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Published: February 6th 2009
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We left the humid heat of Cairns and arrived in Singapore with it even more extreme! However we were glad to finally be in Asia for the real cultural backpacking experience. We had just 2 nights in Singapore as we needed to be in Kuala Lumpur in just 4 days to meet Mark (Pauls big bro). Having explored the rich city, filled with its designer shopping malls and resturants, on our day of arrival; on our first and only full day we decided to take a trip to Singapore Zoo followed by the worlds only night zoo! This proved to be an absolute brilliant day, Singapore Zoo has on offer everything that you would want to see and more. The zoo is an open plan concept. The animals are kept in spacious, landscaped enclosures, separated from the visitors by dry or wet moats. To Pauls amazement there were even Polar bears (3m tall) and he had to conceed that it was better than his beloved Chester Zoo. The highlight of the 'day zoo' was discovering our new favourite animal- the Proboscis Monkey with its highly enternaining floppy nose. We stayed at the 'day zoo' till near close and then made a
short walk across to the opening of the 'night zoo'. This is the world's first wildlife park built for visits at night. It is nestled in 40 hectares of lush secondary forest and the Night Safari offers guests the unique experience of exploring wildlife in a tropical jungle at night. Through the use of subtle lighting technique we were able to view over 1,000 nocturnal animals of 100 species in vast naturalistic habitats. We started off by heading to an animal show to give us a flavour of what to expect. The show sadly was not as good as we had hoped, although it was still enjoyable to watch and the recycling ferret ended the show on a high. From here we then walked along some of the named routes before jumping on a shuttle bus for the real safari experience. Although we didn't see a great deal of Sigapore we did exactly what we wanted to do and had a great stay.
From here we took a bus into Malaysia to a place called Malaka. Having recently been Chinese New Year, the streets were a bustling glow of activity. It was the day before everyone went back to
work so the celebrations were still going strong. It was great to be amoung this Asian culture and see the beautiful decorations giving the street a burst of colour and flare.
After a brief stop-over we continued on to Kuala Lumpur where we stayed for 3 nights. After roaming the streets and finding our accomodation, we decided to chill out and meet up with Batty and Frankie (friends from Manchester) for a spot to eat. Our paths had crossed over at perfect timing. They were scheduled to be heading home a few days after Mark arrived, so it was a perfect and quite surreal place to all meet up. The day Mark arrived was a great day! This was mainly because of what he brought- a white belly! It reminded of how lucky we were to be travelling the world and also meant we could here some news from back home. It was also good to have Mark with us, a fourth person in the mix, bringing a new enthusiasm for activity and desire for adventure on his 3 brief weeks with us. On our second day Batty and Frankie were due to leave so we got up early
and headed to the Petronas Twin Towers, the tallest twin towers in the world with an impressive viewing bridge joining the 2 together on the 41st and 42nd floor. The view from here is spectacular and well worth getting in the queue early for the free tickets (well... it was actually Batty and Frankie who got in the queue for us- thanks guys). The following day we took a day trip to 'Batu Caves' a limestone hill, which has a series of caves and cave temples, located in Gombak district just north of Kuala Lumpur. The cave is one of the most popular Hindu shrines outside India, dedicated to lord Murugan. It is the focal point of Hindu festival of Thaipusam in Malaysia which attracts over 1.5 million pilgrims yearly, making it one of the largest annual gatherings anywhere in the world. While there we saw many strange activities going on; the crazy monkeys seemed somewhat normal next to the guy carring a shrine that was being held up by multiple spikes piercing through his body! That night Mark informed us of his desire to taste everything he possibly could in Asia and absolutely no Western Food. For this reason
we pulled up some seats and sat down at a street market resturant for a chinese. Fully aware of Marks wishes, we let our happy little waiter man order all the food for us. Mainly because after careful colaboration with Paul he just ignored us and picked what he wanted us to have. Anyways we had a great meal, infact Nick was so happy with the meal that he went round the whole resturant shaking everyones hands. Sadly this was not intentional though, he just couldn't remember which Chinese man had served him. By the time we left the resturant he had shaked a couple of waiters hands and even a couple of customers, by the time we left people were both puzzled and laughing- "Is this some strange Western culture?", they must have thought!
Leaving the cities behind we set off to find out more about the real Malaysia. Our inquisitivness took us to the Cameron Highlands. We found a great hostel called- Father guest house and settled in for 2 nights stay. Being at higher altitude it was considerably cooler and in away quite refreshing, making a change. During the morning we reffered to a few maps
in the hostel and chose to do a jungle walk, taking us through the famous 'Tea Plantation' areas. After a challenging (but only 3.5km) up hill walk through dense forrest we found ourselves at the top. Sadly due to the haze not a great deal could be seen. It soon began to clear as we made our way down a more gradual route, taking us through the tea plantations and strawberry farms. We briefly stopped for a refreshing strawberry lolly and then walked through the 'Bo Tea Plantation' and siped ice tea. We continued to walk back however after approximately 15km of walking we were exhausted and realised we were still as yet to do a must do backpackers experience- Hitch-hike! This was a new challenge and after several attempts we finally got our man. We jumped in the back of an open truck and all sat with smug grins, happy with our achievement. We now felt like propper backpackers! And thats not where our craving to endulge in new experiences stopped... while here we also tried Ostrich and got a taste for Murtabaks. After our frequent Murtabak purchasing from the same resturant we even invented our own- The Mars
Bar Murtabak, the cheff loved it!
It was now time to make our way back to the beaches. This journey started with a bus to Penang- George Town, for 1 night before making our way out to the beautiful beach islands and up into Thailand. While in Penang we met Mr.Miage (from Karate Kid) a wise man who gave us advise about taking the steep train up Penang Hill. The Penang Hill Railway is a two section funicular railway with the total journey taking about half an hour to go 2200m. From the top you can see magnificent views of George Town and the island. The next day we got on a boat and headed to Langkawi. This was now relaxing time and we spent our 2 days topping up the tan on the beach (well in Marks case- try to get a tan), playing cards, eating sea-bass and buying illegally purchased beer- for cheap from a guy down an ally. Langkawi had the possibility to be full of adventure, however as it was our first beach in some time, things didn't quite get into gear for us! We were now in the island hopping mood and the islands
off the west coast of Thailand were the next in our sights.
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