Malaysia - The Cities, The Highlands and the Islands!!!

The City

From Singapore we took the train to Kuala Lumpur and once we left the suburbs of Singapore the scenery was pretty much palm trees as far as the eye could see. But that changed when we approached KL. There were lots of similarities to Singapore but much less developed. It had a forest of high-rises in the business district (Twin towers with its sky bridge the most striking of them), a little India, a Chinatown, hawker centres but substantially more mosques and not so many bars as the major religion is Muslim. If you did find a bar beers were very expensive so no major sessions had there!!!! The food more than made up for it, the Laksa dishes were amazing equalling Liz’s & that’s saying something!! They drink what they call white coffee’s like it was going out of fashion. It is coffee with condensed milk, it was far too sweet for me!!!

On the second day there we took a tour to the Batu Cave which is a Hindu shrine just outside the city and has the highest Murga statue protecting it. It took 11 men 7 years to build the statue!! There were 272 steps up to the top of the cave - Michaela’s legs felt every one of them especially on the way down after her 6km run that morning!! After the cave we went to a small shop where we got to see some Batik painters in action. They use hot wax on textiles in order to draw their designs and then add colour in between the wax lines. I think we might have done some Batik art back in the day at Assumption!! Our final stop was a world famous Pewter factory, Royal Selangor. The crafts people were really skilful to watch, no automation in this factory. They made animals such as crocodiles and money trees which were used as a form of currency in the past by breaking of parts of the body or the money of the tree!! Maybe it’s where the saying money grows on trees comes from?!! They had a handprint of everybody who had ever worked in the factory (the guy had a broken finger in the photo below).

The Highlands

We took a bus onwards and upwards to the Cameron Highlands (it was a long and windy bus journey!!) and based in a little hillside town called Tanah Rata. It was a beautiful setting and the best thing was the drop in temperature from the humidity of Kuala Lumpur. It was a beautiful place to relax. We went to visit some tea plantations which were just rolling hills of green as far as the eye could see. After a morning of picking tea it was time to visit the Boh Tea estate to sample a cup. I had the Gold blend and I must say it was better than a cup of Barrys…..I know sacrilege!! We strolled through a mossy forest and saw some insect eating flowers and visited an insect and butterfly farm. After the farm we headed to Michaela’s favourite part of our time in the highlands, the strawberry farm. We shared a strawberry chocolate fondue and it was so so yummy!!

The Islands

Island life was next to be sampled and we took a bus trip to Penang. The island is connected to the mainland by a 13.5km bridge which is the largest bridge in Malaysia. We used Georgetown as our base for the 3 days and we hired a motorbike to tour around the island. On our journey around the island we came across a beautiful floating mosque, beachfront cafes with idyllic views, tiny fishing villages, temples & a tropical fruit farm where I had an acerola juice as the last time I was able to have one was in Brazil in 2003 and it was worth the wait!! The bike gave us a great freedom to go where we wanted to but the crazy tropical weather did try to halt our progress a few times. Got saturated at one stage and had to stop for shelter until it calmed down. These local cyclists had the same idea and even offered us some of their bananas to help keep our spirits up.

Overall, we found Malaysian people to be very happy, really helpful and always wanting to engage in conversation. And did I mention the spicy cuisine was amazing. It is certainly on the list for a re-visit.

 

The bike abondoned whilst we took cover!!!

Singapore - Hot, Humid and Surviving on Air-Con!!

After fully recharging the batteries in Australia and catching up with so many of our friends it was time to move on to the next leg of our journey - Southeast Asia!!!!! First stop Singapore and we were lucky to have our friend Sylvie and her partner Ben to put us up for our time there. It was great as it broke us gently into the Asian culture which neither of us had experienced before. They had a lovely apartment on the 42^nd floor of a high rise overlooking the amazing pinnacle building and we got a great view of the sunset every evening.

Our first impressions of Singapore were 1) WoW its hot!! 2) The population density here is unreal!! There are soooo many 50/60 storey apartment blocks!! 3) But it wasnt as busy as we thought it would be!! 4) And its so clean!! Although we experienced very high temps in South America it was the first time we had been in such high humidity and we spent our time hopping from one air-con shopping mall to the next in order to be able to walk around without looking like we had just stepped out of a swimming pool. The shopping malls were huge and they seemed to be never ending along Orchid Road!!

