Palau Langkawi > Penang

Hello all,

Not much to report really apart from the fact I have changed location.  Got a boat from Langkawi to Penang yesterday evening.  Pretty uneventful but I did take a load of sunset pictures from the boat with various different settings etc, they are all up on flickr but obviously there is a lot of repetition and some are better than others, I haven’t had the time to look at them properly yet.

Penang (or more specifically Georgetown) is pretty nice, lots of old colonial buildings interspersed with a fair few crappy streets and what not.  Went on a walk around today and into a few buddist temples before getting the bus up to the Botanical gardens.  I’ll leave the gardens to your imagination, oh apart from they had a load of monkeys running around….stealing peoples food.

Not sure what I am going to do here for the next couple of days really, there is a big temple I want to see and another one that has a load of drugged up snakes in it (due to the incense), not sure how to get to either of them yet though as the buses here are not very clear, sure I will work it out though.

As I said, not a lot to say today but thought I would write something just to let you all know I am still thinking about you.  Hope everyone is well.

x

A Whole Lot of Not Very Much

As the title suggests, this post doesn’t really have a purpose, well it does, but not a great one. The first thing to say is that yesterdays entry has been updated with photos, as has the main photo site. All the ones from KL and Palau Langkawi so far are now up there, apart from the obviously crap ones.

The second point is basically just to tell you about the dinner I just had. Was heading out for the usual noodle based fare when out of the corner of my eye I saw prawns that were the size of, well, I’m not sure what. Fairly sure they are the biggest prawns I have ever eaten. Big ass tiger prawns who had more ‘meat’ on them than some fillet steaks I have had in restaurants back home. Needless to say they were sublime. Relatively they were very expensive (just over a tenner i.e. about 2 nights accommodation), but they were definitely worth it.

As I said, just a small post. There probably won’t be another one for a couple of days as I don’t think I am going to be doing an awful lot to be honest. Hope you are all well.

xx

A Tale of Ski Lifts, Monkeys and a Car of Unknown Origin

Woke up stupidly early this morning, having fell asleep at 7pm after a couple of beers in the sun and didn’t wake up until midnight – too late for food. That makes yesterdays grand total a banana pancake and a plate of Nachos (Kate I’ll be the bronzed, toned hunk of a man you desire so much in no time). Woke up and went for Roti Canai for breakfast, a flat thin bread with plain semi-spicy curry sauce for breakfast, awesome. Although they did take 3 attempts to get my black coffee right i.e. not iced and black.

Queried the idea of hiring a moped for the day and decided seeing as how I haven’t ridden one in years and had no idea of the roads/traffic that I would hire a car instead. Admitedly it did cost twice the price of a bike, but a bike was only 4 quid, 8 pounds for 24 hours car hire, you can’t go wrong really! For that money I got a small air-con equipped, 650cc ferrari like motor with 125000 km on the clock. Bargain. For the life of me though I have no idea what it is, it has no badge, name or distinguishing marks, I honestly think it was made by a midget who was revolting against the capitalist, brand obsessed world that we now live in……or all the badges could have fallen off.

Drove myself around the island, some serious switchbacks (definitely beating the road up to most ski resorts) made me damn glad I was in a car. Some stunning views over the ocean though. I just decided to do a loop of the island, taking in a few of the sights. First (serious) stop was the cable car up the side of a tree covered mountain. The view looked out across to Thailand and over most of the mountain, very nice. Just past there were some natural waterfalls, having trekked through the jungle for a bit, I was very glad to find the waterfalls left with them a natural pool, jumped in, had a swim and sunbathed on a rock for an hour or so. No sounds apart from the fall of the water and the cicadas chirping in the trees. Bliss.

Drove on past most of the posh resorts on a road that the guide said would take me down to the headland and a little beach. Wrong. I was met by a very stern looking security man for the Four Seasons who promptly turned me back the other way. Cursing him under my breath as i drove back along the windiest road ever there was about 20 monkeys at the side of road. Score, I though, great photo opportunity. Parked up about 30 metres away and got out the car. Realised I left the camera inside, and went back to get it. Got back out of the car and looked back up, 20 monkeys all sprinting towards me, now about 15 meters away. So I jumped back in the car, whereupon then were on the roof in a shot. Gingerly drove off and hoped that none of them would fall under the wheel (not sure I could live with hit and running a monkey).

Stopped off at another couple of places before finding a sublime little beach, with views over to a couple of islands and the ocean. Sat inside a little cafe and had some garlic fried prawns (good prawns, not enough of them and didn’t need all the sauce), finishing off the Kite Runner, great book by the way, I’d recommend it to anyone, save you Dad seeing as all you read are Tom Clancy books interspersed with the odd John Grisham when you are feeling a bit risque! Decided that I am going to go back there in the car in a couple of days and spend the day there, as it is the weekend I probably won’t until Monday.

