We ended our day with a superb dinner at the night market on the street. Especially Henk liked it. He had lot's of sate chicken and rice with egg and sauce.
Malaysian peninsula
Friday
27th of January 2006
Place: Alor Setar, Malaysia
Climate: hot and sunny, 340C
Health: Anit unfortunately again some infection in the eye (now the left eye)
and Henk in good health
Thought of the day: Yes, finally
problems with our website solved! We can update it again, that’s a good feeling
(Anit) Nice money they have in Malaysia, the Malaysian ringit is small and the
rate is 4.5RM to 1 Euro (Henk)
Today was one of these technical days. What we mean by this is just time needed
for updating our website, planning, developing photos from the underwater
camera, etc. First of all we slept quite long to recover from the long trip from
Thailand yesterday.
Later it went quite smoothly. We asked
hotel reception to check out buses for us for tomorrow, than we took some money
out of the wall (luckily we still have some), found a photo shop and had our
underwater camera developed into digital pictures. Shortly you will see them on
our website.
We found one internet café with quite
fast internet.
Rest of the day we spent on updating our
website and planning the journey in Malaysia. We already booked a hotel in Kuala
Lumpur (KL) and a flight from KL to Sandakan on the east side of Malaysian
Borneo. We plan to arrive in KL on the 3rd of February and fly on the 6th to
Sandakan. This would give us 7 days to explore the Peninsula of Malaysia. We
plan to take a scenic bus from west to east and then a scenic train from north
to south.
In the evening when we came back to the hotel, the manager from the Regent hotel
(a very friendly and helpful gentlemen) said: "I have bad news for you, there
are no bus places to Khota Bharu" and Henk asked: "And the good news?". Then he
thought a few seconds and said: "sorry, no good news, only bad". Anyway as we
didn't want to stay in Alor Setar anymore we decided to just go to the main bus
station and just see what our possibilities were to get to the east.
Saturday
28th of January 2006
Place: Alor Setar to Tanah Merah, Malaysia
Climate: hot and sunny, 340C
Health: Anit has still infected eye and Henk in good health
Thought of the day: India-like dirty
(Anit) Malaysia is not so clean as I expected (Henk)
So, all the busses to the east were full. What to do. We
simply headed to the main bus station and asked around what our options
were. Well at least the guy from the hotel was right, no more express busses to
the east. We took the first local bus to Balink. A small place just south of the
Thailand. The bus was perfect. Better seats than you get on a charter plane
flying to your holiday destination. The bus left Alor Setar at 11.15h and
arrived at 13.30h in Balink.
Our next bus in eastern direction, to Gerik, was already waiting (very good), but was not so
nice as the previous one. Our backpacks had to be put into the luggage
compartment, which was full of dust. One advice when you go on a long trip;
invest in a good, strong and durable backpack. Don't save on such an
item. Good backpacks cost about 350 - 450 Euro, but it is worth it considering you will use it
every day and don't want to have the hassle during a trip that it breaks or
tears or doesn't fit well on your back.
We arrived at about 15.00h in Gerik and then? Well, no more buses going east.
The next was was going next day at 14.00h? We didn't want to stay here. Then
what about a taxi? yeah. The price was not so bad. Only 112 RM (= 25 Euro) for
200 km through the mountains. The problem was that not many taxi drivers
wanted to go this far. Even more people were waiting. What to do? Well we first
had some Malaysian lunch and we waited. Due to our lunch (which was delicious by
the way) we missed the first car since all the others who were waiting there were a
bit quicker. We stayed with one other gentlemen. One more gentlemen arrived and
we planned to go all together in one taxi, which is anyway normal in Malaysia.
Unfortunately for one of the waiting guys, we convinced a taxi driver with and
old Nissan to take us, but he wanted maximum 3 people. He was afraid the car would break down.
The road was beautiful but long. At about 19.00h we arrived in Tanah Merah.
