Memories Of Malaysia! Pt.1

We spent approx 3.5 weeks in the lovely south asian country that was, Malaysia!

M A L A Y S I A !

We arrived in Malaysia by bus from singapore, but bypassed the capital of Kuala Lumpur and headed straight for Ipoh, a small city about 200km north of KL (known for it's tin mining industry in the 19th century) where we started our travels through the west side of Malaysia! 

All packed and prepared for the journey to Malaysia!

Finally after a 9 hour bus journey we reached our destination at about 5am! We didn’t really know what to expect when we got here... we had no Malaysian money, no hostel booked, but we did luckily have an umbrella as it was pouring down with rain on arrival! After traipsing around Ipoh in the early hours we stumbled upon a slightly dingey and seedy looking hotel but it was cheap, central and run by a cheerful little chinese man!

Ipoh had a small city feel to it but it's actually the 4th largest city in Malaysia!

 Ipoh was quintessentially Malaysian, a lovely little city that didn’t have any other tourists or a single backpacker in sight! We was originally only going to spend a night or two here, but in the ended settled on four nights as we liked the charm of the town, and found it amusing being the only westerners there and the food markets were great, we just had to point to what we wanted and hope for the best! We also experienced the famous ipoh white coffee, which was pretty much just white coffee but with probably about twice the amount of sugar as usual and condensed milk (extremely sweet!). 

Ipoh white coffee... one of the official drinks of Malaysia!

The city was also home to some very stunning temples, like the Perak tong temple, which was a chinese buddhist temple which built inside a limestone cave which was covered in murals and paintings, and filled with buddha statues. This was also the highest temple in Ipoh, as there was a steep climb of about 400 steps to the top where the cave opened to reveal a great view of the surrounding countryside.

Ipoh's chinese buddhist temple, Perak Tong.

400 steps later and we was greeted by this view!

Before leaving Ipoh we decided to visit a theme park called the Lost World of Tambun. It was once a valley used for the mining of tin, but has been transformed into a water park which is nestled amongst limestone cliffs and jungle. The park is also home to a variety of animals from raccoons and hedgohogs to swans and siberian tigers! They have an ongoing breeding program for the tigers there (the eldest of which were rescued from a travelling zoo/circus) and are contributing to the conservation of this endangered species (the last 3 cubs were successfully raised in 2008). It also had an onsite wildlife rescue and rehabilitation centre, where they take in injured or sick wildlife aswell as treat their own animals :-)

A picturesque setting at the Lost World of Tambun, Ipoh.

One of the male Siberian tigers, taking a cooling swim at Lost World of Tambun

  

Our second stop in Western Malaysia was in the Cameron highlands, about 85km from Ipoh. Here we spent 3 days 5,000 feet above sea level in a little guesthouse on the edge of a mossy forest! The Cameron Highlands is the largest and most famous hill resort in Malaysia, with some great views and pretty green valleys.

A view of the hills and valleys from the top of a flower farm!

The district of the Cameron Highlands if famous for its agricultural work producing an abundance of fresh vegetables and fruit, in particular strawberrys (you couldn’t go anywhere without being offered lots of foods made with strawberrys from cakes, waffles to smoothies aswell as lots of strawberry souveniers!). 

Cameron Highland's tea producing valleys

Encountering a rather large bee at the honey farm!

The cameron highlands is also one of the top flowers and tea producers in Malaysia. They produce BOH tea aswell as lipton tea, which according to our tea guide is made from the dust?  All in all the cameron highlands was a nice place to explore and the scenery and landscape was so different it almost didn't feel as though we was in Malaysia! Unfortunately the weather prohibited the amount of stuff we could get upto, and it was abit more touristic than we had expected too!

The Cameron Highlands: One of Malaysia's most popular tourist destinations

  After spending our first week in Malaysia being fairly inland, we decided we needed abit more sand, sea and some sun, so next we headed for two of Peninsular Malaysia's Islands: Penang and Langkawi! Two Islands which were very different in there own ways...

