Malaysia and a drink in Singapore

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After a crueling 12 hour bus journey using three different busses we finally arrived in Georgetown in Malaysia. Georgetown is one of those famous cities which once we the powerhouses of the world and now have sunk back to obscurity again.
The former glory can be seen in some of the houses the local merchants build here and most impressively in the Easter and Oriental hotel. The E&O was build and owned by the same brothers which later opened the Raffles hotel in Singapore. I was excited like a little kid when I saw in our guidebook that they have Tiffin on every Saturday. That all despite the fact that I, until this day, have no idea what Tiffin is but I want it anyway. To my disgust and disappointment Tiffin had been cancelled which caused a very angry letter to Lonely Planet. Instead we went to the high tea which is not realty what I was after but hey beggars cant be choosers. So we poured our tea from solid silver pots into our fine china cup, ate cucumber sandwiches and scones with cream and jam. Backpacker life.

Georgetown, as it name indicates, was previously part of the British Empire and like in all other places they brought the Indians with them. I’m all in favour of that as it means you can have a mean Mango Lassi, wonderful Masla Dosa and Tandoori chicken in Little India.

No place like this can be visited with me without doing some serious sightseeing which we did in the form of marvelling at Fort Cornwallis which was build on the site where the British first set foot on land in 1786 (or so the story goes). There aint a lot to see apart from the still very intact outer walls but interesting nevertheless.

Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion on the other hand is brimming full with furniture. The house was owned by the said Cheong Fatt Tze which was also known as the ‘Rockefeller of the East' and 'J.P. Morgan of China'. The Mansion has 38 rooms, 5 courtyards, 7 staircases, 220 windows and lots of feng shui. Apparently everything was taken into consideration from the direction the house was laid out (which is not parallel to the street), to the location of the courtyards, the staircases and so on and on. It also had a few clever design ideas as the rain water was channeled through the walls to cool them down.

As in Koh Lanta we hired also a scooter here but there is even less to see. One exception being “Kek Lok Si” claimed to be the largest Buddhist temple in South-East Asia. No doubt that I had to see it. Big it is and quite impressive but a bit sterile if you ask me. The supermarket like souvenir shop in the basement next to the underground car park just spoil it for me a little. Saying that every temple complex with its own inclined elevato and a 36.5m high statue of Kuan Yin (the Goddess of Mercy) are worth a visit.
Apart from that there was literally squat all especially no good beach. Wouldn’t recommend anyone to come for a beach holiday here.
At least we had the chance to stop in one of the super modern shopping malls and treat ourselves to a movie.

After a final Masla Dosa and Mango Lassi it was time to part and head in our super luxury VIP bus towards Kuala Lumpur. The bus was just short of fantastic. The seats were massive and the ride comfortable if only it would have lasted longer than 6 hours to get to KL. This was definitely the last and best journey on our trip.

KL itself is a busy massive city with a few attractions. Really nothing wrong with it but not that special too.

We stayed in “Chinatown” which is quite a touristy area but its nice touristy. Lots of stall selling fake everything just in front of our hotel and it was time to stock up one last time.

No visit to KL would be complete without seeing the Petronas towers. We were even lucky enough to get some last minute tickets which allowed us to go up to the bridge which span the towers just to discover that the view isn’t that great.

We also wandered the street and strolled through little India (and little it was) and visited the “worlds largest free-flight walk in aviary” (try to say that three times fast).

Then it was time to say good bye and start the last leg on our journey. The weather felt as sad as myself and just before we left the heavens opened the flood gates and torrential rain came down and flooded the streets. We made it in time to the airport boarded out flight and got of in Singapore. At this point in time I would like to thank Qantas and Jetstar for making this possible. Originally we planned to fly directly from KL to Sydney and we had the tickets when Jetstar decided it doesn’t want to fly there anymore. After a lot of to and fro we got another flight via Singapore including a whopping 10 hour stopover. 10 hours are too long to just stay awake and too short to do sightseeing especially if you arrive at 10pm at night. Well for most that is not for us. Last time I was in Singapore I neglected to get a Singapore Sling and that was nagging (no kidding) me for years. So in the train to the city we jumped, got of in Singapore, booked a room in a hostel, took a taxi to the Raffles hotel just to arrive at 12pm just in time to order the last drinks. Now I don’t want to complain but Singapore slings are pretty awful but then again that’s one down on the list of 1000 things to do before you die.

That was it one more short sleep, board the plane, wipe off some tears (Kellie because she finally was home again, for me because I had to go home) and Sydney had us again…

To be continued …. (Sometime hopefully)

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Photos

Petronas towers
We even managed to get up to the bridge in the middle