Malaysia - Cameron Highlands

The Cameron Highlands are far higher above sea level than the rest of malaysia, and because of this they have a very different climate. We had a very nice (cool) 2 days 3 nights there. In contrast to the big cities the Cameron Highlands are relaxed, lush and green. One of the biggest things in the Higlands is agriculture. They grow tea, strawberries, veges, fruit, even roses.

Our accomodation was good. We had a large room, with a cumfy bed, and it was so cool that we even used or sleeping bag, I got a chance to wear pants, and a long top. They had a good cafe, and showed movies. Both of which paid of because it rained in the afternoons, and we couldnt go out. It was a 5-10 min walk from town on a hill. It was really peaceful.

We arrived about 2:00 from KL and checked in to our room. We then had a chance to go out and get some lunch. We got a bag of little fried bananas (5 for NZ 40c), and then some noodles. Both of these were really tasty, and we are now on the look out for deep fried bananas. Having checked out the town (its not very big) we went back and looked at some of the tours that are available. We booked for a half day "Countryside Tour" for the next day. Then we ate at the hostel cafe as it was close.

The next day we went on our half day tour.

We went to a Rose garden, which was interesting to an extent. It was cool to see something different and be in cool suroundings, but we have seen roses before.
Then we went to the Strawberry farm. They grow them in baskets of coconut husk, and the plants fruit constantly for 15 months. We got a small punnet.
Across the road was a butterfly park. It was not as large as the one that we went to in KL, but this one had lots of live bettles, lizards, and snakes which we liked. Some of the snakes were as thin as a pencil, while some of the bettles were ase big as mice. We got to touch a rhinocerous beetle.

Then we went to the main attraction:
The BOH tea factory. We were very interested to learn that the tea plants are actually Camelias. We drove in thru hill sides covered in very low tea bushes. The bushes were over 80 years old, and would produce tea for another 30 years. Then we got shown thru the factory, seeing how the tea was dried and sorted. There was a very strong smell that was somewhere between tea and compost, as the tore the leaves apart and then fan dried them. We then went to the tea shop and had a cup of their fresh tea, looking out over the plantation.

The next stop was a honey farm, but we weren't that interested so we skipped straight to the market that was there and bought some fruit, and very tasty fried potatoes, sweet potatoes, banana, chestnuts, and other bits and pieces. The final stop was a chinese temple. This was the first temple that we've been to so we had a look around but not for to long as we know that we are going to see so many temples in Thailand.

We really enjoyed the tour, and because all the sights were spread out we wouldn't have seen them any other way.

That night we had a fantastic meal. We have quite a taste for north indian food, and a number of the restaurants in Tanah Rata did tasty looking indian. We got naan, chicken tikka, dahl curry, samosa, poppadom, and rice all served on a banana leaf, for a very good price.

We spent the next day relaxing in the cool. Reading our books, writting letters (still being written), and lazing around. We also sorted out travel and accomodation for Penang.

There were some fantastic varieties of flavoured tea like Lychee and rose, ginger and lime, cardomon and clove, earl grey and tangerine. We got some to take away with us and are hoping to stay in a hostel soon where there is a kettle we can use.

So, we really enjoyed the Cameron Highlands. We got to see all the main areas from the bus on the way to and from as well which was cool.

We got up early on Sunday (30 July) and caught the bus to Butterworth. We got a VIP bus which is RM3 more (about $1.30) and it is so spacious and comfortable. It is great to get off the bus and not feel travel sore or weary. We have been really surprised at the cheap bus fares and had a look at a petrol station to see the prices - it is a lot cheaper for fuel here... and cars cost a lot less too.

On the bus ride we saw the remains of a really bad crash. there was this big bus that had come off the motorway and rolled twice. 11 people died. We are actually really surprised that we haven't seen any more accidents as no one here obeys any notion of a road rule.

After the bus trip it was a quick 15min ferry to Georgetown (Penang).

Malaysia - Kuala Lumpar

Well we have now spent another couple of days in KL. Yesterday we went for a big hot walk up to the lake gardens, orchid and hibiscis gardens and to the butterfly park. They were all good but not exceptional. We were thinking of going to the bird park but got there and didn't have enough money and they didn't have credit!

We have been wandering the market streets in Chinatown the last couple of nights. There is a lot of knock off watches, movies, shoes, t-shirts etc. We did our first bargining for a few items which went ok (we think).

Today we went to the Patronas towers. We found they were not really worth the effort. We first qued for over an our and then had to wait for another hour and a half or so till we were allowed in. In all the whole thing took 2.5 hours and the result was 10 mins that we were allowed up on the sky bridge connecting the two towers.

