Kuala Lumpur

22.11.11-25.11.11

Kuala Lumpur was not as dirty and dingy as I remembered from my last visit

but I'm not sure if this is because it's been cleaned up or because I've visited

other dirtier places, namely India, since! Anyway we really enjoyed our few days

in KL. It's just the right size to get around and with plenty to do. Although

the transport system is a bit confusing at times and not properly connected.

Different services, MRT, LRT and Kommuter, have obviously been added piecemeal at

different times and don't quite link up. It doesn't compare to Singapore's transport system

but it is negotiable and with a bit more time and effort get you most places in the city.

We'd made a friend on the way in to KL - Anders from Denmark and we spent a very

full first day doing the sights with him. Our first stop was Batu caves which was

easily reached by Kommuter train. These are Hindu caves, with colourful icons and

several temples inside. To get to the caves you pass a huge golden statue, that

unfortunately was covered in scaffolding while we were there. There are then 200+ steps

up in to the caves. Along the way there is a small army of monkey guards who are very edept

at sniffing out any food you may be carrying. If you are suspected they will acively block your

path and pull on your clothes until you hand over your precious cargo! There is no

denying what is in your posession -they know! Once you have been vetted you can enjoy

the view back over the city as you climb and watch others being hijacked!

All the way in to the dramatic lime-stone caves you are escorted by chattering, playful

monkeys. Several of the monkeys had young clinging to their stomachs and we witnessed

frequent displays of intimidation from older monkeys.

The higlight of the rest of the day was making our way to the Petronas Towers, which I

have seen before but are still very impressive. Unfortunately the sky bridge was closed

so we couldn't go up it. We went to see the towers during the day and at night, which

I would recommend. Although they are a more formidable and dramatic sight at night when

they are lit up. It is also worth walking around to the other side of the Towers to the

lake and park where you can enjoy the view in the shade and with your feet in the cool

water of the paddling pool!

I think one of the most memorable occurences during our stay in KL was our meeting of a

man living in KL. In hindsight it seems he had probably been sat at Masjid Jamek waiting

for some tourist to come along that looked approachable. He started chatting to us as we were

waiting for the MRT, got on the same train as us and told us he was getting off at the

same stop as us because he lived nearby. When we told him we were going to visit the Masjid

Jamek he led us there and then insisted on taking us inside amd taking us around. The Madjid

is not a great feat of architecture but it is an airy and graceful building surrounded and reflected

by glass panelled tower blocks.

When we were getting ready to leave he handed us his business card and we thought with relief this was his signal that he was leaving. Apparently not! We began to realise that he was very lonely and didn't really have anywhere else to go, so we ended up letting him tag along for the rest of our day. Once we had left Masjid Jamek and turned the corner we came across some break dancers. One in particular was quite impressive - incredible upper body strength, standing and hopping on one arm. The audience were suprisingly subdued about their performance and were more concerned with taking photos. That's one thing that has struck me while we have been away, that there is a real balance between trying to get a good shot and just enjoying the moment. I find if you are concentrating on taking a good photo you miss something of the experience, you're not living it in the same way, you are trying to record and observe instead.

We also visited the Central Market, which was a disappointment. I thought it was going to be an

actual food or locals market but instead it is an upmarket tourist market with lots of knick-knack stalls and overpriced food stalls.

Early evening we headed to Bukit Bintang, which is part of the Golden Triangle area, much more

commercialised. The proximity of Christmas was very prominant here! Especially in the mall where was well as huge, elaborate christmas decs there was also a huge toy fair with various characters performing, presumably with the aim of emotionally black-mailing parents in to buying the most expensive gift on behalf of santa! We ate dinner at the malls food hall which had a vast selection of food.

Our day was finished off by a 2nd visit to view the Petronas Towers. It was a very busy day and

we really enjoyed Anders company. As to our other 'guest', he was a very sweet man and made us feel very fortunate to have each other and such good friends back home.

The next afternoon we headed to the Lake Gardens. We made our way to Masjid Jamek and then walked for about 30 minutes from there in to the park, then following the road south through the park past all the attractions. The walk felt very long and sweaty!! I expected the Lake Gardens to be more park-like (maybe it is if you get off the main road) but from the road it was not very open, no vast green space as I'd anticipated, after the entrance. We made our way to what is supposed to be the main attraction; the Bird Park, passing about half a kilometre of net enclosure. It did look very exciting but the price was extortionate! So unfortunately we didn't go in. We thought we would stretch to a cold drink in the attached restaurant that was also housed in a bird enclosure, for the experience. But again decided against

it when the price of can of drink of 8 MR instead of the usual 1.80 MR!

So we continued through Lake Gardens for another 10-15 minutes until we reached the Islamic Art Museum.This museum is very well put together. The first exhibition is of Islamic Architecture and includes beautiful detailed scale models of mosques from around the world and detailed explanations. There is also a beautiful exhibition of clothing, scripture and jewellery. The museum is well worth a visit.