We were in search of a new camera as our Canon had a limited zoom and was a bit worse for wear after 1000s of pictures, lots of dust, heat and even a dip in the ocean in the Galapagos!! There were malls dedicated to electronics, 6 storey’s high, it would take you a whole day just to go through one. Luckily we had one camera model in mind and we found a very helpful guy in a store which seemed to be doing a lot of business with locals so we bought it from him. There were so many dodgy dealers it was difficult to find one you could trust but its still working and taking great pictures.

The thing we really loved about Singapore was seeing all the cultures mingled together, Chinese temples, Indian temples & Mosque’s were all only a block away from each other and all intertwined by modern high rise tower blocks! Its such a multi-culture city you can eat from a different part of the world every evening and we certainly proved it while we were there!!! Sylvie & Ben were unbelievable hosts, they showed us all the major sites downtown whilst stopping for great food along the way. We went to a hawker centre, a mad outdoor seating area surrounded by food stalls serving anything and everything. At one of the stalls they had a deal where you could challenge the record for the most satay sticks eaten in 20 mins - the record was held by a Singaporean who had eaten 102!! If you beat it you ate for free - we didn’t take up the challenge!! There was also fabulous bakeries, trendy bars with great views, restaurants along the Singapore river and Sylvie cooked her speciality for us one of the evenings too. They gave us our first introduction to the Durian fruit which was the smelliest, most awful texture, disgusting fruit we have ever tasted!!! Apparently it is like the Aussies and Marmite - you either love it or you hate it!!

While we were in Singapore Michaela had decided to look for a half marathon that we could run somewhere in Asia!! She found one in Nong Khai in the north east of Thailand and there was also the chance to do some volunteer work there, teaching English to local children. So I started training for a half marathon and Michaela for a 10km while we were in Singapore!! We only had 4 weeks to go from ZERO fitness to being able to run 21.5km and 10km!! So Ben took me out for my first run at 5.30am around downtown Singapore. We ended up running 10km which is more than I have ever run and we looked like drowned rats when we got back to the apartment. It took us an hour to cool down but at least a start had been made. The city looked so different at that hour of the morning, little traffic and people sitting on the bridges just chatting & watching the sunrise after a good night out.

Thanks a mill Sylvie & Ben, you made our trip to Singapore a great one and hopefully we can return the favour in Ireland some day in the near future.

Useless facts and funny phrases we picked up during our 7 weeks in Australia!!

Useless Facts: 

There are 150 million sheep in Australia and only 20 million people - Baaaaaaaaa

Before Bob Hawkes became Prime Minister of Australia he was in the Guinness Book of Records for sculling 2.5pts of beer in 11seconds!! Legend!!

Australia is home to 21 of the world’s 25 deadliest snakes - thankfully we didn’t meet any of them!!

The Red Kangaroo is the largest living marsupial and can stand up to 2m tall and weigh over 90kg!! Thanks to Liz we saw some chilling out on a golf course - the males are pretty scary when they stand tall!! And thanks to Jon and Liz we had some cooked up on a barby - pretty tasty - looks like beef but tastes more gamey.

Aussies have been responsible for inventing Aspirin, the Pacemaker, the Bionic Ear, Anti-counterfeiting bank notes and most importantly the wine cask!!!

Aussie Phrases:

Fair Dinkum                                          

Fair Enough!

Motion Lotion / Go-Go Juice            

Petrol

Goon                                                     

Cheap (its all relative in Australia!) wine in a box

Schooner                                               
Somewhere between a half pint and a pint depending on which state you are in (not what state you're in)!!

Too Easy                                               
No problem

Stubby                                                  
Little beer holder to keep it cool

Pokies                                                   
Slot Machines - they’re everywhere!

Snag                                                     
Sausage

Cool Aussie Signage Photos!!!

The Rock!!!

Initially in our plans we had ruled out heading to the outback and visiting Uluru (Ayers Rock) but as we travelled up the east coast we began to realise that our trip to Australia wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t get some sense of the outback. We were interested in learning more about the aboriginal culture and got very little insight into it on our journey up the east coast. We did go to an aboriginal culture show just outside Cairns but it felt very contrived and just put on to keep the tourists happy. So after this disappointing encounter we hoped by heading to Alice Springs we would get some real insight into their history and way of life.