The taxi driver dropped us at the train station where we bought tickets for the
next day and asked for a hotel. He gave us directions to a good hotel not far
from the railway station, but it was full. Then the next one. Hotel Tanah Merah..............What
a place. They showed us a room 3x2 meters with no shower or toilet and no
window. It was simply a dirty box. And not even cheap with comparison to hotels
in Thailand. It was 29 RM (+6.5 Euro). What to
do? Well, it was late and the hotel was more or less it clean (relatively) and the chance
to find an Ibis or Holiday Inn was less than 0. We took it. Henk doesn't look so
happy there, does he?
We ended our day with a superb dinner at the night market on the street.
Especially Henk liked it. He had lot's of sate chicken and rice with egg and
sauce.
Sunday
29th of January 2006
Place: Tanah Merah to Temerloh, Malaysia
Climate: hot and sunny, 330C
Health: Anit's eye is healing and Henk feeling good (even after the big meal at
the night market)
Thought of the day: India-like dirty
(Anit) After this hotel, I really look forward to our hotel in Kuala Lumpur (Henk)
This morning it was an early rise and shine. Yesterday we bought tickets for the
train from North to South, so called jungle-train and it was scheduled to leave at 07.05h. After leaving
our 5* ramshackle box hotel (the worst we slept according to Anit) we arrived at
the train station at 06.45h, so nicely in time. It was still dark and we waited
and waited, and of course as usual 1 hour delay. Hakuna...............Matata (no
problem).
Our Lonely Planet says 2 things about this train. 1) Never take the day train,
since it is extremely slow and stops at every place and 2) Specifically this
route from north to south is one of the technical marvels with some superb
views. We had the time, so let's go for it!
The train has only three carriages and after boarding it started already good.
It looked like we were leaving and we did, but after 5 minutes we stopped and
went back. Then we waited for 15 minutes, another train passed and we could get
moving. Within half an hour we made already 3 stops. well, we will be on
this train for the next 10 hours or so?!!?!? Maybe we are a bit crazy (can
happen after so many months of traveling, but the train is an excellent way to
explore the countryside and meet new people.
We took place in the restaurant wagon. This seemed the most comfortable since
you had a table and we could put the backpacks on the opposite chairs.
It
was an excellent ride. The train took us straight into the Malaysian jungle. We
passed rivers and also palm tree plantations and rubber tree plantations.
Sometimes the jungle was so dense that the leaves of banana trees were hitting
the train.
Sometimes when the train stopped there was absolutely nothing or just a few
houses or a village. After each stop we went back
through the jungle again and the scenery kept changing from dense to flat to
great views on rocky hills.
What is also nice about going with the train is that you can do something, so we
did. We worked on the web-site, we planned our trip for the coming 2 months.
Yeah, we have to plan a bit more in advance now since we will be flying and
planes tend to be full if you don't book in time.
In the afternoon there was a time for a small nap.
Then around 17.00h we arrived in Temerloh. From there we took a taxi to our hotel which we had already booked, avoiding the same situation as yesterday. The hotel was fine, nothing special, but rooms were ok.
Monday
30th of January 2006
Place: Temerloh to Melaka, Malaysia
Climate: hot, a bit cloudy, 320C
Health: Both in good condition
Thought of the day: I am happy we
changed the plans and decided to get away from monsoon
(Anit) 11 hours on the bus is quite much, isn't it? (Henk)
At 07.30h the taxi was waiting to pick us up and brought us to the bus
station. We already had tickets booked; so far so good. And we were both
looking forward to go diving on Pulau Tioman. The first bus went from Temerloh
to Kuantan; a trip of about 2 hours. Again very spacious seats. After we arrived
in Kuantan at 10.00h we went straight to the ticket counter. Bad luck;first bus
to Mersing was at 14.30h. We checked some other bus companies, but all the same
story. Then back to the first one and this time luck was on our side. The lady had 2
tickets left for the 10.30 bus. Now we had to rush to get it. The bus left in
time and we arrived in Mersing about 13.30h. From here we would plan our trip to
the island called Pulau Tioman. The first boat was at 18.00h and you know why? There
was simply no water in the bay due to low tide. Can you believe it? We
bought tickets and had some lunch. After lunch we started to investigate about
the possibilities for diving. Everywhere we got the news that the time now was
not good for diving.
