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Published: February 21st 2007
On arrival in Penang, we settled into our cigarette smoke stained hotel room in the old China Town district. We only spent two nights and one full day in Penang. Unfortunately, our hotel was not in a great location, as the main beach and touristy activities were on the other side of the island. In fact, it didn't really feel like we were staying on an island at all, because the island is so large and we were stuck inland. Some members of our group decided to spend the day at a resort and indulge in such cultural activities as lying by the pool and sipping cocktails. Although this sounded tempting (especially considering the heat), we thought we should do some local sightseeing and ended up visiting the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion. In the 19th century he arrived penniless from China at the age of 16 and grew to become a very wealthy tycoon. The Mansion was very impressive, with 38 rooms, 5 courtyards, 7 staircases and 220 windows. Each of his nine wives slept in a different wing of the house. The more he liked each wife, the closer they were to his bedroom! Apart from this, we didn't do
Indian Food in Penang
Tasted Great. And it should have, as it took over an hour to get to the table. Not that we're bitter!a great deal in Penang, mainly due to the searing heat sapping our energy and forcing us to retreat indoors. We desperately missed the cheap, delicious and healthy Thai food (ie. red/green thai curry with rice!) which was so readily available in Thailand. However, we enjoyed walking Penang's quiet old streets, admiring the original architecture, and peering in to see the odd artisan hard at work. Not to mention the old Chinese men riding their rusty old bikes down the street.
Our bus trip from Penang to the Cameron Highlands was certainly memorable. As soon as we got on the bus, everyone could tell that something was not quite right about it. Even before we boarded the bus, Alicia had jokingly remarked "Imagine if the bus broke down in the middle of nowhere and we had to wait in the heat to be rescued!". Leaving Penang, we could feel every bump in the road and heard the bus making some pretty strange noises. As we started to ascend we were sure something was not right. The bus was going about 10km/h and we were being overtaken by every other vehicle on the road. We all knew a breakdown was
inevitable, it was just a matter of when and possibly more importantly, where! Just after passing through the city of Ipoh our bus stalled, and we waited as our bus driver-cum-mechanic tried to fix the bus. He managed to get the bus going, but we were without air-conditioning and we all began to bake! Even without air-conditioning, our bus continued to struggle up the slopes, but this wasn't all bad, allowing us to better view the surrounding mountains and greenery. Our bus continued to grow sicker and weaker until eventually it conked out about 30 minutes from our destination, or 60 minutes away at the speed we were traveling! Strangely (or maybe conveniently?!?), we stopped about 200 meters from a strawberry farm. I say 'conveniently' because we would later discover that this bus company was so dodgy that we wouldn't put it past them demanding commission for breaking down in front of certain 'attractions'. About an hour (and a couple of strawberry smoothies) later, we left the strawberry farm and began walking back towards the broken bus. We were passed by what looked like an old school bus heading towards our broken down bus, and a couple of our group
Walking to our Hotel in Chinatown- KL
As tempted as we were, we didn't have time to stop for a snack. members joked that this was our replacement bus. Well, you guessed it. This was indeed our replacement bus! In his broken English, our new driver assured us that his bus was 'strong' and the other bus was 'weak'. We actually believed him for a while, as our antiquated bus seemed to cruise up the ascents with relative ease. We began to relax and enjoy the sweeping views, as we drove from town to town picking up and dropping off perplexed locals. Yep, it turned out we had hitched a ride on the local bus! Around about 15 minutes into our journey, steam started billowing and boiling water spitting from the dashboard of the bus. As you can imagine, we instantly assumed this bus had also broken down too! However, our driver had other ideas and he casually began pouring bottles of water into a hole to the left of his dashboard. This stopped the steam, and after an overly theatrical thumbs-up from our driver (which you can see by clicking the video link at the top of this page), we were off again. Shortly after (and with no more breakdowns) we reached our destination. Luckily, all our group members were
light hearted enough to see the funny side of the afternoons events, although some of the other passengers onboard were less than impressed! However, our breakdown meant that we didn't have time to do any sightseeing that afternoon, and we would have to catch an earlier bus the following day, because our bus was well and truly out of action! Therefore, the next morning, we were up bright and early trying to make the most of the only 2 hours of daylight we had for sightseeing in the Cameron Highlands! Along with several other members of our group, we took a tour of the BOH (Best of Highlands) tea plantation and processing plant. Although none of us were overly interested in the tea production process, we were all more than happy to sample the end result and absorb the breathtaking views!