As seems to be typical in Malaysia, we had some delicious meals in KL. But the highlight was going to a small pavement cafe that only served Beef noodles. We both had a bowl of Beef noodle soup and it was so tasty. Lean slices of rare beef in a delicious broth soaking oodles of sloppy thin noodles! We also frequented a different very basic pavement cafe on the same road as our hotel, a couple of times. There was a choice of about a dozen different dishes cooked by individual stalls. We enjoyed the popiah (vegetable spring rolls) and roasted pork and rice.

Capitol Satay.

21.11.11 Melaka

This morning started with a move to our third hostel in Melaka and the

best! We have moved in to Roof Top Guest House, which is number 1 on

Tripadvisor and it's not hard to see why. STill a shared bathroom, but

plenty of clean spacious shower/toilet rooms. Our room is large, immaculatly

clean, wifi in our room and the bed is properly made up with a top sheet!

This is something I will nolonger take for granted!

We dropped our bags off and headed for a recommended eatery -Jonkers 88.

We ordered sour laksa and seafood laksa. This was the first meal we've

had in Malaysia that we didn't really enjoy, not because it was a bad

meal it just wasn't to our taste.

We spent the rest of the afternoon, exploring the surrounding quieter

residential streets of Chinatown, decorated with traditional red lanterns.

Temple Street is the home of at least 3 temples, including the beautiful

Cheng Hoon Teng Temple and Masjid Kampung Hulu.

The hostel owner recommended a place called Capitol Satay which is the

original restaurant serving satay celup. When we arrived in the drizzle

there was a long queue, thankfully under cover, which we took as a good sign!

We ended up waiting nearly an hour for a table. Once we got a table we went

up to a fridge cabinet, where there were an array of skewers and plates to choose

from. You could choose from different meats, seafood, tofu, wontons. We

took a selection of a dozen or so back to our table. In the middle of

our table was a metal pot full of a 'satay soup' bubbling away. We were told

to place the skewers in the soup for 2 minutes for it to cook. The soup

was rich and full of flavour and it was all part of the experience as you

picked a skwer each time not sure what delight would be on the end of it!

Part way through the meal one of the waitresses brought over 2 skewers with

a huge king prawn on each one, for only 80 cents! We could not resist! This

time we had to wait 7 minutes and the tricky job of peeling the prawn before

we could sample this delight! The whole meal was a real experience!

Dim-sum delights and the Baba-Nonya museum.

20.11.11 Melaka

Our first stop today was the Baba-Nonya heritage museum, which is a

Pernakan town house. The museum was set up by the family that have owned

and originally lived in it for 4 generations. It is a beautiful

traditional malaysian merchants house and still has all the furniture and

belongings in place from the beginning of the 19th century. We were given a

tour, along with a large group of giggling girls from a school netball

team (I think Martin was a bit of a distraction at times!). Our guide

was quite amusing, throwing in a few casually sexist jokes, which went

down well with her current audience! The house had 2 open courtyards

dividing the house in to thirds, this gave plenty of light and air to

the house. It gave an interesting insight in to the lives of the upper

classes, I really enjoyed having a nose at their belongings!

It was hot, sticky and rainy this afternoon and Martin is still missing

watching films so we decided to pay another visit to the cinema and

watched Immortals - a great film to watch in the cinema.

Dinner this evening was simple and exquisite! Back at the night

market we started the evening by watching Doctor Ho Eng Hui who stabs a

hole in a coconut with his finger, in order to sell his 'miracle oil'.

It is impressive and he is a world record holder! Then, we each took a bag and

picked 6 dim sum off the market stall, armed with a skewer we headed

for a curb seat where we could hear the finely wailed karaoke going on on the permanent

stage set up in Jonkers Walk.

Jonkers Walk buffet!

19.11.11 Melaka

First things first - we had to move hostels to Sayang Sayang 2 this morning,

which is much newer. But I couldn't help feeling they've cut corners and a

lot of the thoughtful little touches were missing here, even though the

price was higher and the bedrooms/beds/showers are all smaller!! But, hey,

it's clean and the lady that runs it is helpful and friendly.

Next we crossed over the murky brown river in to the 'historical old town'.

Melaka has a interesting history and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Melak first grew as a trading port and developed an interesting cultural

mix because of this. Melaka has been under the rule of the British and

Dutch in recent history.

As we crossed over the river we came to Town Square or Dutch Square where

tens of competing trishaws are waiting around the Stadthuys, which is the

old dutch-builty town hall and governors build. It's hard to miss as it's

a rusty pink colour. The trishaws surrounding it are solely for tourists and

are all in competition to be the most wacky. Most covered in gaudy plastic

flowers and some even blaring out western music.