Anyway, I have the feeling I might stay here a bit longer than I intended. The beach life is suiting me for the moment. Pentai Cenang where I am staying is ok, a bit touristy, but not very loud. Gecko is pretty cool, although there is some concern about a 7 year old girl who has been there a month with her mother, who spends her days drinking. The mother is apparently married to a guy in Japan, but has been bumming around with her daughter around Asia for 3 years, while the guy gives her money. Real shame, the little girl hasn’t been in school for years, spends no time with people of her own age and a couple of guests have apparently heard the mum hitting her a couple of times. Rebecca, the owner of the place has stopped selling her beer and lectured her on motherhood yesterday, won’t make any difference though I suppose.

On a side note, regarding the photos. I’m using the account as a repository for all my photos until I can take a better look at them, so obviously there will be a few repeats and a few (probably a lot) of crappy ones. Pick your way through them at your leisure. It takes an age to upload them though (about 40 photos an hour), so I think I’m going to have to come up with a different plan.

Ta ra

x

Kuala Lumpur > Palau Langkawi

Been a couple of days since i wrote anything, so this will be a bit of a catch up post.  Decided on Wednesday morning to scratch my plans and get up North, working my way back down to Singapore from there.   Left the hostel with all my stuff and trekked across KL to the main station and the Air Asia office.  I decided I was going to go up to Langkawi, an island on the north west coast, right next door to Thailand.  There was a flight going in the afternoon but a quick, and as it turned out completely wrong, calculation in my head of the cost led me to turn it down and go on Thursday.  It was only after that I realised what I spent that day/night would more than offset the extra cost of the flight….ah well.  Turned out alright anyway, went to a new hostel and had dinner with an Aussie gir, Canadian bloke and a farmers son from Devon.

Jumped on the plane the next morning (even though it was adorned with Wayne Rooneys ugly mug, apprently Air Asia are Manchester Uniteds “no frills airline of choice”, funny that seeing as how the closest they operate to Manchester is Singapore).    Anyway, got to Langkawi and grabbed a wooden hut thing at a place called Gecko on Pentai Cenang, complete with resident monkeys.  Jumped in the shower – noticing that I would be washing my backside with a hosepipe for the next few days, and headed to the beach.

Langkawi is marketed as Malaysia’s top tourist resort, and it isn’t hard to see why.  Blue oceans, palm trees, white sand, hills covered in forests further inland and it also has the added bonus of being a duty free zone meaning alcohol is about 25% of the price on the mainland.  Went to bed and decided that I would hire a car/bike the next day and get out and about a bit having spent all day on the beach.

Kuala Lumpur – Day 2

Crashed out at about 9 on Monday night, having meant to just have a nap before going out for something to eat, ah well! Anyway on day 2 I went off to the Lake Gardens to see a bit of greenery and get out of the car fumes for a while.

First stop was the butterfly farm….to be honest ‘Tropical Paradise’ in Leeds was better! All very nice inside and there were thousands of butterflies, but they were all hanging around the net at the top. The best bit was probably the insect exhibit that had examples of some of the beetles and other things that will be waiting for me in the Cameron Highlands. Some of those beetles were as big as my fist, and looked a lot more menacing!

As one the first day I eschewed the use of public/private transport and used the power of my own legs for the day….knackering in this heat, but good to be out and about. Walked up to the Bird Park, which at 21 acres just so happens to be the largest self enclosed aviary in the world, or so they say. This place was quality, Jonny (Charwat) if you get round to reading this then you would have an almighty heart attack. Peacocks, Pelicans, stalks, ibis and hundreds of other species just wandering around next to your feet or flying over your head. The 2 ostriches were in there own pen, why the hell are they so big?! That can’t be due to nature surely, and that beak would rip you apart in seconds! Spent a couple of hours wondering around, probably the best thing so far. Got the obligatory picture with a Macaw and a massive Hornbill on my shoulder, so at least I have a couple of pictures now with me in them!  Had my lovely lunch of chicken satay ruined by an ignorant, obnoxious, loud Aussie woman, who dominated her husband to the extent that she read out the entire menu and then chose what he was having (before she chose for herself).   She treated the staff as 3rd world citizens, shouting at them and acting as though they couldn’t be trusted with her money or food.  They both had burgers, because “I don’t trust this funny food” that she asked to be “well done to kill all those Malaysian bugs”.  The conversation basically consisted of her talking to her husband and then replying for him.  I wanted to hit her.  Alas, I decided that violence towards a 50 year old woman was not the way forward, gathered my things and left.

Headed back into the city towards Chinatown, and low and behold I came across what must be KLs only rugby pitch, complete with a 10 piece Malay samba band practicing in the shade. Sat at the side and watched them and the world go by for half hour or so. Hopefully that was the first of many random things that I’ll come across in the next couple of months.

