We touched down in Kuala Lumpur (KL) with the smoothest landing i can remeber. We were ery excited as everyone raves about the country and the food and the people. The first thing we did when we checked in was look for some food, Si's face lit up when he saw his first Macdondals since Thailand. However later on in the evening we did discover some real malay Satay, and it didnt dissapoint, beautiful chicken and spicy peanut sauce, yum. The good food didnt stop there one night we had a curry with nann and Dahl and that was beautiful, and we discovered sizzling beef and the veg.
There is a nice market in the centre of the China town, very clean and it felt very safe. A little like Hong Kon with some HUGE sky scrapers but it was a bit more spaced out, and when the heat wasnt too much it felt like you could breathe.
Whilst in KL we did quite a bit of shopping in the large centres nearby and walked round the major sights. We climbed the KL tower (or went up in the lift that goes up 250m so fast your ears pop!) and saw the city by night, we went to the Batu caves outside the major city centre and saw where they hold a major hindu festival. The festival involves devotees abstaining from sex and food for a few weeks then turning up entirely devoted to the Hindu gods and praying for a particular cause i.e help my sick child. This devotee then peirces himself with loads of hooks and pins through his torso, face and tounge and uses these hooks to pull up a big ornate vat of milk to give as offering to the gods that reside in the caves at the top of the 250 odd steps. Apparently afterwards they feels no pain and they heal their wounds with lemon juice, and the local doctors have a lots of work on when people who are not as devoted as they think shove a foot long needle through both cheeks and wonder why the hell it hurts so much! After this we expolred the colonial district starting with Kuala Lumpur train station supposedly an amazing building with some beautiful architecture and very unique, we walked past the building as it was so well hidden and all the way to KL sentral, which is about 3km past where we were supposed to go and ended up getting a train back to KL station to have a look and by this point we were thoroughly discorraged and not to mention our broken feet ( i never though they would work again!) But we continued and had a look in the museums, the national mosque and saw a Merdeka Square where Malaysias independance was declared along with a huuuge flag pole. Surrounding the patch of grass was an ornate looking mosque and strangely some mock tudor buildings! After our feet had finally given up we returned to our hotel and did nothing but watch films all evening!
We set off for Melaka the next day, we had heard many good things about it so we were looking forward to it. This was the main city where the Portuguese, the dutch, and the British colonised so it had a lot of history. We stayed at possibly the friendliest hostel yet and ate by far the most amazing food ive had in a long time. We wondered round the old sights, the chinese temples and the museums that explained the histroy of Melaka. We Discovered the only bar that had any sort of night life, and of course as we are in Asia it was karaoke. After too many beers and making the mistake of telling Si i had never sung at Karaoke, i was forced up and attempted a rendition of Elton John's "The Cirlce of Life". I laughed all the way through and nobody heard a word but i did it, and i doubt very much that it will ever be repeated!
The most interesting thing we did was the Baba-Nonya heritage museum. The Baba -Nonyas are the children of the initial chinese settlers that married and had children with the local malay women. Its a bit like the Tan Ky house in Hoi An and it is a house dedicated to explaining the culture, the history and about the family that own it. It was quirky, and beautiful the antiques and the house itself was fantastic with little oddites like the peep hole in the floor above the door so you could see who was calling and pretend not to be in if you didnt want to see them. And a stair case the had a cover and gates to "stop children falling down, thieves from getting in and naughty husbands from getting out at night!"
There was a market on our final night and we wate the most fantastic food ever. we had shrimp in rice paper, Lakhsa (a very VERY spicy noodle curry), Taiwan sausages, some Melaka pineapple cakes and fried oysters with egg, it was all fabulous! There was also the obligatory stage for karaoke where the locals equipt with their own CD's of karaoke music would perform infornt of the entire market place. We stopped for a drink at the owner of our hostels bar where he sang and played the guitar for us.
After this we headed back to KL for our flight to kuching. And then off to borneo. We had been warned that the weather in Borneo would be wet but found our first day incredibly hot and humid, but had a mooch round only to find the entire city of Kuching shuts down for the Hari Raya muslim festival that was going on that weekend so we didnt get up to much. But the next day we did the local museums and saw displays of all the local animals and learnt about the history of Kuching and Sarawak. We had a wander round and saw some of the fascinating and numerous cat statues that line the streets (kuching means cat city in Malay) and we did the Sarawak Cultural museum. Where you see how the local villages live and their cultures and traditions. Si got to shoot a blow pipe that was massive and almost hit the target.