When we walked behind the square and around Bukit St Paul towards Porta de Santiago

we discovered there was an arts festival going on this weekend, due to start

in a few hours. We ducked in to the nearby mall for some much needed air-con,

on the way passing an outdoor paint-ball centre. Inside the mall there was

a cinema, acquarium, roller disco and small archery centre. What more could

you need?!

Out of the mall and strolling to the sultanate palace we came across a small

crowd forming around a lone performance artist that to be honest came across

a bit deranged. She was doing some interpretative dance of some sort,

neither of us could really follow what she was doing, work out of there was

any narrative and wasn't very impressed with the actual dance, but it was

interesting!

The Sultanate palace is a wooden replica of a Melaka sultans palace and houses

a cultural museum, that tells some historical stories about personalities

important in Melaka's history and explains how the sultanate is governed.

Not a particularly scintilating museum!

Next we went back to Jonkers walk and one of the hawker stand cafes where

where we had a guess at what we wanted to eat, Ice Ice. We enjoyed a cheap

late lunch of wanton noodle soup. Afterwards we went back to the festival

and listened to a local singer-songwriter, who mixed it up with, of course,

a cover of Jason Moraz! Then we went to sample a cendol each. In Lonely

Planet they describe this delicacy as an ice monstrosity and they're not

wrong! You can have different flavours but the orignal one is coconut with

ice, with a kind of syrup over the top and then strangest of all, at the bottom

are green-bean looking jellies, sweetcorn and kidney beans (of course!). We also

sampled a mango falvoured one, which was a little more familiar tasting as it

was sweeter and fruity!

This evening, we had en exciting dinner! We spent a happy few hours walking up

and down the night market sampling food from different stalls. We tried Tiwanese

sausage on a stick, a 'tornado' crisp (which is a potato cut in to a big screw

and put on a skewer and then cooked, so it becomes a cross between a chip and a

crips) and a popiah (spring roll). We also shared a mango milk tea with pearls,

which is like a milk shake but with small balls of chewy jelly. Later we had

japanese oyster balls. These were delicious parcels that melted in your mouth

hiding chewy oyster. Next we shared a sweet potato cake and finished with a bag

of dim sum.

After we had filled our bellies we clambered up St Pauls hill to the church to

watch some performance artists. Unfortunately we were too late to be able to

fit in to the church,but glimpsed a half-naked man, painted white prancing

around under blue lights and flapping flowing fabric around and thought it may

not be to our taste anyway!

Never mind!

Melaka melting pot.

18.11.11

Today we arrived at our first stop in Melaka. We woke up late with Chris soon

knocking on our door, saying he had to go as his flight was earlier than

he though (5 hours earlier -oops!). Luckily he made his flight home. It's

been really good fun having Chris with us for a couple of weeks, it's

going to take some adjusting now he's gone and feeling like we're back

on the road again!

Anyway it was only a 2 hour bus ride to Melaka. We arrived at the main

bus station, Sentral, and got a taxi to the hostel we had booked. It

was all a bit confusing trying to get a taxi - there was a booth, but

no sign in English but lots of willing drivers. So we told them

where we wanted to go and the guy in the booth consulted his list then

there was a bit of discussion between the drivers and a call out over a

tannoy system and another man appeared who was to be our driver. We

agreed a price for what we had expected (15Mr) and off we went.

Our hostel, Sayang Sayang, is clean and the staff were really friendly

and helpful. Our room is a double decker, so you go in to the

'living room' with a small sofa and then you go up some stairs to

your bed. The bathroom was shared, but this seems to be the case

throughout Malaysia in budget accomodation. Unfortunately this place

is fully booked for the next 2 nights and so it seems are lot of

other places, because it is the school hols and there's a arts

festival going on, so we have to move to their other hostel Sayang

Sayang 2 tomorrow night.

It was now late afternoon and we were told there was a night market

going on at Jonkers Walk at 6, so we did a few jobs on the internet and

then headed out. Jonkers walk was really busy, with loads of stalls

set up along the street selling souvenirs, jewellery, flip flops and snacks.

You know instantly you are in china town by looking at the traditional

chinese architecture and the trinkets on sale. We really

enjoyed walking up and down the street soaking up the atmosphere. We

eventually decided to go in to one of the cafe was some local cuisine.

So we setlled on the famous chicken and rice ball meal. A very simple but

tasty dish in a popular cafe.

So far we are really excited about our few days in Melaka and expecially

about sampling as many local dishes as possible!!

Eating in Singapore.

17.11.11

The last few days in Singapore have been really enjoyable and leisurly.

We've done a fair bit of walking. Yesterday we went to Chinatown, to

find a recommended Hawker centre for lunch. We tried a selection of

food, including Char Sew roasted pork, dumpling soup and crispy fried

wontons for mains. All of which were simple but delicious. Then Chris

went to point at a selection of odd looking drinks and deserts that

he'd seen people having and came back with Jellygrass tea. This is a

clear black coloured cold drink with lumps of jelly floating around!

