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Published: June 10th 2006
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I flew into Singapore after a fairly boring few days in Brisbane. Once you've visited the 30,000 museums and galleries, theres not a lot else you can do for free, I have memorised the Brisbane city layout now though, so if I come back with a work visa, I can always go for a job as a cab driver.
Singapore! I arrived at about 9pm, and my airport pickup didn't come to pick me up, which was fine though, as it gave me the chance to use the Singapore public transport system, which is pretty damn good. The trains arrive on time, and they are spotless, in 4 days of using trains every day, only 1 smelt like urine. So I jumped on the train and headed to Little India. I wasn't able to get into The Inn Crowd, the best hotel in the area, so I had to walk for about 1Km to my hostel... except in Singapore, the road name changes at every junction, and they dont put signs up on both sides of the street... I didn't know this, so I walked around in confused sweatiness for about an hour before finding the hostel, I'll tell
Crazy Hat Lady
This was on Sentosa Island, Singapore, the highlight of the 4 hours we were lost there you what, its humid as hell in Singapore, dont bring clothes.
Singapore was mental though, it has all the crazyness you'd expect, cartoon animals everywhere and people yelling at you to buy their cheap as chips electricals. We went to Sentosa Island one day, and they have a 40 foot high concrete Merlion - half Lion, half fish. It does nothing, but its there, and its really big.
People who had travelled through Thailand already, complained of the prices, but I thought it was really cheap - you can get a meal for about $3.50 (! pound ish) and trains cost even less, and you get a buck deposite back when you get off the train.
We spent most the time, me and some people from the hostel, drinking and walking about Little India, China Town, and all the markets and temples, but not in that order.
Kuala Lumpur...
Next we headed to Kuala Lumpur, quite a big city, quite smelly in a sewage/exhaust/piss kind of way, and to be honest I wasn't a big fan - though its brilliant if you like being harrased by salesmen and restaurant owners.
One night a group from our
tour headed to a Lady Boy bar to watch a show - I didn't go, as I didnt really want to pay to see Lady Boys - joke was on them though, as it cost them RM35 to get in, and there weren't any LB's in there, fools.
We went out to the "best bar in KL", and it was full to the brim with hookers, EVERY woman in there was a hooker, and the beer was RM20 a bottle, but it was a funny night.
My sum up of KL was the hotel and Malls (where I went on the worlds biggest indoor roller coaster! It was wicked), as I was too hung over to go to the Batu Caves - old Hindu temples in the mountains. To be honest I only wanted to go because it sounded like Batman might be there... and he wasnt.
Cameron Highlands...
Next we headed up in to the mountains and jungle of the Cameron Highlands. It was amazing, I loved it, less buildings, more jungle and real locals living simple lives in the tea plantations and jungle. It was much more of what I was expecting from Malaysia, and I
Cameron Highlands
Me at the top of the Cameron Highlands POH tea plantation, there was lots of tea, wasted on me really... could have stayed for weeks. We went jungle trekking, which was really fun, great to get out of the busses and cities for once, and we had our own local guide who showed us all the Ray Mears survival techniques for the Jungle, his name was Cali, and we had no idea what he was saying, which made the whole thing even funnier.
We went to the biggest tea plantation in Malaysia, BOH Tea, where it turns out Rob Sullivan has opened a cafe - see picture (for those who dont know him, its a long story!) We also went though a village where Cali lived and met some of his friends. A German guy with us was playing with a little village kid who cried when we had to go, the locals thought this was hilarious.
Cali also made us walking sticks out of small trees and stumps, they were amazingly heavy, and you could easily kill an annoying person from our tour with it, but I didn't, we just had sword fights on the top of a tea plantation hill instead.
We ended up missing the bus, and hitch hiking home at the end of the day, it was like being back in the Cook Islands, we thought it was just a 5Km walk, but it turned out to be 14, so thank God the woman stopped to pick us up!
On to Penang next, a bit like KL I think, but I'll keep you posted and get some pictures on here hopefully today, so check back if there arent any yet!
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