Low visibility and strong currents. When we checked how we could get back from Tioman and
found out that there was
no good connection with Kuala Lumpur (about 7 hours waiting) we made up our minds. No good diving,
no good travel connection...we changed our plans. We returned the boat tickets,
which was possible without any problems and bought bus tickets to Melaka. For
you information Mersing is at the east coast and Melaka is at the west coast. In
between there is a bus ride of about 5 -6 hours.
After making all the changes there was some time left for a few small beers,
some ice cream and some sandwiches. During this intermezzo we tried to book a
hotel/guesthouse in Melaka. Difficult, difficult. Due to Chinese New Year all
hotels we tried were full. After we got on the bus we found one guesthouse
which had one room available. The price was good, 25 RM (=5.5 Euro). Hopefully
the quality was better than the other place from 2 days ago!
Henk slept most of the time during this last bus ride and
around 11pm we arrived in Melaka. The lady of the guesthouse was very helpful and
friendly and the room was pleasant and clean with a beautiful sea view (on the wall ha,ha)
Shared bathroom and toilet this time, but it all looked clean. So this would be
our home away from home for the coming 3 nights.
Tuesday 31st of January 2006
Place: Melaka, Malaysia
Climate: hot and sunny,
320C
Health: Both feeling very well
Thought of the day: Welcome back in civilized world (Anit) The Dutch were here,
the VOC (Henk)
Melaka is a nice city with a lot of history. We new it
already from the guide book so we were looking forward to discover it ourselves.
Today, however, we slept very long because yesterday we arrived late and we went
to sleep around 3am.
No worries, this day we just began with a delicious brunch and later we went
shopping in the huge shopping centre. By shopping we mean mainly looking around
and buying some supplies like toothpaste and shampoo. When we returned to hotel
around 7pm we took a shower and watched the series “Jonge Leu en Oale Groand”
(Young people and old grounds). This is a great film made in Twente (the east
province of NL) so Henk could almost feel like at home and Anit could catch up a
bit with the Twents accent (basically is not an accent, it’s completely
different language!).
Wednesday 1st of February 2006
Place: Melaka, Malaysia
Climate: hot and sunny,
350C
Health: Both feeling very well
Thought of the day: Today it was for me like coming back to my Dutch history
classes at university where we learned all about the Golden Century and the
Dutch colonies (Anit) Light and sound show, I would say more sound and a little
light (Henk)
Today we woke up early to have a full day for sightseeing. Since the
shopping mall was on our way, we decided to have a quick breakfast there and
then went towards the Melaka fortress, our first sightseeing spot.
It was quite impressive especially because of graves of Dutch people who died
here. You could see the Dutch and Portuguese influences all around the city
centre.
Later we went down the hill to visit the “Stadthuys”, city
hall from the time of Dutch presence with a lot of exhibitions from the time of
Portuguese, British and Dutch conquers.
We also visited the Catholic Church on the man plain and the wooden ship from
the XVII century now converted to museum. We couldn’t resist these beautiful
decorated rickshaws and we decided to make a city tour through the China town of
Melaka. It took only half an hour but it was worth it. Melaka has its hart.
It was already getting dark but we still had one attraction left in our
sightseeing program. After sushi dinner at the shopping mall (again) we went to
see the Sound and Light show with the history on Melaka. It was bad. It was
boring. It looked like they didn’t use the full capacity of the sound and light
facilities they could have there…although the scenery with the ruins of the
fortress in the background at night was great. Goodnight.
Thursday 2nd of February 2006
Place: Melaka, Malaysia
Climate: hot and sunny with some clouds,
350C
Health: Both in good condition
Thought of the day: Take it easy and relax (Anit & Henk)
Under the motto “take it easy and relax” we slept long and didn’t plan
much for today. It looks like we really miss the western culture and it also
looked like we found it back in our famous shopping mall. Yeh, yeh, let’s go for
some western breakfast there. Bad travelers! On the way we checked up e-mails
and than went for a bite.
It was funny, for the first time we saw the Chinese New Year celebrations, here
in the shopping centre. It was still the period of New Year celebrations so we
were actually lucky to see how they celebrate it.
By the way: Happy New Year to all our Chinese friends!!!