To be continued . . . :-)

Sing Song Singapore

We arrived in Singapore after many flights through Australia. Firstly we flew from Sydney to Cairns, where we had originally planned to stay a couple of days although we got our flight dates wrong so ended up only having a couple of hours instead in the airport! From Cairns we flew to Darwin, and there we had 5 hours until our flight to Singapore, so decided to venture out of the airport...it was very hot and humid in Darwin and for them few hours it was almost felt like we was back in Kenya!

Singapore skyline by dusk

We was nearly prohibited from boarding our flight to Singapore as we was told we had to have proof of our onward journey to Malaysia from Singapore which we hadn’t got round to booking yet. Luckily after much worry, and only half an hour to get through security we was allowed to check in as the staff figured our flight back to London Heathrow from Bangkok in Thailand would prove that we wouldn’t be sticking around in Singapore forever!

A Singapore special- Fish head anyone?

Whilst in Singapore we stayed in a querky little hostel in the little india town, surrounded by great hawker markets, Indian cafes and cool little shops selling everything from Indian fabrics and jewerelly to tacky souvenirs and fake watches!

 

A very colourful building in little India

Sampling some spicy Indian cuisine!

We decided to spend a sunny afternoon at Singapores very own botanical garden! It was very big, and had lots of different areas to visit within such as a rainforest and a healing garden. It was nice, and extremely green with lots of different types of plants and trees from around the world and it didn’t feel like you was actually in the middle of a big, bustling city! A nice place to escape from the crowds and relax with a icecream sandwich!

Ice cream sanie!

The botanical gardens of Singapore!

The healing garden...a garden to be healed within!

We came across the fountain of wealth one evening, and it was like a disco surrounding a spraying fountain. Lots of loud  chart music, flashing a strobe lighting, but without the people dancing. We then thought we may aswell go and get a close up look, seems as we was in Singapore and it was in the Guinness world book of records! So the rules were that you had to walk around 3 times with your right hand in the fountain, and make a wish and it should come true...hmmm, we shall see about that one!

A group of people touching the lucky fountain of wealth

We also investigated one of Singapores suburbs, Queenstown. Here we discovered they had an the Singaporean equivalent of NTU (Nottingham trent university), except not sure what their NTU stood for...

Rows and rows and flats in Queenstown

China town was fun and very busy! I guess it almost felt as though you was in China? It was nice to visit, with some beautiful Chinese inspired buildings and temples. The main part of it was mostly full of stalls and souvenir shops, but there was some great spring rolls to be had and it was here that we purchased our first of many chopsticks!

Chinatown!

Singapore certainly had it’s fare share of random cuisine! You was never bored for choice, which is probably due to the diversity of the inhabitants in Singapore! It was common to see pig trotters or pig organ soup on the menu, alongside some crispy chicken feet fried rice or some warm frog porridge...I certainly did not try the latter (or any of the others for that fact)! Although we, well more so Max, thought it would be fun to try the Pig organ soup. It smelt like pig organs. It tasted like pig organs. Never again...BLEEUURGH!

Pig organ dishes...oh the choices

Braised pig trotters!

And then there was the odd building which looked like it had a big boat! We later found this was Marina bay sands resort, which is a hotel and casino (The world 2nd most expensive casino!) with a huge pool on the top (150 metres!).

The funny building- Marina bay sands resort

What happens if you cross a mermaid with a lion? Well, you get a Merlion, just like the merlion by the esplanade which attracts lots of tourists visiting Singapore! It’s quite random really...

The famous Singapore Merlion!

One of the coolest things about Singapore was probably the public trains! We have never seen public transport, and stations, so shiny and clean and modern lookin! The stations just seemed very modern in comparison to what you would see in Europe! Most of the train stations were also built underneath shopping centres, which is a plus...if you like to shop!

Squeeky clean train station platform...

Our last night in Singapore we visited the Arab town, which didn’t feel to Arabic apart from a few overpriced Turkish and arab  cafes and restaurants. So we opted for a Malaysian cafe, where we tried the Nasi Goreng and some deadly (but yum!) spicy dish....In preparation for Malaysia :-)

A swift stopyby in Sydney!

