After the luxurious bus ride from KL we arrived in the smell of fresh air in the Cameron Highlands. We didn’t book a hostel yet, but a combination of the Lonely Planet and some sellers on the bus station brought us to Danial’s Lodge a perfect travellers hangout, we liked it very much. The main thing to do in the Cameron Highlands is trekking, so after a setting down and a fantastic Indian lunch we went to explore the highlands on our own. Unfortunately the weather is very unpredictable in the highlands and can change quickly, our hike was shortened to only 1 hour. For the next day we had planned an ‘adventure’ trip with some trekking, visiting tea plantations, and a butterfly farm. In a very old but very strong Land Rover and our relax and superb guide Nick we drove through the highlands and saw the famous tea plantations. Es, a fellow traveller, whom we met in the hostel, joined us. We had a great time and we now know how you should drink a real cup of tea, which apparently the Dutch people in particular do wrong. The slide show beneath shows our adventure in the Cameron Highlands.
Penang
For us one day in the highlands was enough, so after our adventure trip we took a 10-person van to Penang. Penang is an island in on the west coast of Malaysia and its main city Georgetown is a Unesco world heritage. According to several major travel organizations it is one of the islands you have to see before you die, so that is a ‘check’ on our list ;-). It’s known for the old colonial buildings, the food and the unique harmony between religions, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and Christians have lived in harmony for centuries. We very much loved Penang for these 3 characteristics. For the delicious food you don’t go to restaurants here, but you have to go to the street stalls and food courts on the street, which means it is cheap as well, what do you want more :-). We tried to eat only small portion, so we could try out as much as we could ;-). This slideshow shows some food experiences.
After arrival we only walked around and eat before we went to bed. We had booked 2 different hostels, since the one we wanted was fully booked for the first night. Both hostels were superb and although we slept in dormitories we had good night rest. The next day with did a walking tour through the city, which included the Penang museum, several mosques and temples, little India and many old colonial buildings. The highlights we are included in the slideshow. In the late afternoon we hooked up with Jamie and Es who we knew from the Cameron Highlands and we enjoyed several dinners together while strolling down the streets :-). Since we left Bali we miss our scooters very much, we rented one for the next day, our last day in Penang. We first drove all the way to the other side of the island to the national park of Penang, which consists of a jungle and some beaches. We took a hike trip through the jungle, which was a very very hot and sweaty experience. The jungle was a bit disappointing and the beach we saw was also nothing really special, but we enjoyed the hike and the exercise. We continued to the Kek Lok Si temple, the biggest Buddhist temple in South-East Asia, which was absolutely amazing. We were lucky because our last evening was the first evening of a 3-day festival in Penang, which meant that there were a lot of festivities in the city. Together with Es and Jamie we went for some more dinners and festivities. We saw an astonishing lion dance, were 14-15 years old boys wearing a lion suit, danced on top of small poles. The movie below gives an impression of their astonishing performance.
Pictures from Penang
The last evening we went to bed early, we had to take the bus to Koh Phi Phi, Thailand the next morning at 5am, where we are now. But more on that later :-)
Showing posts with label Malaysia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Malaysia. Show all posts
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Monday, July 4, 2011
Kuala Lumpur baby!
Bus Kuala Lumpur – Cameron highlands 4/7-2011
So our 4-weeks travel has begun, we have left our paradise Bali and flown to Kuala Lumpur (KL). We could stay in Tim’s (Rino’s nephew, who’s doing internship in KL) penthouse close to the centre of KL. One problem: Tims description was too little to get through the security and they didn’t want to let us in. So there we were standing, somewhere in KL around 1am and Tim didn’t pick up his phone. Luckily the Lonely Planet always brings help in these situations and after a few phone calls we had a room in a hostel in the centre of the city. After we had arrived in the hostel we were looking to find our first Subway sandwich, but unfortunately the one nearby was closed and we had to eat Malay food, which was no punishment at all off course:-)
The next morning was our 2nd anniversary; before we could celebrate we had to succeed in a mission: We needed a new camera, since our camera broke on Bali and we now are using Anneloes’ small camera. We also needed a mosquito net, because we lost ours in a mysterious way during our “moving” from Bali. We were also able to reach Tim, he gave us more clear instructions and we were finally able to enter his penthouse on the 28th floor. WOW, what a magnificent view, unbelievable!!!