The following day was possibly the most amazing thing we have done yet. Another early morning and fun trying to find the right bus stop, but we did and got on the ricketty old bus to a place called Semmengoh. Its a national park, but also houses an Orangutan sanctuary. We were amazingly lucky, its not a zoo but a huuuuuge reserve where they rehabilitate the apes and release them back out into the surrounding forrest, only problem being that its not big enough to feed them all so they put out fruit twice a day for them to supplement their diet, which has the added bonus of tourists like us paying to come and see them so we can help with the rehabilitation and so on. They were so close, the feeding platforms are about 10 metres away from you ina roped off area and thats all the barriers there were. We saw a mother and her baby (delima and selina) we saw Edwin who is apparently like a naughty teenager, and we were really really lucky to see Ritchie. He is the BIG male in the forrest and he is huge! We'd been looking at all the others for a good half an hour or so when he showed up, thinking that they were big animals, but he was humongous, but beautiful. The most incredible thing to see him swinging down through the trees, or crashing maybe the more appropriate word, but even saying that he was graceful and almost as acrobatic as the others. Luckily he was quite content just to eat the food, some of the warnings they give you on arrival are to watch above your head incase one is swinging up there (or you may get a free shower!) and not to get too close, just 3 days before we got there a woman was bitten by Delima, she got too close and started to take photographs and Delima snatched her camera and threw it before she pulled the womans trousers to hold her down and bit her leg. They are not normally this aggressive but she has a baby and the woman invaded her space, and they give you plently of clear warnings about this. All in all one of the most fantastic experiences of my life, its a shame that they are endangered and it makes you want to do somethin to help them as much as possible.
From one primate to another the folowing day we set off for Bako national park to see the proboscis moneky, or more commonly known as a cocknosed monkey. A bus ride and a boat trip later we arrived and had breakfast at the worst cafe ever, and headed off for what was suuposed to be one of the two best trails to go and see the monkeys. On our way down we spotted one up in the trees, just having a bit of lunch. He was the oddest looking animal i think i have ever seen, It has a humongous nose thats an orang-y colour, and he looked like he was wearing a furry brown waist coat and had a pair of white y-fronts on, no exaggeration at all! He sat there happily for a few minutes then the three of us (we met a dutch girl called Karoline) set off along the path hoping to see more.Alas luck was not on our side as we trekked through the jungle to a beautiful beach and saw not 1, not 2 but 0 cocknosed monkeys, but we got to see the beach which was something and we saw a crocodile, some crabs, some macaques and loads more, Including Si's favourite the bearded pig. We also got to see a flying lemur which is incredibly rare. They are nocturnal and quite shy but this one was pregnant, you could see the baby moving around inside her and as she was about to give birth she came down and she was so close it was amazing. That was unfortunatley the end of our time at Kuching so we set off to get the bus the next morning, which in Kuching is a confusing enough experience without the added bonus of the town freak turning up and stroking Si much to his disgust!
But we got the plane and it was back to KL, this time witha determination to get up early and go to the top of the Petronas towers and we did (so proud!) It was impressive just to see the towers fromt he outside they were enormous, the queue to get your free tickets was almost as long. But we got some and came back on the afternoon for the cheesiest video sell of the Petronas company that was possible...it was even in 3-D! Going up the lift went so fast you ears popped and we only went up 2 thirds of the way. The view was nice but i thought the KL tower had a better view as its 360 degrees whereas the towers its a bridge so you can only see in front and behind, but as the symbol of malaysia we couldnt miss it out!
Next was Taman Negara believed to be one of the oldest rainforest in the world, we got up got picked up only to find that we were the only passengers on this huuuuuge luxury VIP coach. We had reclining chairs and the works it was brilliant! Lunch was served by a man who sounded like he was gonna cough up a lung and we were getting a side helping of Phlegm but other than that its was nice, we had a relaxing boat ride and our first stay in a dorm room, even though there was onyl one other bloke in there it was wierd! We did a night jungle walk the first evening we were there and we were looking for insects and we saw lots of huge spiders, and grosshoppers (they have everythingw e have at home but they have 10 times more and its all 10 times bigger!), deer and mushrooms that glow in the dark. But the best thing for me was we got to see a tree that until a year ago had a bee hive in it but a sun bear (very rare!) had come into the park and climbed the tree and eaten the honey, you could still see the claw marks how i wish we were there a year ago!