Just 20 days ago we arrived in Sunny Sydney after spending the night sleeping on the uncomfy metal seats at Melbourne airport!

A cosy night in Melbourne airport, awaiting our flight to Sydney!

Kings cross...also know as the red light district of Sydney!

After the 90 minute flight to Sydney from Melbourne we soon arrived at Kings Cross, an area which is renowned for being unsafe and abit sleazy (although we didn't find this out until we had actually left!) to check into a cool little hostel called chilli blue backpackers! We originally booked a 10 bed dorm (as this was the cheapest option for a backpacker on a budget!) but were pleasantly surprised to see we had been moved to a 4 bed dorm with a big private balcony, the only balcony at the hostel which was pretty cool and had a view of the harbour bridge in the far, far distance! We later found out there wasn’t even a 10 bed dorm at the hostel, but we still got a pretty good deal anyway! The area of Kings Cross is the most densely populated part of Sydney, which is said to be where the rich people lived together with the poor.

The Sunday we arrived in Sydney we wandered around (without a lonely planet to guide us- shock horror!) and discovered the paddy’s market, which was mostly just souvenirs, clothes and some fruit stalls...though not as cheap or as much variety as what the Vic market in Melbourne had.

Sydney's Paddy's Market!

The hostels Pug's awaiting their city walk...

On our second day in Sydney we signed up to a free walking tour of the city, which we thought would be a couple of hours so we took the dogs with us that belonged to the hostel (two chubby little pugs...), the first ever dogs to join the city tour apparently! The tour ended up being nearer 5 hours, but was worth the leg ache because it was really interesting and so we got to see and learn alot! the dog’s seemed to appreciate the exercise too and the attention they got from the tour guide, and slept for a full day or two following their big adventure in the city!

In front of the Harbour bridge at the end of a long tour around the city!

A visit to Sydney is not complete without having a stroll over the harbour bridge, admiring the opera house, taking the famous ferry to Manly beach and visiting the well know Bondi beach! Luckily in the 4 days we had in Sydney we managed to squeeze all of this in!

Manly wharf

A stroll along Manly beach

The Sydney harbour bridge, known to the sydneysiders (locals) as the “coathanger”, which was opened 80 years ago was really cool to see and walk across...it was huge and had some fantastic views from the top. There was the choice to do the Harbour Bridge climb for $100 and upwards, which involved walking and climbing along the outer arch of the bridge with a guide, but we opted to walk along it on the footpath as it was slightly less daunting and cheaper too!

About to step onto the harbour bridge footpath...

The bridge by night

Another famous icon of Sydney is obviously is the opera house!  We didn’t go inside, but admired it from the outside of course! It is rather oddly shaped, but very unique at the same time! It definitely makes a good picture with the Harbour bridge dazzling away in the background!  We learnt that it was designed by a Danish architect, Jorn Utzon, and that the roof is made up of 1,056,006 Swedish ceramic tiles!- power to the Scandinavians! 

View of the opera house from the Harbour bridge

The opera house!

Finally, on our last day in Sydney before we were to spend yet another night sleeping in the airport (or not sleeping in this case, as the domestic airport didn't open until 5am, so instead we drank lots of coffee and used the free wifi in the nearby McDonalds for several hours!) we decided to squeeze in a day at Bondi beach! Unfortunaely we didn't bump into the Bondie Vet, but the beach was nice, abit smaller than we had expected, but the big waves and the scenic coastal walk around the beach made up for that :-)

The well known Bondi beach of Sydney!

Bondi beach- the closest beach to the CBD.

So this was our last stop in the amazing Australia! (though we did have a couple of hours in Cairnes airport and 5 hours in Darwin on route to Singapore). Good times were had, and even greater memories were made...we will especially miss the Kangaroos (not the sausages!), kookaburras, Cockatoos, HelpX experiences, amazing coffee, barbies, funny words such as "ripper" (cool!), "chuck a U-ey" (perform a U turn), "Doona" (A blanket) and mostly the chirpy Australian people!