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Published: December 9th 2008
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Well, we’ve now reached the end of our “Asia” trip and are looking forward to heading on to Oz tomorrow.
Since the last blog update, we have been via the Islands in the south of Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. Before we fly out to the “land down under” tomorrow, we wanted to briefly update you on what we have been up to during the last few weeks in Asia.
After arriving back in Thailand following our trip to Cambodia, we had a long bus, van, truck AND boat journey to Koh Tao! It seemed like the longest journey so far and unfortunately, the crossing between the mainland and Koh Tao was VERY rocky!! We luckily had a couple of travel sickness tablets on us because it was the choppiest sea that either of us had ever seen - so much so that one big wave even broke the window on the side of the boat!
Koh Tao is known most for its excellent scuba diving although unfortunately, we didn’t stay on the Island for longer than 24 hours because I fell down a curb after coming off the boat and tore the ligaments in my ankle! As I
needed pretty urgent medical care, we ended up having to move on to Koh Samui the morning after arriving in Koh Tao.
The medical care I received was fantastic and the hospital was lovely. The Thai people are so caring and looked after me exceptionally well. The hospital was actually nicer than any of the hostels we’d stayed in! The insurance company were good to us too and due to my ankle injury, we were afforded the luxury of a 4* hotel for the next two weeks so that I could recuperate in better surroundings than the typical beach hut along the shore line.
We didn’t do very much in Koh Samui because of my ankle but also because of the weather. It was pouring with rain most days which limited what we could actually do (especially as I was sporting a designer “robo cop” boot and crutches!). We did get a couple of nice days but out of the 2 weeks we were there, it was predominantly rain!
We did find a couple of lovely restaurants in Koh Samui including an Italian and Mexican. We went twice to the Italian place just because we found it
sold red wine - which we haven’t been able to find anywhere else!
Following our fortnight in Koh Samui, we moved on to our next destination, Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia. We arrived at our hotel (situated in China Town) around 6am so after a couple of hours sleep, we headed out to explore.
China Town is a manic place full of restaurant touts, market and food stalls, live music and people…everywhere!. It was a great experience to walk through the streets of China Town and to come out of the maze at the other end into the main CBD of KL.
During our stay in KL, we decided to get a couple of tickets for the sight seeing tourist bus which enabled us to see most of the major attractions in the city including the Petronas Towers which were once the tallest buildings in the world until 2003. We obviously went past numerous shopping malls, synonymous with Malaysia’s capital city. During a trip to one of the malls, I had the opportunity to have a “fish” massage. This basically involved dangling my feet over the side of a pool and having hundreds of small fish nibble at
my feet! It was very tickly but after the initial surprise, it was actually a nice sensation. I can’t say that my feet were any smoother at the end of it but Deep certainly had a laugh at my expense!!
We stayed in KL for a few days before moving on to a town further south called Melaka. In summarizing KL, I would say it’s a cultural melting pot including people from India, China and the Middle East. There is diversity in every corner of KL from the people, the cultures and attitudes, the food and the religion.
Melaka is well known within Malaysia as a peaceful holiday resort and after visiting ourselves, we can see why its colonial charm attracts so many people from within Malaysia.
We spent several days in Melaka and as such, we were able to explore the historic tourist sites within the town and experience some more “western” treats such as watching the “Bond” film at the cinema! Of course, the popcorn was my favourite part of that experience!
Deep and I also decided to partake in a little Karoke during our stay in Melaka! Having said that, it was only ever within the restraints of a glass walled karaoke booth! Deep has since told me that he’s surprised the glass didn’t break when I decided to sing a Leanne Rimes classic. What can I say?...I think I’m Gloria Gaynor!!
Following our stay in Melaka, we moved on to Singapore. The journey across the boarder was easy and only took a few hours on the bus. We’ve been very lucky and have been given a few nights stay at the “Orchard” hotel as a gift from Deep’s sister and brother in law. We have thoroughly enjoyed staying in such an amazing hotel and will be reluctant to leave!
We’ve had 3 days in Singapore and have managed to fill them all very easily by exploring the numerous shopping malls, visiting “little India” and “China town”. Singapore is everything I expected and more and offers tourists everything you could think of ...at a price of course! There are strict laws enforced here such as no littering, no j walking, etc but I think that adds to the cleanliness of this amazing City. I have never seen such a clean place. The streets have literally no rubbish on them! We will be sad to leave Singapore - or more precisely, the gorgeous hotel we’re staying in!
The 3 months we’ve spent in Asia have been amazing. From the hustle and bustle of the major cities such as Delhi, Bangkok and Singapore to the more relaxing places such as Rishikesh, Chiang Mai and Mui Ne. We’ve seen numerous cultural and historical sites which have helped shape and contextualize the Countries we’ve visited. We’ve experienced highs (such as water rafting on the Ganges, seeing family in India and trekking in Chiang Mai) to lows (such as being bitten by bed bugs in Siem Reap and hurting my foot). Overall, we’ve seen enough of Asia during this trip to say that we love it here and that we hope to be able to come back in the future.
We will of course write again from “down under”….
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