Chinatown was quality.  Hundreds of small stalls, shops and hawkers selling just about everything under the sun.  Picked myself up a small tripod for 8 quid after getting the block down from a quite frankly piss taking offer of 90 ringitts (15 quid).  Hopefully it will come in useful, otherwise it will be the most useless thing I buy, we’ll see.  A knock of pair of Ray Bans cost me 2 quid as well, bargain.  Went into a couple of Taoist temples and one Hindu temple, the difference was striking.  Whilst the Hindu temple was obviously a place of worship, reverence and respect, the Taoist temples seemed to be more of a community meeting area.  Filled with thick smoke of hundreds of huge incense sticks, people were chatting away, smoking and selling things around the side, much more chilled out.  Taoism is definitely the way forward at the moment!

Walked through a random dark, dank alleyway out of interest and it turned out to be one long butchers shop.  Tables laden with suspicious looking meat adorned the sides, whilst under them were collected pools of blood and a couple of families of resident rats were running around under the tables.  Mr Tesco would definitely not be impressed.  Carried on walking around for an hour or so and decided to cool off with a beer, in the only ‘bar’ (I needed the Air Con) in Chinatown.  Strangely it was a Bob Marley themed rasta bar, they only had Calsberg 😦  Headed home around midnight.

Kuala Lumpur – Moist

Hello all,

I’ll start simply by saying that it is about 28C over here, just let that sink in for a minute……there we go. I will point out that because of the humidity you are very sweaty after 10 minutes of walking about, trying to sleep was a mission. Anyway Kuala Lumpur is pretty cool. Spent the day walking from Medaka Square (the old colonial cricket pitch), up through Little India and across to the Petronas Towers. All as you would imagine them really, the colonial district was full of mongol inspired buildings and what not, also a really cute (yes I am using that word) white Church that was built in the late 1800s, it looked like it should be in the countryside somewhere, surrounded by a picket fence.

    

Little India was, well, it was like anywhere that starts with the word ‘little’ shed loads of little stalls selling fake stuff, couple of temples and a slightly overpowering stench. Looking forward more to seeing China town tomorrow, I think it will have a bit more atmosphere etc.

The Petronas Towers, look as though they belong somewhere completely different. Only one of the buildings anywhere near it is in a similar style. They are quite impressive but not quite as cool as they look in pictures and what not. Going to head back to them at night when they are lit up and grab some pictures though. The only accessible part to the public is a huge shopping centre…..not very interesting in the slightest.  I did get lost for an hour and half trying to get back to the hostel from here though, not good just before a thunderstorm.

The trusty Birkenstock have also slashed one of my feet to pieces, even after I was good to them and glued them back together. My faith in German shoemakers is beginning to falter slightly.  Thanks to KLs slightly dodgy pavements I think have also fractured my big toe…good times.

Oh and when I was wandering around last night within 5 minutes I had been asked if ‘Sir wants a young girl’ and various other different things, oh and saw a couple of rats and flying cockroaches, oh how I love Asian cities.

Not a lot else to report really, hardly the most interesting of posts but only been here a day. Oh I think I might go up to the caves outside of KL on Wednesday. Apparently there is a festival on where about 1 million people turn up in 3 days, doing things like this:

Wonder what I should do?

Ta ra for now

x

Adding a Comment

This just thoroughly confused me and therefore I’m sure could confuse some of the less technically able people that will hopefully visit this blog! In order to leave a comment hit the ‘no comment’ link below the post you would like to comment on, ‘1/2/3/4 comments’ link below the post. Hopefully this will be the most boring post that I have to make!

Cheers!

Welcome to the Blog

Hello all,

I’m sure you are either here because I basically forced you to pop by and have a look or because you are stuck at work/the library and have ran out of other procrastination options. Either way…….hey.

Basically if you want to find out what I’ve been up to/whether or not I have a) caught rabies b) given myself the bends again or c) been having a damn good time, then I will try and stick a little update on here whenever I get the chance. Who knows, maybe it will actually be interesting and more than just a way to make people feel a bit worse about themselves and you will look forward to your visits, maybe this blog will go down in web folklore………

…….The safe money however is probably on the chance that this will turn into one of those typical travelling blogs where I say “maaaaaaan” a little too much and regale you with stories of how I achieved a sense of “clarity” in an otherwise chaotic and apathetic world whilst meditating with a blind, one legged crazy man who called himself “the guru”, overlooking a crystal clear lake and wearing nothing but a slightly worn loincloth.

Either way, if you read it then I hope you enjoy it, feel free to leave a comment, will be nice to hear from some friendly faces. If you don’t read it, then well, firstly I have your email address and secondly I will perform some sort of East Asian religious curse on you (once I have decided which East Asian religion to follow).

x