Kuala Lumpur (30th Oct - 1st Nov)
We arrived in an area of the capital called 'Times square' which is where Stu and I were staying. Jamie headed a little further north of the city to find his accommodation. After checking into our hotel, we took a walk to the bustling nearby China town. A little overwhelmed by the amount of attention an orange vest top can get you in that area, I bought a scarf from the market to cover up my neck and arms and we headed back to an Indian restaurant near our hotel to fill up on some tasty food. A drink in a nearby bar and a walk home in the rain finished off our first night in Malaysia.
A Conservative Indian
The following morning we went to explore the city! Sights included the famous Petronas towers, which houses the head office of Malaysian company Petronas fuel, we took the monorail to an indoor market for some local food,
saw the Kuala Lumper tower and then headed to the bus station to arrange a bus ticket to the Malaysian rainforest for the following day. We met Jamie for dinner at a nearby 'hawker street' which is a street full of food stalls and places selling beer, then headed to a Halloween inspired bar (seeing as it was Halloween that day!) for a few beers. As we're were heading to the rainforest the next day, we said our goodbyes to Jamie (who was staying in Kuala Lumpur) and walked back to our hotel.
The Petronas Towers
Jarentut (1st - 2nd Nov)
The bus the following morning took us to a ghost town called Jerantut - a small town which you have to go to first to then catch a bus to the rainforest. We had planned to stay one night in Jerantut, probably the wrong decision seeing as it was so deserted. We found a half decent guest house, and found the only restaurant in town to eat dinner at - a Pizza Hut - result! After a supermarket shop for rainforest snacks, we headed back to the guest house to watch a movie and get to bed ready for our 8am bus to the rainforest the next day.
Kuala Taman (2nd - 3rd Nov)
Although it turns out there wasn't an 8am bus to the rainforest the next day! Luckily we managed to get back into our guest house room (after originally checking out at 7am for the non existent bus!) to get another hours sleep after realising.... And got the 12pm bus there instead. This bus took us to a small village called Kuala Taman, which sits just on the outskirts
of the massive rainforest. You have to jump on a short 30 second boat across water to reach the rainforest. We ate dinner by the side of the river and then hopped on the boat to take us across. We decided to do a 2 hour trek before it got dark, and so followed one of the shorter trails that are mapped out at the tourist information point. Walking along through the trees meant that Stu was a little spooked out and jumped 6 feet in the air when a couple of branches fell out of the trees! It was a tiring but worthwhile walk though as we spotted wild boar and mono-lizards whilst making our way through. That evening, we were back in our little village beside the rainforest for food in a nearby restaurant and an early night.
The trek to the top was worth it
We had an early start the next morning as we went back into the rainforest for a different trek which took us to a rainforest canopy walk. The canopy was 600m long and 50m high up on the trees - a pretty daunting walk but it was fun!
Kuala Lumpur (3rd - 4th Nov)
After another sweaty trek, we headed back to the guest house for showers ahead of our bus back to Kuala Lumpur that day (via the ghost town of Jerantut). A couple of episodes of the BBC drama 'Peaky Blinders' kept us company on the bus and we arrived back in Kuala Lumper that evening for another night in the same hotel we'd previously stayed in, and another tasty Indian in the nearby restaurant.
From Kuala Lumpur is where you take the bus to the Malaysian city of Penang. We took a 5 hour bus to the country's 2nd largest city, and got an additional local bus to the area we were staying in, which was an area called 'Georgetown'.
Penang (4th - 7th Nov)
We stayed in a cool little guest house with shared bathrooms, but somehow managed to get ourselves locked in the room within an hour of arriving! Luckily the neighbouring room heard our cries and we were freed and swapped to a different room due to the dodgy lock on the door. We stayed in Penang for 3 nights in total - we spent a lot of our time wandering around the city and it's coastline in search of the cool street art, as well as dining on some very spicy noodles and trying a grey egg in a bowl of fairly unappetising noodle soup in an outdoor food court. We also stumbled upon a little gem of a launderette that had washers AND dryers and so we washed everything in our rucksacks while we could!
After Penang, a day of travel was in store as we took a ferry to Butterworth, a bus to Kuala Perlis (where a dodgy KFC was all there was for lunch) and a ferry to our final Malaysian destination - the island of Langkawi.
Kuah, Langkawi (7th - 9th Nov)
Our first 2 nights on Langkawi island were mostly spent pursuing the hundreds of duty free shops in the small ferry port town of Kuah. We had a nice little guest room for the 2 nights so spent our timing relaxing (excluding the day we squeezed in a hardcore workout in the rain) and took a few beers back to our room each night to drink over a few more episodes of Peaky Blinders.
Pentai Cenang (9th - 13th Nov)
Once we'd seen all there was to see in this duty free focused town, we got a taxi to the beach area of the island - Pentai Cenang. This area had much more of a buzz to it with locals and foreigners heading here for their holidays... An enormous beach, plenty of restaurants and shops to keep us busy. The food there was excellent. Across the 4 nights we spent here we found an excellent restaurant that did all our favourite Asian cuisine and frequented this place several times during our stay! The beers on the beach went down well and the whole area had a nice chilled out feel, included the guest house 'Izz Room Motel' where we spent a lot of time sunbathing on the veranda and eating far too much banana bread (I think stu might actually now be addicted!) Although the room was nice, the lack of aircon meant that our cosy warm room was a nice place for a few bugs too.... Including a mammoth cockroach that jumped out of stus bag into his face, and a giant frog that kindly pooped behind our door.
Our favourite day in Langkawi and perhaps the whole of Malaysia though has to be the day we hired a moped and drove all around the beautiful island for the day. We visited the other beaches on the island, wound around the roads to the top of a mountain for some of the best views of the island, waving to the local kids along the way, and we stopped at some hot springs on the way back too. And excellent end to our time in Malaysia. Now we just had enough time to make our way into Thailand to meet our family friends from the UK, Gemma and Owen!
Me in my moon hat
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