Last day in Penang

Well today we woke up and it was pouring rain so we decided that cruising around on a motorbike was maybe not the best way to spend the day.  We also didn't really have a good map of the area and the roads here are busy and a little confusing so we probably would have found ourselves hopelessly lost!  We decided to jump on the (surprisingly user friendly) public bus system to get to the Kek Lok Si temple, the largest Buddhist temple in Southeast Asia.  It was definitely beautiful and very impressive, although touristy, but we had a nice afternoon exploring it.  There is a huge 36m high Goddess of Mercy statue at the top that you have to take a fun cable car up to :>)

We have so enjoyed the Indian food here in Malaysia and since we are heading to Thailand tomorrow we made sure that we hit up one of the Indian restaurants for lunch today.  Dan headed off to see a movie tonight and I got to spend the evening and have supper with Nora.

So I guess this is Malaysia over and out...it's been great!!!


Kek Lok Si temple

These little monkeys were all over the temple

On the way out of the temple...so many turtles!!

Late night snack!

Penang

Well after a long but uneventful day on the bus, we arrived in Penang, a beautiful city and apparently the oldest of the British settlements.  The bus terminal and the ferry over to Penang island are right beside each other so it was very convenient.  The ferry only cost 35 cents, and the fresh air was a nice end to our journey.  We went in search of a place that was recommended by my travel book (on Love Lane...ha ha), but unfortunately they, and the hotel next door were all full, so we were recruited by this guy on the street who encouraged us to check out a room at his hotel.  The first room we looked at wasn't that nice, but for an extra 2 dollars a night we got one about 3 times the size with a window and air conditioning!  So we feel like we are in a suite...it's wonderful.  We then headed down to the hawker food centre by the water to get some supper.  We spent the next few days walking around the city, which is really really beautiful.  The architecture here is just so charming.  We went to the Penang museum which I really enjoyed, and it had a lot of information on history and Malay traditions and customs.  And today we ran into Nora (my friend from Germany that we met on the Perhentian Islands) so that was a really great co-incidence!  We took the ferry across to the mainland this afternoon to go to this bird park, then quickly realized when we saw the admission fee that we might not have enough money to get back!  So we hoofed it to a nearby mall and managed to get a new supply :>)  Tomorrow we plan to rent a motorcycle and Dan wants to go the war museum and me to the Botanical Gardens, so hopefully we will have time for both!  Then the following day we are off to Thailand!  We have a flight booked from Penang to Phuket so once we arrive in Thailand we will work our way up to Bangkok.

Here are a few recent pictures:

Lovely buildings in Georgetown, Penang

This lady was having a coffee on the sidewalk and feeding the stray cats - she had a bag of cat food on her lap.  The one curled up onto her lap after I took this picture.

I think the umbrella in this picture really is a nice touch :>)

Pehrentian Islands

Hello!

Well we are back from the beautiful Pehrentian Islands!  We had a long day of travel from the Cameron Highlands to get there...5 and a half hours on the bus then we waited around for the boat to take us to the island.  The water was pretty wavy on the way there and the ride was very bumpy!  Definitely an adventure!  I was holding onto Dan for dear life the whole time!  But we arrived safe and sound and then had to walk to the other side of the island to find a place to stay.  We were hoping for a place on the beach like we had on Tioman Island but that wasn't really to be had here, so after a fairly extensive search we settled for a place up on the hill where you could see the ocean, and recommended by another girl on our boat.  It turned out to be really great too!  We had our own little cabin with a porch and it was a short walk to our restaurant to get our meals and (our favorite) fresh watermelon juice.  The place was run by an Irish woman and Malay man who had gone into buisness together.  You have to be Malay in order to purchase land on the Pehrentian Islands, even the Chinese or the Indian can't buy it.  We arranged a snorkelling trip for the following day and had a great time!  The first place we went there we sooooo many fish!  Just amazing!  Then we went to shark by and actually say some small sharks!  I was a little worried before we jumped in the boat and asked our guide how big they were, and he jokingly said "as big as that boat over there"  - which was about 20 feet long...ha ha.  Anyways, they were actually only about 4 feet long and completely not interested in us...whew.  Then we went to a few other spots and saw some turtles..we followed them as they swam along the ocean floor for quite awhile!  They look like they are moving so slowly but we were struggling to keep up!

