Kuala Lumpur Continued

Our next few days in Kuala Lumpur we stayed in the heart of Chinatown. Although it was no Traders Hotel it was nice enough and central to the local monorail and subway system. We spent the majority of our time exploring KL with self guided walking tours. We got to witness some preparation for the upcoming Independence day, pom poms and flags aplenty. 

Independence Day Preparation

After walking through the central market in the afternoon we came across some do it yourself batik painting and thought, why not just it a try! We only had a quick lesson and lacked some skill I think that our gecko and hibiscus flower paintings turned out alright. 

Batik Painting

We tried to get to the Petronas Towers early since they have limited tickets and times which sell out fairly early in the day. Even though we were there by 10 am we found it wasn't soon enough and all the tickets for the day were already gone. Not to worry, we headed about 20 minutes west and were able to view the city from the KL tower (half the price too!).

Continuing temple tour trend, we hopped on the KL commuter train to the Batu Caves, a Hindu temple built within limestone caves. The statue out front was probably the most glamours part about it as the temples were mainly closed to visitors and the public area contained mostly roosters and over aggressive monkeys. To make the trek worthwhile we took part in a dark cave eco tour taking us further into the caves with a local guide explaining formation of the limestone and insects and animals within it.

Batu Caves

From KL we head to Yogyakarta to travel east through Java and into Bali!

Cameron Highlands

We traveled from Penang to the Cameron Highlands which is about 1600 meters above sea level and temperature in the low twenties. The highlands are know for there agriculture, mainly their ability to grow many fruits and vegetables including strawberries. We only had two days here but we made the most of it. The afternoon of the first day we headed out on a hike to waterfall through forest and some of the local plantations. The path wasn't really well marked and we didn't have a mapped so about half way through we made a German friend who helped us find our way. About 85% of the hike was a nice gradual downward slope along the hill ridges overlooking the jungle and farms, the last 15% was an almost vertical incline where we had to basically climb back up to the top. I think this was our first time sweating from physically effort and not just the heat.

Fruit and Vegetable Farm

A dam we found along our hike!

We treated ourselves that night to Tiger Beer and a Steamboat buffet which is a dish where they bring out a pot of tom yum soup on a burner and a bunch of plates of raw vegetables and meat and you cook it yourself at the table. It was good until the end when everything just started to taste like fish.  

Steamboat

Our second day we went on the Countryside Tour which took you around to different farms and gardens in the Highlands area. We visited a:

• Insect and Butterfly garden showing the different species you can find in the Highlands area
• Strawberry farm, where they grow the strawberries in a elevated rows using coconut husks as soil and drip irrigation. (Fun fact! the strawberries don't have a season so they continually produce fruit every 3 months). They were not as tasty as Ontario strawberries though.
• Rose and flower garden
• Tea plantation and factory- one of the largest in Malaysia
• Honey farm
• Local Buddhist temple.

Cameron Highlands Strawberries

Boh Tea plantation

Next and last stop in Malaysia is the capital, Kuala Lumpur!

Penang - A place to eat!

So after one of the most terrifying drives of my life, we arrived in Georgetown, Penang at our guesthouse in the heart of China town. Side note, the trip was suppose to take 7-10 hours by minibus and we got there is 5...but yes we arrive safely.
I am pretty sure that Penang (well Malaysia in general) might be one of the most diverse places on earth. Touring the streets of Georgetown within one street we found a Anglican Church, Mosque, Hindu Temple, and Buddhist Temple, everything seems to be represented (minus we didn't find the Church of Scientology). The best part of all these cultures together... the food! Below is a visual description of how we spent most of our time in Penang...

Tandoori Chicken with Naan

Ice Kacang - yes there are beans, corn and noodles in our ice cream

Banana Leaf Curries!

Fruit Buffet  - Yes we tried Durian and yes it was awful!

Laksa Asam Soup

Wan Than Mee

Cendol - yes this ice treat also has pea flour noodles and beans

Okay okay, we didn't just eat while we were in Penang, we also visited many temples including the largest Buddhist temple in Southeast Asia, Penang Hill, a exotic fruit farm, batik factory, northern beaches and a coffee and chocolate museum. The last one was still food but we did learn a lot about chocolate and coffee production.

Buddhist Temple

Perhentian Islands

We journeyed from the jungle in Taman Negara to the beach town island of Palau Kecil off the east coast of Malaysia. I am not sure why but it seems that all the other travelers we have been meeting are either from France or Italy so our bus ride to the boat terminal seemed like we identically ended up on an Italian family tour bus. Loud but entertaining. 

Coral Beach

You know when they say a place is paradise? Well this island is pretty much what they are taking about. Surrounded by steep jungle slopes, white sandy beaches and turquoise water, you can't really ask for much more. We stayed at Long Beach, which we found out later is the party island and play dance music until 4am (we are thankful for earplugs). Directly across the island on the west side there is Coral Beach which is much more laid back has better food but a smaller beach area. We spent most of out days on Long Beach and nights at Coral Beach watching the sunset and eating Malaysia BBQ. 

Long Beach

We spent 4 days on the island, one day we went on a snorkeling tour heading to 5 sites, and getting to see some sea turtles, squids, sting rays and many tropical fish and coral.  The tour ended with some swimming in Turtle Bay which is without a doubt the nicest beach I have ever been too and you can snorkel right off the shore. The only downside to the day was that although I applied 60 SPF waterproof sunscreen 3 times to my back I still got pretty burned. 

Our last day we tried a discovery scuba dive trip which takes you with an instructor and goes through all the basics of scuba diving plus an hour long dive. I thought that whole thing was really good and it was amazing to be able to breath underwater, only downside was that apparently I have a fear of being underwater and not able to come to surface quickly so after a slight panic attack I decided that scuba diving is probably not my sport and I should stick with snorkeling. Milos loved it though, who knows maybe he will get his PADI certification in Bali?

Coral Bay

 After the Island on the east coast of Malaysia we headed to the west side visiting the Island of Penang!

Jerantut and Taman Negara

Alright so I may be a little behind on the blogging but we are doing fun things so it hard to find the time to sit down and write a post, but I am trying to catch up...

As I left off we got the train station in Singapore at 4:30am with almost no one there and about an hour and 20 minutes to early to go through customs. The train ride was good minus that about and two hours into trip someone brough durian onto the train. If you have never heard of durian it is basically the most popular fruit in southeast asian but smells so bad it is illegal to open them in confined spaces and bring them into hotels or airplanes. You never get use to the smell.

We arrive in Jerantut, a stop over to catch the Jetty river boat to the national park in the morning. Not to much in the city besides some stores, atms, Pizza Hut and KFC. The next morning we met with some other travellers and headed upstream (about a 3 hour trip) to the park. You can get there but car but it is not nearly as fun or relaxing.

Boat ride 

Our few days in Taman Negara were spent exploring the park, including a night trek, canopy walk, and hiking to some look outs. Hiking in tropical weather is a workout though, I thought hot yoga made you sweat, this is a whole new ball game. We did get to see a few animals including, monkeys, wild pigs, spiders, insects, deer and scorpions.

Treking route

Monkey at the Park

The last afternoon we visited a local village and learned some of their traditional methods for their nomadic lifestyle including how to make and use a blow pipe for hunting.

Blow pipe - yes I did hit the target.

We then headed to the Perhentians Islands for a little swimming, relaxing and tanning!