Malaysia - We love Malaysia!
Hello again,
Time for another catch up. I know I’m not very good at doing this regularly so consequently it ends up being a very long essay, but I hope it keeps you up to date all the same.
So we arrived in Langkawi, Malaysia safe and sound and instantly fell in love with the place. The Malaysians are soooooo friendly and welcoming. We found a guesthouse and then our guesthouse owner took us by car to his favourite local Indian in the nearby town. It was awesome. There is no public transport on the island so we wanted to rent a bike but it turns out that to rent a bike in Malaysia you need a bike licence, a problem we hadn’t come across until now hehe, so instead we rented a bit more expensive car but it made me feel a bit safer knowing that this was the case. Unfortunately one wasn’t available for 45mins so we waited on the beach where we met Sam a really friendly guy who worked renting Jet Skis. We didn’t want a go but we got a map out and he told us all the places to visit on the island. He offered to take us round 2 days later on his day off but unfortunately we didn’t have that long on the island.
So we got our car and headed off to Pasir Tengkorak (a beach) where we were he only people. The beach was fantastic and there were monkeys on the beach. They decided to have a fight which was entertaining but then calmed down. We then headed to Seven Wells waterfall. The driving is beautiful, through rainforest, with wild monkeys on the side of the road. We got to the waterfall which was pretty, but as its dry season it wasn’t as powerfull as normal. We then walked further up to the wells which were again quite pretty but by far the most amazing thing was these 2 beautiful Hornbills which flew in. They were massive over 1m and just stunning. The sound of them flying was incredible. We then headed back for dinner and I treated myself to a chocolate brownie with ice cream-yum!!
The next day we got back in the car and headed down to the eagle at Kuah (the main town on the island). We had a quick look round but not much was open even though it was half 9 so we headed off to Durain Perigin (another waterfall). It was also very nice and another lovely lady at the bottom started teaching us malay. She told us that Langkawi meant eagle rock-which is why we had seen so many eagles flying round. We then headed off to black sand beach and were initially disappointed as the sand looked white, but when we stepped on the beach, we realised there was just a fine layer of white sand and then underneath it was black! We were again the only people on the beach. Finally we headed to the cable ar which took us 710m up for incredible views of the island. Langkawi really is beautiful and the people are sooo loively. It was our favourite place so far and although we wanted to stay for another week it was time to leave (we will return though).
We headed to Penang on the last ferry just for the night and got a mini bus the next morning to the Cameron Highlands. After crazy driving by the driver we arrived early at 9.30 but it gave us the whole day to explore. The cameron highlands were beautiful-the tea plantations looked incredible. We got a taxi to have a tour around a tea plantation in a car which was bought brand new in 1964. The taxi driver was clearly a heavy smoker, but an amazing character. The tea plantation was interesting and we walked back with sights over the plantation that were incredible and then along a nice little jungle trail.
The next day we headed to Teman Negara-just a traveling day.
Teman Negara was a beautiful park. The map however was not so great. We headed towards a Canopy Walkway and on the way saw a massive 1.5m long monitor lizard (well we think thats what it was). Chris spotted it and hence received the title of Natureman! We got to the walkway and started our 45m canopy trail. The views were stunning but we were a bit scared, and when we got to the end we saw a sectioned off area where a ladder had broken. I’m not sure I would have walked along it if I’d seen that at the start! We then carried on up to a big hill which gave us spectacular views of the park. After we headed on to find a canopy bridge to take us to another park to walk back. We walked and walked and walked and after still not finding it 3 hours later we wandered to the river to flag down a boat to take us back. We went to the park headquarters and asked about the bridge only to be told it didn’t exist!! At least we wern’t going mad!
The next day we headed down to Kuala Lumpa. We really liked this place. We spent 2 and a half days here just chilling out looking round the shops and markets and taking things a bit slower. We also climbed the petronas towers which was awesome! One evening we went up to the skybar in a very swish hotel-Traders Hotel to get good views of the towers. The bar was incredible, a nice pool and awesome views. So we treated ourselves to a cocktail. We got chatting to this guy called Gavin who was working in the towers and he treated us to a 2nd cocktail. It was a really nice evening.
We got the night train down to Singapore which was sooo nice. Wide, comfy beds, curtains, so different from the night buses in Vietnam and still very cheap. We spent 6 hours wandering round Singapore before our flight to Borneo. We have more time in Singapore when we get back but we still managed to go round Fort Canning park where we saw an orange lizard, and we walked along the river which had a great mix of old and new buildings.
We got a flight into Borneo (Sabah, Malaysia) where our 4 days of madness began. We love Sabah. By far our favourite place so far. We picked up a car from the airport and headed to find accomadation for the night. The next morning we set off at 6 for a crazy 6 hour drive to Sandaken (the other side of Sabah). The road would just disappear and become gravel. It was mad.We checked into the mayfair hotal -which was lovely (massive shower, comfy beds, flat screen tv, loads of dvds, internet) and then headed down to Sukau to catch a boat to see probiscous monkeys in the wild. It was incrdible – there were soo many and other types of monkeys, we saw a baby aligator, kingfishers, butterfies, a lizard a snake big blue birds and some little diving blue birds. It was really really awesome.
We then headed back to Sandaken to sleep and watch a DVD. The next morning we headed to Sepilok Orangutan sanctuary. IT was amazing. We saw 4-5 Orangutans swinging and eating the food left out for them. At first there were soo many noisy people there that only one came but after about 90% of the people had left the quiet patient people got to see the other 4 incluing 1 really big Orangutan. It really was incredible.
We then started the mamouth trip back to Kota Kinabalu where we flew into. We spent the next day relaxing on an island called Manuken island which was stunnning. There were soooo many fish – big pink fish, needlefish, stripy fish all just swimming by the jetty and in the water. It was great. We could have snorkled and seen nemos and other fish but we decided we just wanted to lie on the beach in preperation for the next day. That evening we got a bus to the national park and got an early night.
Yesterday we got up at 6 o clock for what was possibly the most difficult challenge we have ever done. We had planned to attempt to climb Mount Kinabalu in 2 days but there was no accomadation on the mountain so we were told you can try it in one day but thats the only option. So we had booked it for 15th March. I won’t bore you with too many details of which km’s were harder than others, but WE DID IT!! 18km up and down very steep rock, some of it with rope, some of it in the sun. At parts I really didn’t think we would do it and the guide said that most people who attempt it in one day don’t make it and generally only people who have trained for it book to do it in one day. He described our fitness levels as VERY HIGH! The worst bits were the time limits-we had to be at the first stage (6km up) by 11 having started at 7.30. We then had to be at the top by 1 or we would have to turn back.We made it at 12.55! The views from the top of this 4095.2m peak were INCREDIBLE and we just felt amazing!!
Luckily for you guys we need to go and catch a bus to get us to the airport now to fly back to singapore otherwise I could go on about yesterday allday. The pain we are in today is soooo worth
Anyways we have really enjoyed south east asia and we head to Austrailia tommorrow night so what a great way to end! We love this place-Sabah is our favourite so far!!
Got to go, hope your all well, miss you all very much!
Lots of love
Katie and Chris