Some research about KL explained that it has a tremendous amount of large shopping malls. Well, that was totally correct! There were even more shopping malls than in Singapore and they were also bigger, even for Iris this was too much, we almost didn’t find our way out a few times ;-) The first item on our list was therefore very easy, we soon found an electronic shopping mall and we are now the happy owners of a Canon G12 and a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT3. Why 2 cameras? Well, the Panasonic is an underwater camera and since our previous camera got broken due to the underwater case, we don’t trust those anymore.
The mosquito net was a lot more difficult to find, we tried so many shopping malls, but none of them had outdoor shops. After a 4/5-hour search we finally found one, which we immediately bought of course. So, around 6 o’clock we could finally start celebrating our anniversary. After a couple of beers in different bars, we headed up to Bijan restaurant, the number 1 out of 779 restaurants in KL on Tripadvisor. Iris her mother congratulated us with our anniversary and wanted to pay for our diner as a gift :-) Thanks! The dinner was authentic Malay food, we enjoyed lam and Red Snapper. We by the way love the Malay style dinner; you both always get a plate and the food in the middle. In this way you can easily try both the dishes. We had a great evening and were totally stuffed from the lovely food! We went back home to sleep after a long day :-)
Close to Tim’s penthouse there is a monorail station, something different compared to subways or trams, which you see in most big cities, it became our main way to get around the city. After a lovely breakfast the next day in Bukit Bintang we headed up to the KL tower. With a viewing deck on 276 meter one of the highest points you can get as a tourist. Unfortunately it was a bit smoggy and therefore we could not see that far, but still it was a great view and we could see Tim’s penthouse. Next was the National museum to sniff some culture and history of Malaysia. Iris really liked it, but for Rino it was a bit too much reading in a too much air-conditioned area. After a bit disappointing walk through little India we took a Malay meal in a food court and a foot reflex for some extra energy :-). We ended the day in Chinatown for some more sightseeing and diner. Chinatown was really worth the walk and we enjoyed all the stalls and the hectic of a typical Chinatown. There were so many footstalls and we actually wanted to have a bit at all of them ;-).
After our diner we went back to sleep, since we were tired of all the walking and needed to get up early the next day for the bus to Cameron highlands. At this moment we are in the bus, the buses here are so luxurious for a cheap price, no complains! Just a second ago there was a Saudi Arabian family entering the bus, before Rino could think he had the cutest 3-month-old baby girl in his lap. The father parked her there (without saying anything) while finding a seat and getting everything set. It was a funny situation :-)
We enjoyed KL and seeing a big city again, but 2 days was more than enough. We want to see more of Malaysia and look forward to what is coming; we’ll keep you posted ;-)
Hugs and kisses
So our 4-weeks travel has begun, we have left our paradise Bali and flown to Kuala Lumpur (KL). We could stay in Tim’s (Rino’s nephew, who’s doing internship in KL) penthouse close to the centre of KL. One problem: Tims description was too little to get through the security and they didn’t want to let us in. So there we were standing, somewhere in KL around 1am and Tim didn’t pick up his phone. Luckily the Lonely Planet always brings help in these situations and after a few phone calls we had a room in a hostel in the centre of the city. After we had arrived in the hostel we were looking to find our first Subway sandwich, but unfortunately the one nearby was closed and we had to eat Malay food, which was no punishment at all off course:-)
The next morning was our 2nd anniversary; before we could celebrate we had to succeed in a mission: We needed a new camera, since our camera broke on Bali and we now are using Anneloes’ small camera. We also needed a mosquito net, because we lost ours in a mysterious way during our “moving” from Bali. We were also able to reach Tim, he gave us more clear instructions and we were finally able to enter his penthouse on the 28th floor. WOW, what a magnificent view, unbelievable!!!
Some research about KL explained that it has a tremendous amount of large shopping malls. Well, that was totally correct! There were even more shopping malls than in Singapore and they were also bigger, even for Iris this was too much, we almost didn’t find our way out a few times ;-) The first item on our list was therefore very easy, we soon found an electronic shopping mall and we are now the happy owners of a Canon G12 and a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT3. Why 2 cameras? Well, the Panasonic is an underwater camera and since our previous camera got broken due to the underwater case, we don’t trust those anymore.