It has a strange after taste, but is drinkable, until it starts getting

lumpier! We also tried soya milk, which is very popular and beancurd

with warm sugar cane, which none of us could really get in to, the texture

was too unnusual! It was a really lively, bustling atmosphere sat amongst

the food stands in this market. Chinatown was quite interesting to walk

around, but quite geared towards tourists.

We headed back to Geylang to get showered and changed and then got back

on the MRT to Marina Bay. We went to see the casino at the marina, which

is quite a new addition and huge. Gambling was only recently legalised

in Singaore and the casinos opened in 2009. The floor space is about 50% fruit

machines and then tables of Marjong, black jack and some other dice

games we didn't recognise. There is no poker played here much to the

disappointment of Martin and Chris. Singaporeans have to pay 100 SD

to enter and play at the casino.

After wandering around we went to dinner at Cut, which was just an incredible

experience for me (Martin had been before). It is an upmarket steak restaurant.

I'm not really a connosieur of steak so I needed some help choosing the cut of

my steak. The cows are bred specifically and are reared on a particular diet

in order to make the meat really succulent and get a particular taste. After

ordering we were presented with a selection of breads to choose from, including

olive bread, very exciting!! The meal itself was phenomenal. All the cuts of

meat melted in the mouth. I didn't realise there was any difference in taste

depending on the cut of steak. The vegetable side dishes were amazing too and

we also enjoyed a bottle of Cianti.

I felt very spoilt! Thank you Chris x

Today we got the MRT back to Orchard and then walked the length of Orchard

out to the Botanic gardens, which took about 45 minutes, longer than the

boys were happy about! Once we left Orchard road we were in a wealthy area

with plush apartment blocks and then huge mansions, with private security

booths and acres of land, so it was quite interesting gawping at these

properties, trying to decide who would live there etc.

The Botanic gardens were really pleasant to walk around, with various different

types of gardens over a vast area. You didn't feel like you were in a city.

The Orchid garden in particular was worth a visit, housing so many different

types of Orchid. I didn't realise that the Orchid is supposed to be the

largest group of flowering plant.

For dinner we went to find another recommended hawker centre in one of the malls

on Orchard Road, Ngee Ann City. Martin and I tried Carrot cake which we think

is slices of a tofu type substance and veg fried, in this case in a black bean

sauce. Not too sure about it! We also tried some deserts - mango pudding,

which was like a mango jelly, really good.

Then this evening we went to the marina to watch the Immortals, and before hand

the boys played a game of bowling while I wandered around the shops.

Kuta, Bali and arriving in Singapore

15.11.11

We've spent the last 2 days in Kuta, which I'm not going to write about

in any detail because we could have been anywhere in the world

quite frankly! But we had a really good time. Our hotel - Anemone

Hotel was really lovely with a clean little pool, spacious clean

rooms and a very cute little puppy! We spent an hour or so each

afternoon at the beach, which is the busiest beach we have seen so

far but still not too bad, watching the surfers. Sunrise on

our last night was stunning. We also had a really good night out,

although I particularly suffered for it the next day! It was also

nice having such a huge range of places to eat that all did reasonable

western food.

However this morning we had a really early start for our next stop;

Singapore. Our flight was at 6:20am, which in my opinion is probably the

worst possible time for a flight, especially if you are still recovering

from a hangover! So we left our hotel at 3.30am to flag down a taxi.

Of course the streets were Kuta were more busy and tragic than during

the day.

6 hours later we were hopping on and off the MRT and in no time at all

had arrived at our budget, musty smelling hotel, again in Geylang.

After a couple of hours sleep we headed out to Orchard Road, where we

wondered around the many malls. Martin was extremely excited because

he found a cinema. The prices for the cinema are so much more

reasonable than at home (about half the price) and you can pay £2 for

popcorn and a drink (ok the popcorn isn't a ridiulous size like in

England but still good value). So we booked tickets for a bit later

on and then went to find a coffee somewhere - something we had really

missed!

We saw 11-11-11, which was enjoyable. Although Martin spent the whole

movie waitiing for a dramatic battle between the mortals and immortals,

which never happened. This films worth seeing though; gives you a few things

to think about.

In the evening we decided to eat in Geylang, just a few minutes walk from

our hotel was one of many street cafes. So we pulled up some stalls

in between a couple of groups sat at trestle tables and began examining

the vast picture menu. We were obviously looking suitably confused as a

lady next to us asked if needed any help. We asked her to recommend some

dishes and ordered those, all of which were delicious: porridge with

minced pork; chilli squid stuffed with pork; tempura prawns and wantons.

Again it was a really nice atmosphere, all along the road people were

sat enjoying a beer or some food, chatting with friends.