When it was finished, we walked around, visited shops and just relaxed. On the
way back to the hotel we went to the Internet café to check up some things, book
the flights, write e-mails and so on.
As part of the Chinese New Year, there was a fancy fair nearby our guesthouse.
We were curious how it looked like and how Malaysian people spend the time there
so we decided to have a look. It was really crowded and although intended for
kids we still found some attractions for us.
First of all, shooting. Henk, the hunter, loves it. Anit tried as well and
although every time we were very close we didn’t win anything. You know what
prizes they had? The mobile phones! Crazy people.
Ok, next thing was the Ghost House. O, we are so stupid. We were sitting in the
small train with all kids around (we were the only adults there and almost too
big for the seats). But anyway, let’s give it a try! The train was just making
circles, into the house and outside. After the first round we though, God,
that’s boring, you go into the house for a minute and you see the Ghosts on the
right and left and that’s it. We made the first circle, than a second one and
all the same. Boring. But than on the third one, you know what happened??? The
boring ghosts began to move! Yes and following Anit who was already screaming
like a hell! And the grabbed Henk by his neck!
It was fantastic and scary. A very simple concept but a great idea.
The last attraction we did this evening was a wheel with seats around it. It was
moving around and up and down and around. Looked like great fun in the beginning
but when we sat there and saw that the whole machine was cowered by rust and
looked really old, we wished we had been down back. Anyway, thanks God, we
survived.
Friday 3rd of February 2006
Place: Melaka to
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Climate: very hot, more than
300C
Health: Both feeling ok
Thought of the day: Looking forward to discover Malaysian capital city (Anit)
The Petronas towers (Henk)
The checked out time at our guesthouse was at 12pm. Since we wanted to
organize some things today, we decided to check out and leave our bags at
reception. We would pick them at around 2pm. After late breakfast and visit to
the internet café we picked up the bags and took a taxi to the bus terminal.
From there we took a bus to Kuala Lumpur. It took only 2 hours to get there.
From the bus stop it was only a walking distance to our hotel. As always, when
we sleep in a hotel belonging to the Inter Continental hotel group, we get a
nice room with all the facilities which a backpacker would only dream of.
It was already quite late. The rest of the evening we spent in front of TV which
we miss (honestly speaking) and we ate some snacks bought at Seven Eleven shop
nearby.
Saturday 4th of February 2006
Place: Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia
Climate: hot and sunny, more than
300C
Health: Both in good condition
Thought of the day: I feel like doing nothing...is it because of hot weather or
am I becoming very lazy? (Anit) Stupid travel agencies (Henk)
The most important thing today was to check out the flight options for Los
Angeles. Basically we thought about flying the route Singapore, Sydney,
Auckland, Fiji and LA. It took us almost whole day to check out this option and
also visit New Zealand Airlines and Singapore Airlines for their offers. At the
end of the day we still didn’t have any concrete option. Air New Zealand was too
expensive, Singapore didn’t have any good deals, the quotations form Lonely
Planet website was also not attractive. Planning takes much time as you can see,
especially when you want to travel as cheap as possible but still have a good
value for money.
It was a hot day. After walking around in the city we felt so tired and
literally “cooked” we only dreamt about the swimming pool. So the first thing we
did when we came back to the hotel, we took a swim. The view from the pool was
quit nice by the way.
After we cooled down a bit we went out for some bite. We followed the LP
recommendations of Tapas restaurant in the food court under the Marriott hotel.
After some time of finding this place we had a delicious dinner. Definitely good
recommendation.
Our first idea was to have a dinner at restaurant located in the tower. That
would be great to watch the sunset over KL from there. Well, it’s not for free.
You have to pay for this, and the food prices were so crazy that we decided not
to eat there. Instead we went up, took an audio guide, walked around the
observation deck and found out more about this city. Audio guide is a great
invention!
When we came back to the hotel, we came up with the idea to do some work out. If
we can use fitness room for free, why not to try?
We had a lot of fun using different machines. When we made sure we lost enough
calories, we went out for dinner to catch up with the lost weight. Bad, bad…But
the Italian dinner was delicious…. This was the last day in Kuala Lumpur.
Tomorrow we were flying to Malaysian Borneo.