Blogs from Perak, Malaysia, Asia - page 4

Sorry it has taken us so long to update the blog but we realised that we can't add new entries with our iPhones and so have to wait till we have a computer. We spent 6 days on Pulau Pangkor (Pangkor Island) which is on the Malaysian west coast. It was a super relaxing, lazy 6 days spent on the beach, enjoying the sunshine and the seafood. Lewis says "Pangkor Island is the best place in the world". We met some really nice locals who ran the "One Love" mocktail bar on the seafront and taught us some serious skillz. Lewis is on his way to becoming a master of poi, Louise is also learning some sweet poi tricks and also at flairing although she's not quite as good as David (Nicholsby). Dave Smith drank lots ... read more

Welcome to Asia! Where the people are friendly and the beers are cheap(er). We started in Singapore, the state of many rules. A night in the cells for spitting on the street seemed to me to be a little extreme, but then I was warned. We spent our time here in what was an awesome hostel, apparently in asia things are done for you. For example the free breakfast toast was toasted by the receptionist, the pool table in the bar paid for and racked by the bar maid, the hawker stalls get a water out of the fridge for you, the list goes on! We also splashed some cash in an outdoor 50m pool, one whole singapore dollar. Singapore as a whole is pretty clean, and the centre in particular is ridiculous. Think upside-down sydney ... read more

It's been a week, so here's an update. We spent a few days exploring KL and visited the bird park and Batu caves. The caves have a number of Hindu temples inside and we were made to feel very welcome with a free and rather tasty lunch offered to us by local families serving food at the temple. Inside the cave we heard many bats and saw jungle millipede, a giant centipede, a cave racer snake and many cockroaches! Around the city we noticed locals carrying sandwich size plastic bags filled with a suspect yellow liquid. We were baffled for a few days as to why so many Malaysians would have catheter bags....until we clicked that it was iced tea! On Monday we started our cycling. On our bicycles we turn many heads, car drivers have ... read more

On the Sunday the 23rd Jan (yes I know I'm quite a bit behind with my blog ;-) we set off for Pangkor. We'd heard great things about the small island, with beautiful beaches and relatively quiet compared to other travel destinations. 2 buses, one ferry and a taxi later we arrived on the island in blistering heat. Hayley managed to barter our accommodation down from 80 RM a night to 55RM which I was very impressed with, it did help that the resort was empty mind. We had a private Chalet which was very nice. We spent the rest of the day on the beach, did a bit of swimming and a bit of just chilling in the heat. It really does have a beautiful beach. Unfortunately the next 2 days weren't as nice, the ... read more

David here... We walked to the train station from our hotel and caught our train to Taiping with no problems. We then made our way to the New Champagne hotel on foot. This turned out to be a good 30 minute walk and when we got there the room was not great. Clean enough but it smelt of cigarette smoke and was very basic. We got settled in and aired the room out and then headed into town. The main town centre was pretty much your typical Malaysian town. With Hawker stalls and restaurants everywhere, spilling out into the street. It was very much like the rest of Asia accept that the driving was better and more courteous and there was no honking of car horns all the time. We wandered round for a while, just ... read more