We had some lazy swimming/beach days after that, partially because we were tired from our snorkelling trip, partially because I got some kind of bug that I was fighting off, and also...that's what you do on a tropical island right?

Dan took off on our last day on another snorkelling trip...I unfortunately had to stay behind due to some gastrointestinal issues (ugh), but I met this really really nice German girl who was travelling for 3 weeks by herself and we spent the whole day together just chatting and then we went for a swim so that was really really nice.  She had actually lived in Ireland for a year so she had an Irish accent that was very cute!  Dan said he had an amazing day as well, and saw a fish that was bigger than him!

Thankfully the sea was a lot calmer this morning when we headed back to the mainland so the boad ride was actually enjoyable :>)  We look a taxi to Kota Bharu where we will spend the night and have booked a bus ticket to Penang tomorrow.  We wandered through the central market this morning which was an adventure in itself!  Totally crazy place!  It was a 3 story building, on the bottom level they are selling fruits, veggies, and meat, on the second level spices, nuts and candies, and on the third level batik.  Dan was amazed by the meat section, and good thing my stomach is more stable today because it was pretty greusome, but good to experience because it felt very authentic.  And little kittens sleeping everywhere....On the third level I bought 2 pieces of batik.  The lady who sold it to me was very nice and even showed me how to tie it properly. 

We will venture off to the night market tonight for some dinner.  I have tried to post pictures here but the computer won't let me...appologies.  I will try again in  Penang.

Bye for now!

Hanna and Dan


Dan being harassed by small children...the one in the red shirt slapped him on the bum!

Snorkelling trip!

Buying Batik in Kota Bharu

Cameron Highlands

Well I am happy to report that we had no trouble getting a bus to the Cameron Highlands!  Getting to the bus station was the challenging part!  There are several subway lines in Kuala Lumpur and we accidentally got on a train going the wrong way so we had to backtrack.  We got to the bus station with about 5 minutes to spare and there were literally a line up of people waiting to sell us tickets to pretty much anywhere we wanted to go.  We think that no matter who we bought from we would have ended up on the same bus :>)  Our ride to the Highlands was pretty painless, although I got a little nauseous on the very winding roads for the last 70km of the trip.  There are a lot of blind corners so all the drivers honk their horns when they are approaching the turn and there were a few pretty tight spots when there is a vehicle coming the other way.  We found a nice place to stay with a patio out front surrounded by a garden for a common area and very close to the main road with all the restaurants.  About an hour after we arrived it started raining like crazy with no sign of letting up so we settled ourselves in on the patio with our deck of cards and a cup of coffee and decided to leave sightseeing and other such outdoor adventures until the following morning.

We got up impressingly early for us the next morning (I was up at 6:30) and were all ready and breakfasted by about 7:45.  We decided to visit one of the tea plantations in the area and were lucky enough to get on the local bus, since according to my travel book it only runs every hour and a half but we had no idea what times it left!  So it dropped us off at the turn off to the tea plantation and we hoofed it the last 4km.  It was actually a very beautiful walk.  In the beginning we couldn't see anything because the clouds were so low and it was really foggy, but then the sun started coming out and the clouds started to lift and reveal an absolutely stunning panorama of rolling hills planted in perfect rows of tea bushes.  I'm really glad that we walked in because we could take our time and enjoy the view and I could stop and take as many pictures as I wanted :>)  We were the only ones walking in too!  There were loads of tour buses and cars that passed us, in fact there was one school but full of kids who were waving and yelling "hello" at us and taking our pictures which was pretty funny!  We finally arrived to enjoy the view from the restaurant perched high on the hill just as the sun was shining over the mountains and we enjoyed a pot of tea and a slice of very delicious chocolate cake...yum!  We noticed that there were a few different ways that the workers in the fields were picking the tea leaves.  They pick only the young leaves at the top (every 3 weeks apparently) and leave the older ones at the bottom.  They have a hand held picking device for the really steep parts, and a little machine that works with a motor for the flatter sections.  Inside the factory it said there was another huge machine for the really flat sections that can harvest 9000kg of leaves per day!  We walked back to town past a ton of fruit and veggie stalls (this area has good soil and temperature for farming fruits and veggies) and stopped at a town 2km down the road for lunch, then got a taxi back to our hotel.

