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Published: January 30th 2010
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Saturday 2 January - Wednesday 11 January 2010
So we spent just under 2 weeks in Malaysia which felt adequate although we could have done with spending a bit more time exploring Borneo. Unfortunately with the monsoon hitting eastern Malaysia and Borneo we were advised against going but we went anyway for a day and it was fine - didn't really experience the 'monsoon' everyone was warning us against. Here's our time in Malaysia summarised:
Penang After New Years we were kinda stuck in Koh Samui, well that's what we thought. All flights and trains going out were all fully booked - well obviously, but me and Narj did hope we would find something. And we did. We managed to get a random bus-ferry-bus from Koh Samui to Surathani to a place near the Thai-Malay border to Penang - which pretty much took the whole day but was quite cheap to book.
The journey was interesting. Wasn't so bad as me and Narj both felt completely exhuasted from the Full Moon party and given we hadn't slept at all it was a good day of travelling to catch up on sleep. However we ended up with a
crazy mini-bus driver in Thailand who drove extremely fast (unnecessarily) and played really loud music (which sounded like good music but it was way too loud especially since we were forced to move at the front of the bus). The second mini-bus on the Malaysian side was fine. And the Thai-Malay border which we had to cross was fine too - no problems and if anything this one seemed more civilised than others.
Anyways, we arrived in Georgetown in Penang at 11pm and we received a really warm welcome from Chrissy, Narj's friend from work, Joseph (Chrissy's husband) and Chrissy's father-in-law. We ate in an indian take-away place then went back to Chrissy's flat where we were staying. It felt sooooo good staying at Chrissy's flat as it felt like a home - and that's something which we had been missing for ages! I can't believe how nice it felt to have access to a nice clean kitchen and lovely living room.
We did a daytrip around Penang during the first day where we visited Wat Chaiya Mangkalaram (with its 33m reclining buddha), Mahamariamman temple (a beautiful hindu temple where we were blessed by the brahman), Penang Hill
and the chocolate boutique (where we tried chilli chocolate, green tea chocolate and other random things).
Late afternoon Chrissy wanted to go swimming in the swimming pool outside the flats - and even though it looked a bit cloudy we decided to jump in to cool down. And as we did it started pouring down with rain - really heavy and hard! Felt amazing to be in the pool in the rain, extremely refreshing and relaxing with the sound of the rain hitting the water!
The following day Chrissy and Joseph took us to a food place where i tried traditional malay food which was delicious although very spicy! I tried spicy fish in a yellow sauce, peanuts and dried fish (which was really good) and mussels in a green curry. Then later we went to Batu Ferringhi the beach where we chilled and went on a parasailing which was really cool and quite relaxing up in the air. When landing back on the sand you had to pull the parachute to one side to catch the wind to bring it down and as narj was insistent she was stronger, I just sat back and let her do
all the hard work (lol)!
It was a fun few days hanging out with Chrissy and Joseph in Penang, felt like we were chilling at home.
Kuala Lumpur KL was one of my favourite places in Malaysia as there was just so much to do and so much culture all around you - you're just surrounding with different types of people, felt interesting.
On the first day we went up Menera Tower (KL Tower) and the view from there was quite cool - you could see for miles. Then it started raining and we actually watched the rain clouds approaching the tower before we went down. Then we ended up waiting under a bus shelter for like an hour waiting for the rain to stop - because it just rained really hard - monsoon rain I guess. It wasn't a nice feeling afterwards because you just end up feeling really sticky because of the humidity.
The following day we visited the all impressive Batu Caves - which I really liked! There was a huge gold statue of Murgan at the foot of the cave (very impressive and apparently the largest in the world) then we
climb up loads of steps to get to the mandir which was inside the caves. It was such a nice setting for a temple - gave it a different type of feel to it. And at the top there were loads of monkeys roaming around freely as they do.
On the third day we started really early (6.30am) to queue up to go inside the Petronas Towers where they only issue 1,000 tickets daily and allocate them on a first come first serve basis. So off we went and we were probably 40th in the queue (good effort I thought). The lady at the front of the queue had been there since 4am - crazy lady! By 9am the lobby filled up and they started allocated tickets - we got in for the 9.30am slot.
The skybridge was on the 42nd floor and the view was nice - but not as nice as the view from the KL Tower. Glad we did it though - because it felt that much more rewarding after spending ages in a queue for a ticket.
Then later we visited the Genting Highlands which is basically a massive complex built on a
mountain only accessible via cable car (3.4km long). Basically the complex includes hotels, casino, restaurants and theme parks. We went for the theme parks because Chrissy recommended it and it was really cool. The ride up there via cable car was really cool as you were above the tropical rainforests and you were really high up.
The rides were cool, highlights being the superman ride which was different as you went on the ride standing up leaning forward (kinda like Air from Alton Towers but not). And the other being the big drop (not sure exactly what it was called) but it pretty much took you right to the top, you have a few seconds to take in the beautiful scenery around you, then there's a huge drop and you feel the free-fall for a few seconds. I really wanted to go on it as I've never been on something like that before, Narj shit herself as she had been on something similar before so didnt want to go on it - but we did and we both enjoyed it and were gald we went on.
Langkawi As we were advised against going to Borneo, as we
originally wanted to go and spend a few days there, we went to the lovely island of Langkawi i.e. a holiday chillout place - which is exactly what we did. Lay on the beach and relaxed after our hectic action-packed days in KL.
We hired a car in Langkawi and drove around the island too. Driving felt amazing after not having driven in such a long time. We managed to stumble upon a deserted beach which was bliss. We got changed on the beach and relaxed there for a few hours. I got a little bored after a while and decided to explore the sea-creatures on the beach as there was lost to discover as I found.
Then we saw a few waterfalls, seven wells, drove into Danai Beach resort by accident and were chauffeured to a really posh beach side resturant where we had an extremely expensive lunch, went into the town of Kuah and then saw the big eagle at the ferry port (which is one of its focal points).
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