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Published: March 9th 2009
26th Feb
Arrived in Kuala Lumper (KL) after a 10 hour train ride with limited sleep. Checked into a hostel called Green Lodge in the golden triangle area. In the afternoon we visited the Menara Kuala Lumper (Communication) tower, which is the 4th tallest communication tower in the world. The deal was
RM40 for tea and cake in the revolving restaurant on the 90th floor, and free use of the binoculars. We just caught the view, giving us time to be scared half to death by laying on the windows to pose for photos, soon after the tower became immersed in cloud in a thunder storm which was pretty exciting.
We spent the evening eating at a hawker stall, very popular in Asia, basically a Chinese style fast food place on the street with great food, including turtle and frog if you are so inclined. However we stuck to the traditional chicken, fish, rice and noddle combo. Yum yum! Talked to an Indian and German guy who were totally in love with each others friendship and felt the need to share how special that friendship was with fellow diners!
The next day we visited the famous Patronas towers,
4th largest building in the world, very impressive. We sat in the garden under the towers for photos and a picnic. You can visit the bridge joining the towers for free with an organised group. They show you a video about how great Patronas is as a company, then you go up 41 floors and walk across the bridge, impressive but as we had done the 90th floor the day before it was a bit like "yeah whatever". We visited the Lake gardens and China town on the final day, then the cinema and that was KL done.
Slight panic as we got caught in the 7pm rush hour and very nearly missed the train to Butterworth (for Panang)
1st March
Arrived in Panang at 5.30am in the moving after a train journey and ferry journey. Everyone on the train was very interested in where we were going and wanted to tell us the the best places to visit, where they had been in England and that they like Manchester United. We spoke to one fella from Indonesia who told us that he was from Samatra and lost all his family, house, wife and kid in the
Tsunami, was very sad and very real to actually understand the suffering that some people are still going through, eventhough it's been a few years since the disaster. He was a captain in the navy back in his country but lost everything and was heading to Thailand to try and make a fresh start and find work. He was very interested in the Barack Obama book we were reading, which was ironic as he was a real looky-likey of the US president.
Arrived in Banana guest house and slept for a bit, then went out for Chicken, Rice at local hawker, which was the most popular spot in Panang. Panang's streets seem to revolve around food mainly, at night the town comes alive with street food, hawker stalls serving everything you can dream of. We booked tickets to Langkawi, following advise for a man on the train who was from there, he recommended it as a place to visit and you can travel to Thailand from there overland.
2nd - 7th March
Arrived in Langkawi by ferry and checked into a hotel on the beach. We were only going to stay for a few days but then
found out about the Thailand visas changing to 15 days only, if you travel by land. Bummer. So we then had to look for flight to get a 30 day visa on entry, as a result this meant travelling back to the mainland Panang to fly to Phuket. Next cheap flight was Sunday so we now had some more time to enjoy Langkawi.
Was a blessing really as Langkawi was lovely, there is a Geopark and lots of beautiful sites to visit including a scary cable car, biggest in Malaysia (kept us both very quiet for the journey into the mountains) and seven wells waterfall. The beaches are very quiet with just a handful of people and sometimes no one at all. The rainy season was coming to an end but it added to the excitement as one minute you could be sunbathing on the beach and literally the next minute be running for cover in a tropical storm.
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JOHN EDWARDS
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SKYSCRAPERS AND TREES
BEST DESCRIPTIVE WRITING YET. YOU MUST BE HAVING A FANTASTIC TIME. WE ARE SO JEALOUS. JUST SPOKE TO YOU TODAY, IT HAS PUT A REAL SMILE ON OUR FACES. WISH WE WERE HAVING A MAI TAI AND A BEER INSTEAD OF A CUP O SOUP! KEEP THE PICTURES COMING (TAKE ONE OF THE GREGSTER IN HIS SUIT) AND HAVE A WONDERFUL TIME.... LOTS OF LOVE JOHN AND MAGGIE.