventy miles to the speedboat jetty in time for the last boat of the day! He was true to his word… Liz and I both held on for dear life! Thirty hours, five forms of transport (ferry, bus, train, speed-taxi, speedboat) and one border crossing after leaving Koh Tao in Thailand we arrived at the Perhentian islands in Malaysia. The Perhentian Islands The Perhentians’ are a couple of small tropical ... read more
Clown fish
Our bungalow for the week
The sea & reef view from our balcony

Asia » Malaysia » Kelantan » Kota Bharu August 29th 2010

Chris's Section Apologies for the delay since our last blog. We haven't had much internet. In fact, in some places we haven't even had electricity, but more on that later. This might be a long-ish one. The last time we blogged we were heading to Georgetown. We really liked this place, particularly our guesthouse which was really nice (Hutton Lodge). Georgetown is a colonial town on the island of Penang. The colonial bits aren't nearly as interesting as I thought they'd be, but I still generally liked this town. It has a real mix of cultures and some excellent food - you can have a roti (flat-bread type thing) with curry dipping sauce for about 20p from a road-side stall. Very very tasty. We met an English chap called Ben on the boat over. He's ... read more
Action Lou!
Cameron Highlands
Cameron Highlands

Asia » Malaysia » Kelantan » Kota Bharu August 22nd 2010

Welcome to part 6 of the blog. Just a short update really this time. We were only planning on spending the night in Kota Bharu before catching the jungle railway and heading to Taman Negara. We've been here 4 nights now as Reuben has got an ear infection and isn't really up for a 14 hour train journey into the heart of the Malaysian rain forest. We may be here a few more days yet whilst Reuben recovers enough to travel. Kota Bharu is a Muslim run state in the north of Malaysia (peninsular) and we arrived smack bang in the middle of Ramadan, meaning that Chinatown aside, the city pretty much closes up during the day. That being said it hasn't been a bad place to get stuck. The place we are staying is quite ... read more
Photo 13
Photo 14
fountain at arts museum

Asia » Malaysia » Kelantan » Kota Bharu July 6th 2010

Das Sultanat Kelantan im Nordosten von Malaysia gehoert zu den konservativsten Regionen des Landes. In Kota Bharu, der Hauptstadt des Bundestaats, gibt es nur wenige Sehensuerdigkeiten im eigentlichen Sinne. Die Stadt ist eher aus kultureller Sicht interessant. Es bestimmen muslimische Malaien das Stadtbild. Die Stadt ist durch und durch islamisch gepraegt und die meisten Frauen tragen bunte Kopftuecher und viele Maenner die islamische Kappe. Waehrend des Freitagsgebets steht das oeffentliche Leben still. Malaiische Laeden, Banken, oeffentliche Aemter und Museen haben geschlossen. Gleiches trifft auf viele malaiische Restaurants zu. Selbst McDonald's, der damit wirbt 24 Stunden am Tag geoeffnet zu sein, schliesst fuer eine Stunde am Freitag mittag. Gluecklicherweise gibt es fuer den hungrigen Traveler aber auch noch ein paar chinesische Restaurants. Es gibt mehrere kleine Mussen, ... read more
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Photo 5

Asia » Malaysia » Kelantan » Kota Bharu January 21st 2010

Upon arrival in Kota Bharu we found a great place to stay called KB Backpackers Lodge which was in our Rough Guide. To be fair the Rough Guide has only let us down once since using the Malaysian Guide for accommodation, that being the previous night in Gua Musang, anyway our gaff was yet another cell with shared facilities but the owner was really helpful. Our main reason for coming to Kota Bharu apart from it being a jumping off point from the Jungle Train was to see if the legendary Perhentian lslands were open yet, being the time of year that it is (January) it is very near the end of the North-Eastern Monsoon, over the monsoon season, between late October to Mid February the islands close as it is pretty hard to get there ... read more
Old Building
Padang Merdeka
Our Dinner All Wrapped Up

Asia » Malaysia » Kelantan January 20th 2010

We climbed aboard the 10am local bus from Kuala Tahan back to Jerantut, and headed directly towards the train station, we were unsure of our destination, as we couldn’t decide whether to stop off at Kuala Lipis or Gua Mustang, we would leave that up-to fate, or realistically the Malaysian rail service. The train stopped at both stations, after conducting some preliminary research - I.e. consulted our Rough Guide, we decided on Gua Mustang, primarily because of the early morning local train that departs from here, this is the ‘proper’ jungle train which takes 6 hours and stops everywhere! Whilst waiting for a train, we enjoyed a stunning curry each with rice for next to nothing, the bill come to RM 12 (about 2 pounds 30 pence) in total for a chicken and a beef curry ... read more
View of the Jungle From Train
The Jungle River
Views From the Train - the Jungle River

