Monday 24 January 2011

Malaysia


Onwards: India - Malaysia


Well we finally made it to Malaysia. It sounded so easy when we planned our next journey from Goa to Bangalore and then onto Kuala Lumpur, well it was easy but a bit of a killer. A little note to anyone who is planning a similar trip. Never plan to turn up to a major city in the small hours of the morning with nowhere to stay and no map of this massive city, cause trust me it can be a pain in the ass.



We made it to the bus stop in Agonda and after 3hrs wait our bus turned up which was really quite comfy, for the 1st 8hrs! Well after a long 12hrs on a bus we had made it to Bangaolre. We planned to spend a few hours looking about the city and had thought it would have been quite easy to leave our bags somewhere near to the bus depo but it wasn't. Bangalore was very, very busy, big and noisy. Although it looked a lot cleaner and much more modern than many of the other cities in India it was still too much and the heat was seriously intense. So we decided to get a cab to the airport and wait it out there until our flight was ready to leave for Malaysia. Our plane left on time and 4 hours later we landed in Malaysia but we still had 75km to travel to the city, it was now 12am and all public transport had finished for the day so our only option was to get a taxi to where? Haven't got a clue.


Kuala Lumpur


We made it into the city by about 1:30am and asked our driver to drop us off in the china town district, the cheapest area of the city. The first thing I noticed about Malaysia was how hot it was, I mean it was like half one in the morning and I was sweaty hot and the mercury was still at about 27*C. After calling in a few places that were full we finaly found a hotel that had some rooms available and desided to crash there for the night. The room was a little more expensive than we wanted to pay but it was really clean and comfy.  The next morning we decided to go and explore the city and try to get our bearings and possibly find a cheaper room for our proposed 4 night stay. We wandered around the china town and visited a few shops and then had a look in the central market, which was actually a mall. We then decided to head out of the city a bit to have a walk, we found a little complex that had a butterfly garden, tropical bird garden and much more. Having been walking about for a few hours we decided to go back to our room to freshen up, have a beer or two and some street food.

The next day we decided to venture into the Golden Triangle region of the city which is the main buisness and shopping district in KL.  We got the monorail onto the city and wondered around the Protonous Towers, they're massive, got some pics then headed for the shops which are a series of huge malls but still took us ages to find, we've been wondering aound aimlessly for a while so decided to buy a guide book.  Back on the monorail to Chinatown, there's alot more going on here and can get good food and beer without breaking the bank.  Malaysia definatly more exspensive than India. The next day we found a couple of cheap places to stay but after disscussing it we decided not to stay anywhere that rented rooms by the hour or that stank of piss and that we best stay put in our clean room with free internet.


Later that day we went off on a search for the hard rock cafe craving a burger and Tracey had to get a badge for her collection, was the best burger ever.  Went back to our hotel for a while then out for few beers and to watch the footy. Derby day, what a luck bunch of blues....that's all I'll say!  Kuala Lumpur is a really nice place but there so much more to see so we left the following day to an island called Penang.  The bus we travelled to Penang on was the best bus we've been on with reclining arm chairs an loads of space, the five hour journey seemed to take no time at all. 




Penang


Again we headed for the Chinatown area as its usually the cheapest, found a nice room with aircon for couple of nights but Tracey has banned air con so we moved to a chaeper room for the third night- a box room with only a fan, and the smell of drains when ever someone uses the bathroom which is right next door.  Penang is only small and you can get a bus to any part within 30 minutes so the first day we jumped on a bus to the botanical gardens with the intension of walking up Penang hill, only to find the whole area closed of for some festival starting the next day,  we wondered around for a while and came across a temple with a bat cave inside there was also a turtle pond and some super massive lizards so it wasn't wasted journey we had also found out about the festival which we went to the next day.  It was the Thaipsum Hindu festival where the people walk through the streets and up to a temple with spikes through their faces and hooks in their backs to commemorate the day the goddess Parathi gives her son a lance to vanquish the demons plaguing the world.  Was really interesting, and looks painful but for some reason theres no blood. Weird.


We spent the next day at the beach and later found a cool place to eat, it was an outdoor food court surrounded by loads of street stalls selling every kind of chinese and thai food, was really nice an we ate loads!!  The next day we were back on the bus to the national park for a walk.  The park has rough paths to follow but its pretty much wild jungle with god knows what kind of creatures lurking about, we didn't see anything too scary apart from a few monkeys.  We walked for miles and stupidly hardly took any water and didn't wear proper shoes so it was pretty hard going and Tracey fell over about six times. ("and broke her little toe" oh and her arm and leg and bumfed her head ). We planed to go back better equiped and do the otherside of the park. The next day we took a bus to a place called Batu Ferringhi and chilled out on the beach again, the following day we went back to the national park, this time equiped with walking boots and four litres of water, took the harder route this time which was very very steep. Chris saw a snake hidden in the trees and a few more monkeys but they're nicer monkeys and there hasn't been anymore attacks apart from the jellyfish that got him yesterday hehe!















Our plans keep changing but we finally decided to travel to Krabi in southern Thailand and have booked an 8hour van journey for Wednesday morning. Initially we planned to head straight to Phuket but having spoken to a few people about Thailand we have decided to start in the cheaper south where the beaches are still meant to be amazing. Look out Thailand. 



2 comments:

  1. found your knew blog - great pics (good job Chris is such a poser)

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  2. I am loving the blog but also made up I found the other 100+ photos on msn!! Trust me not to find out thats where you were hiding them all haha!! Sounds amazing - I know you had lots of beach/relaxing time in India/Goa but sounds like you are making up for all that laziness with all the walking/travelling you do in between. Carry on!! xx

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