Gerorgetown
| Cameron Highlands | Kuala
Lumpur | Malaka | Singapore
Georgetown,
Penang Island - 4th - 7th Jan 2001
If Thailand was more westernised
than Cambodia, then Malaysia is more westernised again.
It is the most prosperous country in South East Asia
and even has it's own edition of FHM magazine. Phones
work, toilets flush, beer costs about 2quid .... it's
just like Blighty. Georgetown is an island on the
North East coast of the Malaysian peninsular, it used
to be a British colony in the days of the Empire and
still has the odd double-decker, and royal mail post
boxes. We wont be here for long as we want to get
through Malaysia pretty quick and onto more interesting
and cheaper places, though we will be calling in on
the Cameroon Highlands, Kuala Lumpur and Malaka before
spending a few days in Singapore. From there we don't
know. Maybe Sumatra (Indonesia), depending on the
local political situation and the weather, maybe Java
(Indonesia), maybe Borneo (to see the Orangutans).
We shall see. It's quite exciting really.
TOP
| Gerorgetown | Cameron
Highlands | Kuala Lumpur | Malaka
| Singapore
Cameron Highlands
- 7th - 10th Jan 2001
Being up in the mountains in central
Malaysia was a cool respite from the heat of Georgetown.
It was a weird place and not quite what I expected,
being more like a green, well manicured town in Iowa
than a locals retreat up in the hills of Malaysia.
It had one bar (the Ranch) and a bizarre collection
of Indian, Malaysian and Chinese food stalls. It rained
quite a bit, but then we weren't going anywhere as
we had a huge collection of videos to choose from
in our hostel. When we did venture out, we did a half
day tour of the surrounding region taking in odd little
Rose, Honey, Strawberry and butterfly farms and the
Boh Tea plantation and factory (a bit like a non-alcoholic
brewery tour with top free tea). The highlight of
the tour was, however, the driver, who was as wide
a boy as they come in Malaysia. Had a few nights out
in the Ranch and convincingly beat all of the locals
at pool.
TOP
| Gerorgetown | Cameron
Highlands | Kuala Lumpur | Malaka
| Singapore
Kuala Lumpur
- 10th 13th Jan 2001
A five-hour bus ride away from the
highlands was the big smoke of KL. All in all a groovy
city; hosting, of course, the worlds tallest building
- The Petronas Towers - and more Western fast-food
eateries than you shake a Zinger Tower Burger at.
It has a budget shoppers Mecca in Chinatown where
you can buy fake everything from watches to perfume
to videos to software to sunglasses to clothes to....
well everything. We weren't able to get to the top
of the Petronas Towers without a special permit so
instead we went up the next highest thing, namely
the KL telecoms tower. The city had a pretty relaxed
atmosphere, especially in the area just off Chinatown
in which we were staying. Several street bars stayed
open just for us 'till the early hours when we decided
to go. The proprietors, and the odd street magician,
chatting away to us until we had had our fill, which
was rather a lot on my last night. The resulting hangover
meant that I was physically unfit for travel the following
day and was forced to spend another day KL detoxing,
using the healing properties of Burger King to see
me through the worst hours. The others, meanwhile,
moved on to...
TOP
| Gerorgetown | Cameron
Highlands | Kuala Lumpur | Malaka
| Singapore
Malaka - 13th
- 15th Jan 2001
I joined them a day later in this
ex-Dutch enclave and we enjoyed a couple of days there
doing pretty much nothing at all, except hanging out
at the Mall watching movies in the ciniplex, drinking
coffee in the food court and telling children to "Get
off the goddammned escalator". Malaka also has
a good Chinatown and we spent a couple of evenings
there listening to live musicians siiting in the street
bars.
It was about this time that we started
planning what we were going to do about the next month
of the trip. We had already cut out Sumatra (due to
weather issues and intense political unrest in the
North) so we needed to decide if we were going to
head into Java or not. There were reports of a potential
week of demonstrations, marking the opening of parliament
so we were a bit apprehensive, but resigned to keep
an eye on the news and make the decision in...
TOP
| Gerorgetown | Cameron
Highlands | Kuala Lumpur | Malaka
| Singapore
Singapore
- 15th - 18th Jan 2001
The Hi-Tech, ultra-clean, mega-efficiant,
financially prosperous, trading capital of South-East
Asia and yet another ex-British colony. It was strange
seeing what is essentially a Chinese populated country/city
doing so well for itself, based on our impression
of other Chinese cities we had seen. It must have
been due to the great colonial impression we left
on it. This place was amazing. Not unlike Tokyo, or
Hong Kong, or NY, but even more futuristic and fantastically
spotless. Of course there were the grottier areas
(like where we stayed in Willies Waffle and Guest
House), but in the main it was a beautifully designed
and maintained city. There was one downside (aside
from our incredibly tiny room with no air-con or bathroom)
and that was that Singapore is unbelievably expensive.
Beer is double London prices. Once he discovered this,
Greig was inconsolable for a time. Back to the decision
we had to make regarding Jakarta; we decided to go
for it and booked a flight with Quantas for the 18th
Jan. Hence we made it to...
TOP
| Gerorgetown | Cameron
Highlands | Kuala Lumpur | Malaka
| Singapore |