Asia » Malaysia » Kelantan » Kota Bharu October 13th 2009

Podobna scena kot prejsnji dan: roti chanai in teh tarik za zajtrk, potem pa pakiranje. Bil je dober dan za odhod, ker je kapljalo ze zjutraj. Sedeli smo na kofetu z Lauro, Dimitrijem in Filipom (how do I do it???), potem pa sva se midve poslovili in jo mahnili na celino. Tam sva cakali na bus, ki naj bi prisel ob dveh, ura je bila pa sele ena. Kaj storiti? Valda, jesti ... Cez cesto je bila prikladno locirana rotidzinica in sla sem iskat dva roti chanaia za naju z Lauro. Tam sta bil dva modela, en bolj pijazen kot drug, in ocarala sem ju s svojo nikakvo bahaso (njah, ali pa z barvo koze), in za 2r sem dobila ne le dva rotija, pac pa se cudovit pogovor in tisoc nasmeskov. Malezijci rulz. Minilo je ... read more
Waiting ...
Root beer float!

Asia » Malaysia » Kelantan » Kota Bharu October 10th 2009

Dan za spoznavanje lkalne kulture! (poleg hrane) Zjutraj sem najprej napadla lubenico od vceraj, potem pa se en roti chanai in teh tarik za vogalom. Potem se je mimo pripeljal Din z minivanom in podala sva se na lov za tekmovanjem v petju ptic. Baje se to tukaj dogaja vsak petek in soboto zjutraj, ampak ko sva lutala po obmocju, kjer na bi tekovanje bilo, nisva naletela na nobeno zvrgolenje. Ni panike! Zapodila sva se proti severu, iskat izdelovalce batika in posebnih zmajev. Din je na cdju nazigal stari rock in blues in vmes je nekdo pel (miva pa veselo z njim) Life's been good to me so far ... Ustavila sva se kmalu, ko je Din zagleal trgovino s songketom - blago, iz katerega izdelujejo saronge in sampinge (kratke gate za doma). Sla sva kar ... read more
Making songket
Batik making
PCB

Asia » Malaysia » Kelantan » Kota Bharu October 9th 2009

Po enem tednu koncno placujem za nocitev. cestitka! Cena single sobe je baje 20, ampak je receptor ze pristal na kolicinski popust. Kakopak. Sem v kota Bharu v Kelantanu, v najbolj konservativni drzavi v Maleziji, in zaenkrat me ni se noben posilil, prerezal vratu ali slacil s pogledom, tako da things are looking good! Zbudila sem se ze ob sestih, ker je bil vlak ze ob sedmih. Pozabila sem, da za muslice rana ura ni problem, ker itak molijo. Zunaj pa je bila se totalna tema, ko se nas je kaksnih pet od moje familije for the night zapeljalo do postaje. Na vlak je tam cakalo ze ful folka, celo dva belca sta bila med njimi. Najprej je prispel ekspresni vlak, ki sem ga izpustila, potem pa lokalni - za sest ur voznje sem odstela 7,20r ... read more
Gua Musang
Is it a ghost?
Its sportstime

Asia » Malaysia » Kelantan October 8th 2009

Ok, to pa res presega vse meje verjetnega. Moja nova familija me je po vecerni molitvi povabila v spodnje prostore, v ze zaprto restavracijo, na vecerjo. Ne bi o tem, da sem ze prej jedla roti canai. Ampak ok! Pred menoj so se na mizi zvrstili nasi goreng s kuretino in morsko hrano, pa neke piscancje klobasice, pa ribji cips, pa ice nescafe - pa take fore (hvala bogu, da nisem vegetarijanka, kajti zavrniti hrano v takih primerih ... je dokaj nekul). Meni se je vse skupaj zdelo ze cez rob verjetnega, oni so bili pa najbolj srecni pod soncem. In da bi bila mera polna, je ata Din po obedu izrekel magicne besede: "Bi sla z nami na night market?" Um ... Vprasanje sem vzela kot retoricno in se z njegovo familijo - v minivanu ... read more
My family for the night
All halal




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