Malaysia - the round up

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The pink view

I had no preconceptions of Malaysia. Since this was the 6th stop on our trip and we didn't know how long it would take us to get there, I hadn't given it much thought before we arrived other than absently mindedly flicking through the guidebook that we bought in Bangkok from time to time.

It is a beautiful country and one which provides many contrasting destinations for the traveller. We risked a visit to the East cost (it is Monsoon season there) but only really heard rain during the night. We were, I think, very lucky. The coastal destinations are chilled out places where as the towns and cities, and Kuala Lumpur in particular, are modern pacey places which are miraculously easy to navigate.

Malaysia is, undoubtedly, easy to travel in independently. Organised trip are a rarity compared with the vast number available further North and bus stations are easy to locate meaning that buying your own ticket for same day travel is a pretty easy task. Long distance buses are comfortable and clean - more or less and, generally, tend to leave when they say they will leave.

English is very widely spoken which, again, makes travel easy.

There was certainly more that we could have done but we have become weary of constantly moving on and living out of our backpacks which took the shine off Malaysia a little.

I will not miss one particular part of Malaysia - I banged my head at least 5 times, generally on things that were just at the right height for me not to notice them. I will miss the relaxed nature of the places and people that we have visited.

The blue view

We arrived in Malaysia to Langkawi, a beautiful island in parts. It is also tax free and as such the prices are totally out of kilter with everything elsewhere. Accommodation being very expensive but food and drink especially being very cheap. We of course didn't know this at the time and had a bit of a shock in Penang at the cost of drinks.

Of all the big cities we have visited KL is my favourite so far, it may be clean and glitzy but is still somehow welcoming.

All in all Malaysia has a lot to offer but like so many tourists we didn't do it justice as we were so focussed on getting to Bali that we didn't see as much of it as we could have.

With its excellent transport links both internally and with flights to both all of Asia and home, I can well imagine returning sometime. Whether I will then give it more time who knows, but I think there is much more to the place than we found out.

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