Today we slept in a little :>)  then headed out to visit another tea plantation with the intention of walking back through the jungle.  There are numerous "jungle walks" around here so we thought we would check one out, so we picked one that passed by a waterfall.  It started raining pretty heavily as we were leaving the tea plantation, but we were equipped with our rain gear so we decided to just keep going.  This guy pulled over in his car when we were about 1km out of the tea plantation and asked if we wanted a lift which was super nice!  It was a really fortunate event because he turned out to be a doctor at the tea plantation and we got to ask all the questions we had been wondering about!  Apparently most of the workers at the tea plantations are not locals, but come from Indonesia, Nepal or Bangladesh, and are on a 5 year contract.  They do not come with their families and make 20 Ringett per day, which translates to about 6 dollars and fifty cents.  Medical care is also included in their contract, but we are wondering to what extent they actually get covered...

So once we got dropped off near the main road the rain had slowed to a trickle and we headed off on the jungle path, which was a little tricky to find.  Once we did find it, it was a pretty steady uphill climb until be got to the waterfall...all muddy today because of the rain, but a pleasant spot to stop for a rest.  Then the rain really came down, and despite our rain gear we got totally soaked!  It was great to have a hot shower once we got back and get some dry cloths on, and then to hit up our favorite Indian restaurant for lunch.  We've eaten almost every meal so far at this place, but it's cheap and the food tastes fantastic!  We've really enjoyed the multiculturalism of Malaysia.  It's interesting that there is a mix of Malays, Chinese and Indians, and I think it's a real asset to the country.

We have booked transport tomorrow to go the the Perhentian Islands and apparently there is no access to internet there (or it's very difficult to find), so you probably won't hear from us for 4-5 days.  We will probably spend one night in Kota Bharu on our way back, then we will take a bus to Penang for a few days before heading to Thailand.

Bye for now!

Hanna and Dan


Playing cards at the hostel while waiting out the rain in Tanah Rata (Cameron Highlands)

Great Indian food served on a banana leaf!

Beautiful tea plantations

Dan giving it a try...

Kuala Lumpur

Well our bus ride to Kuala Lumpur took much longer than expected!  Apparently we were actually pretty lucky to get a bus ticket because it is the Malaysia school holiday this week so more people are traveling.  There was a lot of traffic and we arrived at 8pm when we were supposed to get in at 5:30!  Luckily our bus was very comfortable with big seats and air conditioning.  Our plan was to walk to a street with lots of hotels from the bus station and just find one but the bus stopped and everyone got out still quite a ways out of the city centre.  We then learned that the central bus station is under construction and the buses are not stopping there now!  Fortunately these two Australian guys were on the same bus as us and were going to the same place so we all shared a taxi into town to cut down on the cost.  We got settled in a nice hotel (much nicer than our usual standards...30 dollars for the night) then hit the main street to get some grub.  The main eating street here is CRAZY!  At night all the restaurants put their tables on the road as well so more people can sit down at once, and because they are on the sidewalks too the pedestrians have to walk on the road, but the cars still park and drive on the street (and of course all the motobikes too!) which makes the experience feel very congested, and a bit shocking to us after 4 days on a quiet island!  And to top it all off there are musicians singing and trying to make a few Ringett, as well as the sad cases of crippled or blind locals begging for money or selling kleenex to make a few cents.  The most heart breaking was last night when this blind man came walking down the street playing a trumpet (so loud it was ear-splitting!), lead by a man with no legs lying on his stomach on a skateboard, pushing himself forwards with his arms, flip-flops on his hands.  Brutal.  It was hard to eat dinner after that.