We headed on a ridiculous o’clock flight from Melbourne to Alice Springs (thanks Jon for leaving us to the airport at 5.30am!!) and the minute we landed it was like landing in a different world. It was so hot, dry and dusty and as we strolled into town for breakfast we came across lots of aboriginal people on the way. A large tribe of them having lunch outside a hospital had caught my eye and we found out later that if one member of the tribe was ill the whole tribe would wait until he/she was better before heading back to their village. We also came across some who were alcoholics and living a life of destitute. It was very sad to see. Unfortunately aboriginals have been getting a very bad name in Australia for causing trouble and not willing to do anything but drink and it was hard not to notice that not even one aboriginal was working in a café, shop, restaurant or bar in town. We did see a lot of

aboriginals trying to make a living from painting. Many of the art gallery’s had workshops for these artists to come and go as they wanted to. It gave them the freedom that their culture is more used to. One lady owner of a gallery was telling us that sometimes they would go walkabout for 3 months and then arrive back to work again as if they had just been gone for the weekend. I had been looking for an aboriginal painting since I arrived in Australia and we spotted one which we both really liked in one of the galleries in town. We decided to purchase it and we luckily got to meet Nelly, the artist who painted it which was really a nice bonus. She was making a good living for herself and her extended family.

After lunch and a coffee we headed back to the hostel to get packed and ready for our 3 day tour out into the outback to see the famous Ayers Rock or Uluru as it is known by the aboriginal owners of the sacred site - the Anangu people. Uluru was actually given back to the tribe in 1985 by the Australian government who had claimed ownership of it in the early 1900s but only on the condition that they would lease it to the Australian National Parks for 99 years in order to manage it for tourism. It is now run jointly by the National Parks Association and a representation of the Anangu people. They had a really cool piece of Aboriginal art representing this relationship:

The red circle in the middle is Uluru. The 12 U shapes around it are the members of the Board of Management, 8 Anangu people who are brown and four non-Anangu white people. To the right and left of them are the Anangu and non-Anangu rangers. The Anangu rangers are barefoot, representing their close connection with the land and knowledge derived from thousands of years of looking after the land. The non-Anangu rangers wear shoes, representing their land management training and knowledge derived from European science. Around them is the sand dunes and bushland in the park that Uluru sits in.

We set off early out into the Red Centre (obvious from the photos how it gets its name). The 3 day tour is a 1500km round trip. First stop was Kings Canyon where we did a 3 hour trek of the canyon. The sheer faces of the canyon were amazing and we chilled out at a little rock pool at the bottom!! The heat, even at this stage of the day was unreal!! Next we headed to the cattle station to pick up beers for all the group and picked up logs along the road before heading onwards into the wilderness to find a suitable spot for our bush camp. We got the campfire going as soon as possible and used the embers of the fire to cook our feast of a dinner as we had a few chilled beers from the cooler box. Then it was time to acquaint ourselves with our swag!!!! Our visions had been that of a mini tent but it turned out to be a canvas bag with a flap on top so you were open to all the wild creatures of the night, definitely not Michaela’s best night of sleep!!!! ;o) In fact I was blinded by her torch several times when she would hear a noise and need to investigate which only attracted more creatures!! I think she would have opted for the McCreanor style of camping if it had been an option!!!

Just some of the creepy things that could have been crawling in my ears and nose when I was NOT sleeping in that dam swag (below!!) NEVER again!!!

Next morning we headed to the Olgas, a group of large domed rock formations and then trekked through the valley of the winds. We headed from there to a good viewing point to watch the sun set over Uluru but unfortunately due to the cloudy weather we didn’t see much sun but the beers, bbq and craic were good!! After another night in the swags, we got up for sunrise over Uluru but still the weather hadn’t cleared enough for us to see Uluru in its true glory, the postcards will have to do!!! We headed for a walk around the base of it and you really get a good impression of how large this single rock is. Its hard to imagine how such a large rock is just plonked there in the middle of Australia in what is quite a flat region of barren land.

I can understand why the aboriginals could see this as a very spiritual place for them. There were lots of signs asking you not to climb Uluru as it was a spiritual place to the Anangu tribe but still some people climbed it which we thought was very disrespectful. Also there was book of sorrows in the cultural centre and it was full of amazing letters from people who had climbed the rock or who had taken rocks from the area and were returning them either as they believed they had brought them misfortune or they felt it was the right thing to do. The centre supposedly receives several parcels a week from all around the world.

On route we saw Mount Connor - a mini version of Uluru, salt lakes, camels roaming the barren red desert and some remote cattle stations. Everywhere along the way we were plagued with flies, they were a pure nuisance, the guide was telling us that you get used to them but I am not convinced. We got back to Alice Springs and cleaned all the dirt off us before we headed to the aptly named Rock Bar for food and numerous well deserved beers!!! It was a great gang of people we had spent the last 3 days with so a good nights craic was had!!! Unfortunately one of the gang on the way home was
threatened with a brick by an aboriginal but nothing came of it but certainly not a good last impression to be left with on our visit to the outback.