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Published: August 15th 2007
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Hi everyone, sorry about all the problems with the blog site. The website crashed and we lost all the blog entries but managed to get most of them back now.
So we are in Malaysia now its very nice. We managed to arrive in Malaysia at the same time as Malaysia's 50th year of independence from England. Malaysian's are very patriotic so you can guess this means celebrations everywhere. We first arrived at Georgetown on Penang Island. Malaysia is completely different to Thailand. As as ex colonial city, Penang has an almost homely feeling the way the city is set out and all the colonial buildings that it has. Malaysia has a very rich multi-cultural nature and leads a good example of living in harmony with each other. While visiting Chinatown, Little India, Malay quarters etc, you still find roads filled with hindu temples, chinese clan houses/temples, islamic mosques and christian churches; all filled with old men gathered at the little coffee shops dotted on the corners of this old town.
We spent three days in Georgetown; mostly sightseeing around the town. Penang came under English rule in the 1700's when Sir Francis Light came and raised the Union
Jack in his stockade; Fort Cornwallis. Fort Cornwallis was where we started our tours of the town which included colonial buildings, temples, mosques, clan houses, museums and a little bit of shopping. We also got brave and went on the scary local bus service inland to Penang Hill. We went up 831m above sea level on a funnicular railway, although it felt and looked more like a cable car. The views were breathtaking. While on Penang, we decided to spend a couple of days at the beach resort of Batu Ferringhi. We became beach bums for three days and Luke even read a whole book in a day (no it wasn't Luke's favourite the Hungry Caterpillar!!!)
After Penang, we moved on by ferry to the even more idyllic island of Langkawi. The last three weeks, our camera had been playing up and we had been hanging on til we got to Kuala Lumpur to sort it out. Unfortunately the day we got to Langkawi, the camera completely stopped working so we bought a disposable camera. This came complete with the effect of fog on every picture!!! Again we couldn't help but be beach bums on this tropical island of
long sandy beaches; under swaying coconut palms. Even better, this island was duty free and amazingly beer was cheaper than water. What more can you want? Langkawi is surrounded by 98 smaller islands which we decided to investigate by going on one of the islands hopping boat tours. One of the islands we stopped off at was Pulau Dayans Bunting (Lake of the pregnant maiden), where there is a freshwater lake (we went for a swim) and is surrounded by craggy, limestone cliffs in the shape of a pregnant lady. Legend has it that if you drinnk this water, it helps you to become pregnant. Luke didn't realise this until after he had swallowed some of the water when jumping in. Lets just hope this story isn't true because Luke's got too good of a figure to ruin!!! The island was also full of very naughty, crotchety monkeys who were out for everything they could get. We also stopped at the edge of another island to watch the amazing sea eagles and brahminey kites near the mangrove swamps. Another day, Luke decided to have a practice for the skydive by having a go at parasailing. The instructor said he had
landed like a pro but I think more like a pro wrestler!!!
Although we didn't want to leave beautiful Langkawi, we had to move onto Kuala Lumpur. We stayed in the 'Golden Traingle' area of KL (the nice bit). Due to the 50th independence celebrations, KL was very busy and there were lots of things going on; including concerts, shows and upto 70% off at all the huge shopping centres. When we say huge, we mean huge. Think of Meadowhall, add about 8 more floors on top and put about 10 of these gigantic air-conditioned oasis's in the city centre. When you fall out of one, you fall into another. One of the bigger ones even has an indoor theme park; with real big roller coasters. Again we were good little tourists in KL, using all modes of transport, from monorail to rapid subway train, to visit different parts of the city. These included the Merdeka Square, where on 31st August 1957 Malaysia's independence was declared. This square is surrounded by interesting colonial buildings. Another day we got up very early and que'ed for two hours to get our hands on one of the 1600 free tickets for the
world famous Petronas Twin Towers Skybridge. Until 2005 these towers were the tallest buildings in the world. It was well freaky, these towers could move upto 75cms in the wind. Luckily for us it was a calm, sunny day.
After four busy days in KL, we boarded the nicest accomodation we have had so far; a 1st class overnight train to Singapore. We had our own cabin, complete with with toilet, shower, TV and free food and drink. While we were at immigration to get into Singapore, a sniffer dog Sam lookalike sniffed out kate's pan au chocolat and had his own breakfast. We arived in Singapore in the early morning at a rundown train station in the middle of nowhere. After 20 mins figuring out where we were and 30 mins walking, we found a tube station and orientated ourselves to a hostel. We have done lots of sightseeing around Singapore city. We have visited the districts of Little India, Chinatown, the Colonial district and the Quays. I even dragged Luke to the botanical gardens and to the Singapore national orchid gardens where they have orchids named after celebrities/VIP's. These included Jackie Chan, Margaret Thatcher and even Ricky
Martin!!! The gardens were very nice and we had to buy a new memory card to fit all the pictures on of the flowers that Kate had taken. Luke was quite bored until he found the ponds full of fish that you could feed. Singapore is one of the cleanest and most organised cities ever. You can easily figure out the amazing transport system that gets you everywhere and we haven't seen one traffic jam yet!
So this is the end of our S.E Asia adventure. We fly to Cairns tonight for our 6 months trip round oz. (I bet your thinking its never been 9 weeks already but it has!!!). So bye bye Asia and hello Oz.
Hope everyone's well, its nice to hear from you and take care, Kate and Luke xxx
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