On a more cheerful note, we have had a pleasant 2 days in Kuala Lumpur just walking around exploring the city.  Yesterday we first figured out where the temporary bus station actually is (which was surprisingly a bit of a hassle!), then we went to the National Museum, then walked around the old railway station and Chinatown.  We have discovered these Indian style cafeteria places for lunch where we can get wonderfully spiced rice and lots of good veggies for me and chicken for Dan, plus drinks, all for under 4 dollars for the both of us!  Today we walked to the city centre to see the Petronas towers, then through the park, to the Police Museum and finally to the Orchid garden (which was lovely) and the National Monument.  There are some really beautiful parks and gardens in the city which gives it a nice "green" feeling.

Oh and I actually found a fruit that I don't like!  Durian!  It's disgusting!  We tried some last night and I only ate a little bit but immediately got a gag reflex!  No wonder there are "No durians allowed" signs in hotels and train stations!

Tomorrow morning we are going to try to head out early and catch a bus to Tanah Rata in the Cameroon Highland.  This area is at a higher elevation, cooler and is known for strawberry farms and tea plantations.  Wish us luck in finding the "actual" bus station!  We'll keep you posted!

Lots of love -

Hanna and Dan

Tioman Island

Well we had an absolutely wonderful time on Tioman Island.  We took a ferry from Mersing which took about 2 hours and I didn't feel seasick at all which was a bonus because the ocean was nice and calm.  It was an easy walk to our hostel from the ferry dock.  Most of the accommodation on the island is in the form of small huts with private bathrooms, cold water showers only but that didn't really bother us because most of the time we were sticky and hot and happy for a cold shower.  We were very lucky to score one right on the beach so we could sit on our porch at night and gaze at the ocean and since we were facing west, watch the sun set too!  The inside was a little dingy and the bed was kind of musty but for 14 dollars per night we were not about to complain!  The ocean was also incredibly calm and great for swimming, and we could jump in the water right from our cabin.

We fell into a lovely routine of sleeping in, going for porridge and kopi susu (coffee with sweetened milk) in the morning, followed by hiking or snorkelling, malay fried noodles for lunch, more hiking or snorkelling, cheap beers on the beach (3 for 3 dollars!), sate ayam (chicken sate) cooked over this fantastic charcoal bbq for supper and a late night chat or game of jolike on our porch by the sea.  The snorkelling was great and we saw lots of neat fish and beautiful corals.  On our most active day we went for a hike to the other side of the island (7km one way through the jungle).  It was really really amazing (Dan said he felt like Indiana Jones...he he) but we were absolutely soaked in sweat by the time we reached the other side.  We could literally wring out our cloths...gross.  But we were too cheap to pay for a ride back to the other side so we hoofed it after a nice lunch.  We met this Malay man and his wife on our hike back.  He was a nature guide and wanted to show his wife this beautiful flower in the jungle and offered to take us too.  It was a short detour from the path and we came to this huge flower on the ground from one of the trees.  Apparently it is the largest flower in the world!  We also had several monkey sightings in the trees during the days that we were there, in fact one morning the guy at the restaurant beside our hut had to chase one off because it was getting into the garbage.  One of the days it rained ALL day which was a bit of a bummer (and when I say rain I  mean torrential downpour...the locals said it had to do with the tsunami in Japan but we're not sure) so I think we made a record of number of games of jolike played and number of cups of coffee drunk in one day.  The following day was much nicer, however although overcast so we took a water taxi to a nearby bay called Monkey Bay (we did see monkeys!) to do some snorkeling and then hiked back through the jungle.

The island was also packed with stray cats, all un-neutered males and most of the females were very pregnant.  They were all very very friendly and sweet so it made me kind of sad :>(  All of the cats that we have run across in Asia so far have short tails with kinks in them...it must be some kind of dominant gene in the population.  They were pretty hilarious as well and would run after each other and play on the beach.   My favorite was this little black and white guy who had a longer tail and a 90 degree kink about an inch from the tip of it.  He also had two adjacent toes that the colours formed a checker pattern....so I called him Kinky Checker :>)  He had flea allergy dermatitis really bad and was all scabby and itchy so loved being pet around his head and would immediately start purring.  His ears were also kind of lop sided.  He would always be running around on the beach though playing and making his own fun.