We have decided not to go to Taman Negara national park as planned, it is pretty expensive and we don't have the right gear. Tomorrow morning we are off to the Cameron Highlands for 3 nights and then off to Penang (Georgetown) for a couple of days before crossing the border to Thailand.

Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur

We got the fast speed boat back to Mersing on the morning of 23 July to catch a 11.30 bus, we need not have spend the extra $ to get there quick as the bus was full and we ended up having to wait 3.5 hours for the next one. Then a 6 or so hour trip to Kuala Lumpur.

Our accomodation was really easy to find, just opposite the bus station. Its not luxury but cheap and the air con works so we will probably stay in the same place for our time in KL. Its in Chinatown.

Today was our first day here. We did a lot of walking. We toured around the city, went to some shopping centres and markets. Didn't really see anything that great to buy. Tomorrow we are going to go up the Patronas Towers (the tallest bulidings in the world) and maybe to the zoo. We also plan to go to the bird park and to the Orchid gardens while we are here. There seems to be pretty good public transport here - lots of buses, trains, light rail and monorail. We are going to go for a joy ride on the monorail at some point.

Malaysia - Tioman Island, Salang Beach

We stayed on Tioman Island for 2 more nights, got a boat to another beach called Salang. The beach was really nice. Our chalet was no where near as nice but pretty cheap, not beach front but just a five minute walk away. There was this pretty stinky river that had heaps of the big lizards in it. There was this one huge one - two metres long which was pretty scary! Wouldn't want to fall in there!!! We didn't do any sun bathing as we were worried about getting burnt, had already seen a bit of burn from last snorkling. We did go snorkling again which was fun and we saw a turtle. There were quite a lot of little jellyfish though, stings didn't really hurt but itched a bit and have left marks.

Malaysia - Tioman Island, ABC Beach

We got a bus from Johor Bahru to Mersing, a 3 hour trip on a really big, comfortable, air conditioned bus for a price of $4 NZ each! Mersing is a small coastal town with not too much to offer to us (we had a 3 hour wait for the ferry). We caught the ferry across to Tioman Island, a 2.5 hr trip to the beach we are staying at.

Our chalet is great, it is all wooden, with a nice balcony and ensuite. It is really private, quiet and not too hot! We have found the heat much less here than in Singapore. It may be just that we are on the coast here and get the odd breeze. At high tide our chalet is on rocks overlooking the water. We have been pretty much just relaxing here. We have done lots of reading and swimming. The water is almost like a bath.

We went snorkeling yesterday (19th), just off the beach by our chalet. It was so cool! There was so much coral and tropical fish. There are a lot of diving and snorkeling trips offered at other spots around but we were more than happy with what we found. And it cost us a lot less.

We have been eating at near restaurants. The food is not all that fantastic. We are missing cooking. It is probably just being on a small island and we hope to find better food on the mainland. We went for a big walk to a neighbouring beach settlement yesterday. We got sooo hot and exhausted. This weather is not good for exercise!

We have seen plenty of local wildlife including monkeys, lizards (the largest about 1m long!) bats both big and small and squirrels. We are always on the lookout for more! We are going to walk to the next beach later today (much closer than yesterday's excursion) for a swim and to see more monkeys in the tree's on our way.

Sadly, tonight is our last night in our accomodation. Instead of heading back to the mainland we have decided to move on to the next big beach for a couple of nights.

Singapore

We arrived in Singapore last Friday (14th July) night. The flight over was pretty good, plenty of delays but we arrived in good time. We had a stop over at the Sydney and Bali airport, there wasn't much to do and everything pretty expensive...

We got a taxi to our accomodation rather than attempting to find our way on the bus in the extreme heat that we were not used to. Our accomodation was very central - lots of places to eat and shop at our doorstep. It was however quite suffocating with no window or natural light in our room. But as Singapore is quite expensive, we could have done worse.

We mainly shopped, walked and ate in Singapore. We enjoyed it there - it is very clean and a lot of effort has gone into planting and greenery. They are quite pedantic about the cleanliness of everything though, we were amused when we saw gardeners sweeping up leaves as they fell from well kept grass.


We also went for walks around the neighbouring districts, most successfully in the morning before it got busy and hot. We were there for the weekend and found that it didn't really get busy until 11am and then got really busy. Foodcourts and restaurants were really busy right from then till late at night. There was a lot of choice in food and it was not too expensive.

We tried to spend as much time as possible in air conditioned buildings, the only fault of this was that because these were shopping centres, we possibly spent more money than we should have. But we got some really cool stuff.

Then we got a bus on Monday (17th) morning from Singapore to Johor Bahru (Malaysia).