At around 10.30am we left the Cameron Highlands, for Kuala Lumpur. Yes, we were traveling with the same bus company and no, this trip was not any less dramatic! We were relieved that this bus seemed 'healthier' than the previous days, but we were really only rolling down hill, so it was hard to know for sure. Not
long after we departed, we arrived at what we thought was a really dodgy bus station. We hopped off for a quick stretch of the legs, and toilet break. Strangely, there were no toilets to be seen. It quickly became apparent that we were actually at the depot of the bus company we were traveling with! For the next 40 odd minutes, we waited as a couple of guys seemed to service the bus. On the one hand, we couldn't believe they serviced their buses while paying customers were waiting to get to their destination. On the other hand, we couldn't believe they serviced their busses at all! For the following hour our bus rolled down the mountains, passing through some seemingly untouched rain forest. Once we met flatter ground, the scenery changed to palm oil farm, followed by palm oil farm, literally all the way to Kuala Lumpur. As we arrived in KL's China Town district, our group leader informed us that the bus always pulls over near our hotel, so the group doesn't have to walk all the way from the bus station with their backpacks. Unfortunately this particular bus driver would not allow this, despite the fact
that traffic was ground to a halt. So we remained on board and continued towards the bus station. As fate would have it, the bus broke down at an extremely busy intersection, not far from our hotel. Of course, we took this opportunity to jump off, grab our bags and leave our bus stranded, despite our driver’s continual and serious pleas for us to push the bus! Ordinarily, no one from our group would feel joy in seeing that bus stranded at such a busy intersection. But after the level of service they had provided over the last 2 days, it felt great!
We only had 1.5 full days in KL. We'll be honest and say that we could have seen and done more. Our hotel was right in the heart of China Town, and we literally couldn't step out the door without being hounded by people offering to sell us counterfeit bags, watches, shoes, and sunnies etc. Perhaps if the fake watches we had purchased less than a month before weren't already beginning to break we would have shown a little more interest?!? Like in Bangkok several weeks earlier, we somehow kept finding ourselves window-shopping in the glitziest
shopping centre in town at the base of the Petronas Towers. Could it be their icy cool air-conditioning, clean toilets or the fact that no one is hassling you to buy something you don't want? Although this time, we did give our credit cards a light work out, as there were some bargains we simply couldn't refuse! We also visited the Batu Caves on the outskirts of KL. The impressive natural caves have been converted into a Hindu temple, complete with a 272 step stairway. While impressed by the stairway, and resulting view of the city, once inside the caves we were quite upset to see the sick and rabid looking monkeys feeding off tourist's scraps. In Khao Sok we had seen monkeys living healthily along side humans, but here there seemed to be little concern for their welfare. Having spent less than 2 days in KL, we had hardly scratched the surface, yet weren't particularly upset to be leaving so soon. We traveled by bus (this time un-dramatically) to Melaka, our final destination in Malaysia. Again, we are somewhat ashamed to say we didn't get much further than the shopping centers, despite our group leader's strong recommendation that we
see the 'old town'. Actually, we don't think that anyone on our tour (that we can remember) actually did anything 'cultural' in Melaka, and we would bet that this is down to the heat, and the fact that we were only there for one afternoon. Although, after dark we did venture to a nearby open air Chinese food court, where we both enjoyed some cheap (even by Malaysian standards, which after Thailand seemed expensive!) and delicious sizzling noodles. In all, our trip through Malaysia was a whirlwind. We visited 4 places in 5 days. Obviously, after traveling, packing and unpacking, and with the intense heat, we didn't have nearly enough time or energy to even begin to explore each region. We left Melaka for Singapore, well and truly looking forward to staying put in one place for more than 2 days and relaxing after our three-week intrepid trip, which was literally non-stop.
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john Junggeburt
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What a bus trip
Sounds like an interesting bus trip, especially for you Alicia - The smoothie looks great! - What an adventure! - Keep up the good work with the blog, we love it.