Blogs from Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia, Asia - page 3

We left Georgetown at 6am and spent the next 4 and half hours winding our way up into the Cameron Highlands. We were both feeling a little car sick by the time we arrived at Tanah Rata and were wandering whether we had chosen our destination wisely as it wasn't anything like we imagined it would be. The highlands were renowned as a vegetable, strawberry and tea growing area, as well as a popular tourist destination. We had passed dozens of vegetable farms which were really ugly as the plants were all covered with white plastic roofs so the 'green' hills were actually glowing white. The first town of any size we came to was full of tall apartment blocks, all of which appeared to be vacant. We found out later that they were holiday apartments ... read more

Phew... That was a long flight. We started from Calgary at 6:30 am on Friday and got to Ipoh Malaysia at 9pm on Sunday. We are happy that all the bags arrived with us. All family is waiting for us at the parents' house. The first thing we do is go and get some food. Inga is happy to get Ikan Baka. Ikan Baka is a grilled fish with spices. Stingray. David gets his curry noodle soup and we all share chicken sate. Inga decides (again) that she could live in Malaysia just for food. We sleep through the night and decide that the time difference is not that bad. We should thank Japan Airlines as we got to spend a night in Narita (Japan). This time in Narita we decide to try a "real" Japanese ... read more

Geo: 4.59882, 101.077Georgetown -> Ipoh--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Salut tout le monde.Nous allons bien. Nous avons quitte Georgetown aujourd'hui. Notre premier plan etait d'aller dans une autre ville mais nous sommes arrive 15 min trop tard pour attrapper le bus. Nous avons donc changer les plans. Nous sommes actuellement a Ipoh. Pas un grand trajet 2:00 + 30 minutes de trafique. Nous cherchions un hotel dans le coin de la gare d'autobus. Encore une fois marcher avec les valises dans le chemin de gazon ou dans la rue avec 3 voies de large, pas vraiment evident. Nous sommes aller dans un bel hotel mais un peu cher. Nous avons decide d'inspecter un peu plus les environs. Nous etions par contre a 3 km du centre ville. En demandant a un homme assis dans sa voiture le chemin et ou etait ... read more

The overnight bus is an hour a late…and that’s the good bit because the Air con is broken, and is freezing cold for the next 6 hours. The driver drove like a maniac - we get about 1 hour sleep between us and arrive in Ipoh at 5.30am….Nothing is open until 10am. Great. For breakfast we find dosa, an upside down coffee and kick-a-poo juice. We leave our packs at the hotel and find a taxi driver. The first and only stop is the Hong San Lok Caves which was a place of worship and exercise. Big buddha’s were in the caves, outside was a tranquil lake with carp and turtles. Women were doing their yoga and tai chi, just the place we needed after our bus ride from hell. In the evening we stumble across ... read more

We have made it to Malaysia after a somewhat gruelling 12 hour journey from Railay Beach (pronounced in a long rolling, strangely Jamaican sounding accent) to Georgetown, in Penang; not nearly as long a journey as the travel time would indicate! Thai minibus transits are maybe not as efficient as you would hope. We started to notice that things were changing as we got towards the border. Suddenly you start to see women in head scarves and adverts for Halal food giving away the fact that you are heading towards a muslim country. At the same time we were desparately trying to spend our final Thai Baht. Our mini bus stopped for 10 minutes for lunch, which I hoped would be enough time for me to navigate the food counter. I find food counters confusing enough ... read more