So both Dan and I felt that Tioman was really a vacation from our travels and were pretty sad to leave.  We headed out early in the morning Sunday to catch the first ferry off the island because we wanted to get a bus to Kuala Lumpur.  We were lucky that the boat was on time that day because apparantly the day before it was 2 hours late.

So big city is our next adventure...that update to come...

Love Hanna and Dan

Malaysia

Well, after 2 and a half days of filling our bellies in Singapore, we headed off to Malaysia on the bus.  Fortunately we had no trouble crossing the border without an onward ticket so that was a bit of a sigh of relief!  The bus was extremely comfortable with HUGE seats, lots of legroom, a tv, air-condtionning and bathrooms stops.  At one of the bathroom breaks there was a stand selling bags of fresh cut up fruit and krupek udang (shrimp chips)...so of course we bought both to help tide us over.  We took a local bus into the chinatown area of Melaka (for 30 cents!) and quickly found a place to stay.

Melaka is a town that used to be a trading port and was originally owned by Sumatra until the Portuguese took it over, then the Dutch, then the British.  There was some old Dutch architecture there and a very pretty town square with a fountain.  The food in this town is famous as well, supplying some dishes that you can't get elsewhere, and we made a point of seeking them out.  Popiah was like this massive spring roll stuffed with egg, onions, greens, prawns and some kind of amazing sauce.  I really liked this kind of salad called rojak which was fruits and veggies (like pinapple and zuchinni) topped with a sweet and spicey gravey.  There was also this really good soup with prawns and coconut milk.

Our most interesting dining experience was last night when we went for Satay Celup.  It is another regional dish.  You sit at this big metal table and they have a fondue pot in the middle attached to this giant tank of propane.  In the fondue pot this put this spicey sauce that you cook your food in.  So you go up and pick which sticks of raw food you want at this counter (all the meat and veggies has already been carefully squewered) and take it back to your table.  Each stick was about 20 cents and they counted the sticks at the end to come up with the bill.  It was such a fun meal!  When you are done the table is a complete disaster but they just clear everything off in a hurry and do a wipedown and on with the next people.  There were about 5 or six restaurants like this on the street but this was the only busy one...all the others didn't have a soul in them and they were advertising "free samples."  We waited for about an hour or an hour and a half to get in, but it was totally worth it.  When we first showed up it was all these young teenagers in line and we figured we would just come back in an hour or so and the line up would be gone but when we got back it was longer!  And it wasn't until we left that there were like 3 little old ladies who showed up.  So much fun :>)

Today we took the bus to Mersing, and tomorrow we have a ferry booked to go to Tioman Island.  It is supposed to be good for hiking, snorkeling and swimming, and the beer is cheap because it's duty free.  My book says it's cheaper than water...we'll see.

Talk to you later -

Hanna and Dan

Town centre in Melaka

 Waiting in line for supper

 Huge prawns at Capitol Satay

Lovely Singapore

Well, let me first just say that Singapore is an amazing city!  I've never really been anywhere like this before.  It is so unbelievably clean and orderly!  After it rains, as soon as it stops, there are guys out drying the sidewalks!  There are guys removing the fallen leaves from the river!  There is no garbage on the street...it's amazing.  And there are all these signs around funny things like no taking Durians onto the subway!  And the food...out of this world!  It is so nice to eat such amazing food every day!  We have been used to eating peanut butter and jam in Aus/NZ when we were trying to save money but we've been eating at the hawker food centres here and supper is about $3 a plate.  So much variety and everything is spicy and tastes amazing!  All these crazy and amazing green leafy veggies, amazing chili, I even had chicken satay which was out of this world!

We tried kaya toast for breakfast which apparently Singaporeans love - its' this crispy toast with honey and butter, served with strong, sweet coffee...again, amazing.  And the desserts are crazy!  A bowl of jelly pieces, beans, corn, then shaved ice like a snow cone with fruit, syrup, sometimes coconut milk and ice cream on top.  Sounds weird but it's quite tasty.  After lunch today I had this barley type sweet porridge stuff with coconut milk....amazing.