The mosquito net was a lot more difficult to find, we tried so many shopping malls, but none of them had outdoor shops. After a 4/5-hour search we finally found one, which we immediately bought of course. So, around 6 o’clock we could finally start celebrating our anniversary. After a couple of beers in different bars, we headed up to Bijan restaurant, the number 1 out of 779 restaurants in KL on Tripadvisor. Iris her mother congratulated us with our anniversary and wanted to pay for our diner as a gift :-) Thanks! The dinner was authentic Malay food, we enjoyed lam and Red Snapper. We by the way love the Malay style dinner; you both always get a plate and the food in the middle. In this way you can easily try both the dishes. We had a great evening and were totally stuffed from the lovely food! We went back home to sleep after a long day :-)
Close to Tim’s penthouse there is a monorail station, something different compared to subways or trams, which you see in most big cities, it became our main way to get around the city. After a lovely breakfast the next day in Bukit Bintang we headed up to the KL tower. With a viewing deck on 276 meter one of the highest points you can get as a tourist. Unfortunately it was a bit smoggy and therefore we could not see that far, but still it was a great view and we could see Tim’s penthouse. Next was the National museum to sniff some culture and history of Malaysia. Iris really liked it, but for Rino it was a bit too much reading in a too much air-conditioned area. After a bit disappointing walk through little India we took a Malay meal in a food court and a foot reflex for some extra energy :-). We ended the day in Chinatown for some more sightseeing and diner. Chinatown was really worth the walk and we enjoyed all the stalls and the hectic of a typical Chinatown. There were so many footstalls and we actually wanted to have a bit at all of them ;-).
After our diner we went back to sleep, since we were tired of all the walking and needed to get up early the next day for the bus to Cameron highlands. At this moment we are in the bus, the buses here are so luxurious for a cheap price, no complains! Just a second ago there was a Saudi Arabian family entering the bus, before Rino could think he had the cutest 3-month-old baby girl in his lap. The father parked her there (without saying anything) while finding a seat and getting everything set. It was a funny situation :-)
We enjoyed KL and seeing a big city again, but 2 days was more than enough. We want to see more of Malaysia and look forward to what is coming; we’ll keep you posted ;-)
Hugs and kisses
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Planning new adventures!
As we say in Dutch ‘the bullet is through the church’ we have booked our journey out of Bali. Of course we still have three months on Bali left to enjoy paradise, but flight tickets get expensive quickly so we had to make some plans for our trip. Our flight back to Belanda, I mean the Netherlands, is on the 28th of July from Bangkok and Rino’s internship finishes on the 1st of July. We look forward to travel south-east Asia, so we decided to hit the road already a few hours after Rino finishes his last day. We will also celebrate our second anniversary on the 2nd of July and we would like to do something special of course. We now have booked two flights, one from Bali to Kuala Lumpur and one 12 days later from Phuket (Thailand) to Udon Thani (Thailand) near the border of Laos. So we have planned to travel parts of Malaysia, south Thailand, Laos and finishing with Bangkok and its surroundings.
But first we still have lots to look forward to in the coming months with many visits and hopefully loads of trips around the island. At the moment we are in a quieter period with Iris her dengue fever and we are saving money for the visits. So it has been nice for us to talk and plan about our trip in July. Especially Rino is looking forward to that time as he then finally finishes his internship and hopefully graduates. ‘The last mile is the longest’, this definitely counts for his internship.
Iris is making good progress in recovering from dengue fever and is feeling better every day. The energy is slowly coming back and the blood levels are back to normal. She only has to come back to the hospital to check her liver functions. She slowly builds up energy as the virus really cuts into your immune system. We are using more of the mosquito spray nowadays, as we now know what a terrible virus this is.
But first we still have lots to look forward to in the coming months with many visits and hopefully loads of trips around the island. At the moment we are in a quieter period with Iris her dengue fever and we are saving money for the visits. So it has been nice for us to talk and plan about our trip in July. Especially Rino is looking forward to that time as he then finally finishes his internship and hopefully graduates. ‘The last mile is the longest’, this definitely counts for his internship.
Iris is making good progress in recovering from dengue fever and is feeling better every day. The energy is slowly coming back and the blood levels are back to normal. She only has to come back to the hospital to check her liver functions. She slowly builds up energy as the virus really cuts into your immune system. We are using more of the mosquito spray nowadays, as we now know what a terrible virus this is.
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