Following day was a climb of Bukit Teresek to look out over the jungle, and it was a climb. Not so much difficult but it was so humid (about 85%, and it can reach 95%!!!!!!) so we were shattered but the view was nice the park is beautiful. Half was up the hill is the entrance to the worlds longest and highest canopy walkway, for those that dont know its a rickety rope bridge slung between two trees, 5 bridges in total and 6 platforms, the longest bridge being 17m long, and my god does it wobble! If you look at all the photos im smiling through the pain i was petrified the bridge wobbles, creaks and groands and you muct be 50ft up off the floor, but i did it and the view when i caould opene my eyes was nice, Apparently when they opened the bridge there were a lot of animals a round but now not so as people make too much noise. Next was riding the rapids and the orang-asli village. We rode the first few rapids and got a little wet, it was quite amusing in this little wooden canoe but we got to the village damp in one peice. Here was saw how the local people live, we met the chief and watched him making blow pipes, which he then taught us how to fire and he was so accurate! We had a go and Si got quite close but i was rubbish although i did manage to hit the target just no where near the middle! We saw them make fire adn they explained how they had all just moved, whenever a tribe member dies they take his/her body deep into the forrest and out it on a platform high in the trees, then they pack up the village and move shop so the bad spirits dont come and get them, after they had explained all this we got back on our boat to head home...or so we though. The rapids werent quite over we were about to get very very wet! When we finally washed up on the shores of our guest house we were soaking literally dripping, we couldnt get anything to dry and to make sure it rained a lot alllllll night. We had planned a jeep safari but with the weather it all got cancelled for anyone whos been to taman negara and your not off doing stuff int he jungle its a very very very boring place!!! All in all though it was beautiful and we had a fabulous time.
Next off to another natural wonder the Cameron Highlands, a bit like Dalat in Vietnam, its high up so its cooler up there and the humidity is much much less. The bloke who picked us up was hillarious, his name was bullet. He wore camoflauge wide brim hat, and had massive finger ringes that covered his entire fin gers on one hand. He took us for english tea and scone (in Malaysia!?!?!?!) we had cream and jam and butter and they were warm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! We went to a butterfly farm and saw a turtle and lots of creepy crawlies, not to mentions of course the butterlies. After he dropped us off he promised to come back later to show us around. We bumped into two girls we had met months ago in Laos on the slow boat so we all headed out together when bullet showed up again we knew it was going to be a good night. Bullet calles his car "the wagon" its a massive jeep thin g with flashing lightsm a dvd player the loudest stereo system in SE asia and best of all HORNS, a huge pairs of whet we assume are cow of buffalo horns on the front! He took us for food and then to daniels abr where we sat around the camp fire dribking beer until the wee hours, it was so nice and relaxing that we slpet like babies until 6.30am when we had to be up for our days trekking. We were going to find a rafflesia flower, the largest in the world, it was a 3 hour hike and we were gonna be back in time for our bus a 2pm. The hike was hard going again for some random reason the humidity was riddiculously high and it was very muddy from all the rain the previous day. But the chief of the local village cut us some walking sticks and made us hats out of ferns, i was crowned queen of the jungle! But the walk was worth it the flower was so peculiar, it was hard and smelled awful and we got to see all the stages of its openeing and its decaying as there were quite a few around and about, and when this was done we drunk some water from the inside of a bamboo shoot...brilliant!!!!! By the time we got back for the bus i dread to think what they must have thought we were caked in mud, literllally all over but we made our bus and headed off to Georgetown.
Our arrival in Georgetown was a wee bit confusing but after walking past all the prostitues and shady bits of love lane we found the cleanes hostel ever i think, a small place called SD guesthouse (how could we resist a place with Si's initails!) and we paid apittence for a really clean room with a really clean shared bathroom, by the time we'd got the little chinese man down the road to do our washing and found the loacl chicken and rice hang out...we were well settled in! We planned to do a lot more here than we actually did, due to the rain....which considering it was supposed to be dry season over this side it was more thahn a little wet. We visited Fort Cornwallis which was the old dutch and British fort of the area which was a typical asian attempt at a living museum with a few real horses, a tent in the middle of a field to show how they would have lived and a Malaysian man in a pair of tights and traditional army dress! But we had a good time looking at all the cannons and playing with the Mynah Bird they had there, we had a walk around the shopping centres and *************************
On the final evening in Malaysia we went to the cinema to see the film "1957 Malaysia" which tells the story of malayisas struggle for independance whihc was good, it gave you a real insight into how the people felt at the time and you got to see the chahracters involved, it was on the other hand a low budget local film and was confusing at times, but as were the only ones who went to see it on its openeing screening at the local cinema we were able to ask each other questions and not worry about upsetting anyone else!
Next morning was our jaunt into Thailand, which began at 4am and finished at 3 pm and involved a border crossing, 2 ferries and 3 buses! But we made it to Ko lanta where unfortunatley the weather was no better :(
(apologies for the writing of this one, i wrote it at 6am after and overnight bus journey waiting to check into our hotel and go to sleep!)