Well, I guess that's enough about the food.  We have done things other than eat here :>)  Yesterday we walked around the city center and then we went to the Singapore Art Museum.  Lucky for us they are doing some renovations on it so some of it is closed and therefore the admission was free.  We sat by the harbour at night and enjoyed the city lights as the sun went down.  Today we explored Chinatown and a few temples in that area.  Dan also had a little mishap with his glasses when we were in the Grampians in Australia (he sat on them) and then we lost the little screws and I was temporarily able to repair them with tiny rolled up pieces of paper but it was pretty makeshift so we got him some contact lenses today.  He got a whole eye exam and everything!  So far he seems pretty happy with them!

We are off to Melaka city in Malaysia tomorrow.  We had planned to go to Mersing and then take a boat to Tioman Island but we couldn't find a bus that went there during the airport fiasco.  So we'll check out the city and go from there.

We are pretty zonked from all the walking and are off to bed (with full bellies of course...)

Hanna and Dan

 Great hawker food centre called Glutton's Bay

Flinders Ranges and Goodbye Australia

Well after we left the Grampians we headed to Flinders Ranges, which are mountains about 400km north of Adelaide.  We went from freezing our butts off at night in the Grampians to being incredibly hot and sticky in the Flinders Ranges!  Quite the change!  The landscape was absolutely amazing.  It was probably the driest, hotest part of the year that we were there so we really experienced a temerature extreme.  The rivers and streams were literally dry, not a drop of water in sight.  Even the bottom of the streams were dry.  Over the few days that we were exploring the park we only saw a few small bodies of water (always to our great surprise!)  There was also hardly anybody there, because apparantly nobody wants to hike in that kind of heat...not surprising as we found it a little challenging!  We stayed at pretty much the only place to stay there - it was called Wilpena Pound Resort.  They had accomodation ranging from camping to private chalets.  We chose the camping of course, but it was great and the facilities were fantastic.  We had there nice big covered picnic benches right near our site that were supposed to be for tour but groups but it was so quiet that nobody was around so we could use them for eating and playing cards.  We also had access to the pool, which was a great place to cool off and we got into the habit of visiting daily.  The hike on our first day was definitely the most intense!  The big draw of the park is a rock formation called Wilpena Pound.  It is this huge circular crater like structure formed by erosion.  To get a picture of the whole thing you would have to be in an aeroplane, and of course you could go for a scenic flight but that wasn't in the budget.  Dan decided that we would hike to St. Mary's peak, which is the highest point on the edge of the pound.  It was so so hot and the air was just stagnant and the sun was beating down on us so it was a pretty hard climb.  I actually didn't made it to the very top but I waited for Dan and was soooo worried because we didn't have enough water but he was adament that he wanted to get to the top.  He said it was pretty sketchy near the top and easy to lost the path as you're scrambling up big boulders...I still can't believe he made it!  When we got back we consumed so much water and did pretty much nothing for the rest of the day.  We went on smaller hikes the following days to see some aboriginal rock paintings and to get nice views of the pound that were easier :>)  And to my delight, we saw tonnes of wild kangaroos.  We both agreed that the landscape and scenery was so so beautiful and we really felt like we got to see the real Australia.  So it was really a great end to the trip.

Our last day of driving back was pretty intense.  Dan insisted on driving back to Melbourne all in one day so we left at about 8am and didn't get to our hotel until 2am!  We did have to make a few stops to mail our camping stuff home and get some passport photos for Asia so that slowed us down too.  We didn't get a lot of sleep before we had to head to the airport the next morning for our flight to Singapore.  It was a bit hectic getting there because all our good maps were in the travel book on route to Canada but we found our way, returned the rental car and got in line to check in.....only to find out we needed proof we were leaving Singapore to get in!  So we had to rush accross the street to the Hilton and book a bus ticket quickly to somewhere in Malaysia!  We made it all in the nick of time and were exhausted once we got on the plane!  Our booking for our accomodation in Singapore somehow also got messed up but we found a room in the city centre in the end and got a good night's rest....ahhhhh.

Will write more on our first day in Singapore later as Dan is after me to head out for breakfast here!  So far we have nothing but good things to say about Singapore!

Bye for now!

Hanna and Dan xoxo

Beautiful scenery in the Flinders Ranges