Ambling up the west of Peninsular Malaysia

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Hello,

Needless to say now that I am responsible for my own itinerary, I am making a lot less progress compared to when I was travelling with a group in Sri Lanka!

When I arrived in Malaysia last Sunday (after half a night of very little sleep, and a few scary moments with armed guards in the Colombo airport), I decided just to vegetate in Kuala Lumpur for a couple of days. Apart from getting my general bearings by wandering the streets, I did immerse myself in a very westernised shopping centre for a few hours - filled with recognisable brand names as well as designer labels, but also with some good food courts where I spent a lovely hour quenching my thirst with all sorts of different fresh fruit drinks from 3 different stalls. Interestingly although it is double or quadruple the price of other drinks, the Starbucks were permanently packed (PS. Starbucks was my first stop when I got off the train at KL).

I then decided it was a bit silly to be spending money on accommodation in KL, when I will have a full-time base at the teaching project in KL soon enough, so if I want to explore KL more I should do so then! I headed up to Ipoh by express bus (mostly just for the joy of being in an air-conditioned breeze for 2.5 hrs). Ipoh was highly recommended by a lady I met on the Sri Lanka trip, but I must say I find it hard to recommend much about the place! Except perhaps that it is genuinely tourist-free (I think I was the only one). There were a few interesting buildings (a funny mix of colonial English, Indian, Chinese architecture), and I visited a fabulous ruin of a half-built mansion (Kellie's Castle) on the outskirts.

It is the third biggest city in Malaysia (500,000+... about same as Glasgow for example), but it seems much smaller. Apart from all the traffic on the dusty roads (but not heavy enough to require the traffic police that came out at rush hour!), the place seemed dead (I later discovered the busiest place was an internet cafe full of teenage boys playing violent computer games). And I ate in McDonalds. On leaving Ipoh I unintentionally walked for over an hour with my backpack, as it seems the Express bus station has moved since my Rough Guide map was drawn - although it was published less than 18 months ago, my guess is the authors haven't seen any need to make a trip out to Ipoh for a while...!

I then headed further up the west coast to Georgetown, main city of Penang island, and have spent an extra couple of days here (I will stay here a couple of days next week too). This place is well worth a visit - there is a great range of interesting buildings, from English colonial monuments, to Chinese Buddhist temples, Hindu temples, and Mosques all within close proximity. Despite that, it would be hard to call the centre of town attractive - you have to walk along the edges of the road and it is overrun with traffic (millions of motorbikes), and for every well-maintained building there are a lot of places that look shabby. Walking down the main streets in Chinatown you are also bombarded with the millions of pieces of shop/restaurant/backpacker signage and hoardings. Anyway I have had some fabulous local food very cheaply in Chinatown - mee goreng, chicken satay, seafood tom yam soup (ok Thai food really!).

I am now about to have my 4 nights of luxury hotels (thanks to the hotel voucher I got for complaining about my Cape Town hotel last year!). I get the ferry to Langkawi very early tomorrow for 2 nights, then come back to a posh place in Penang for 2 nights, before taking an overnight train back to KL. When I am back in Penang for a couple of days next week I will be looking forward to more good food and getting further afield outside the city centre to Penang Hill and the coast.

Bye for now,
Jennifer x

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