Selamat Petang!
Blogger tells me that it's only been two days since I last wrote, but we're cramming so much into our time that it feels like ages!
I'm currently in our hostel lobby, with what seems to be a Chinese movie playing behind me, American music playing in the street and a very cool mix of travellers heading in and out of the guesthouse.
.............................................................
I wrote this two days ago and we got so sleepy that it never got finished! Two days later and Sean and I are now in Langkawi with Dave and his mate Scotty. Just had an absolutely amazing dinner at a local night market. I am seriously in food paradise! The market was full of food stalls, toys, drinks and various other odds and ends- more of a local market though and not filled with tourists like the rest of Langkawi. The 4 of us had about 3 or 4 things each- a variety of fried chicken (Dave unfortunately had some kind of offal instead!), fried noodles, chilli mango salad, spring rolls, samosas, pancakes with corn and coconut pancakes. Mmmmm... so good! And this post was meant to be about the amazing things we tried in Penang.. But I can simply report that we have had so much fun discovering many new and interesting tastes on both of these islands on the west coast of Malaysia. All I can say that this is some kind of heaven, with food as unbelievably cheap as it is here (all of those meals I mentioned were 4 ringgits and under, nothing over $1.50), fresh from the grill or mortar and pestle, and served by the sweetest and most lovely Malaysian people. Such a contrast to our first day with the awful bus issues when we were so disheartened about this new country, we of little faith back then! and on top of that, beach here is great, maybe comparable to those back home ;) Terima kasih Langkawi!
How is everyone anyway?
Thursday, 24 November 2011
Sunday, 20 November 2011
Cameron Highlands
We got up early this morning to get one of the first buses out of KL to Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands. The hostel that we stayed at last night, Le Village, was on Petaling St (the Chinatown of KL) and was a fairly dodgy joint but it had a good vibe and was a nice change from the shoebox of Zass. It didn't, however, have air conditioning so we were ready to get out by just after 6am.
The bus out here was only RM28 (Malaysian Ringgit, about AU$10) and was spacious and only diverted once to pick up more people! [Our reaction after Friday's efforts: Not everything sucks!!!!]
We got to Tanah Rata at 1:30pm, hoping to get a couple of dorm beds at Father's Guesthouse (Lonely Planet's "pick" of 2009) but unsure because we'd had trouble booking it online last night. Father's is up a few flights of stone stairs, at the top of a hill looking over the town. It's awesome! And for only RM15 a night each (5 bucks!) it's super awesome! The people here are friendly and helpful, helped us out with a bus ticket to Penang tomorrow and got us on a countryside tour immediately! Half an hour later we were on a mini bus driven by a (very) informative Indian-Malay man called Rajesh. We went to Taman Rama Rama- a buttefly house with cool bugs, creepy snakes and spiders-, the Boh Tea Estate where we saw tea being made and stood in awe at the carpet-like tea plantations, a strawberry farm (this is the only area in Malaysia where you can grow them cos of the climate!), to a rose garden and finally to a big temple (can't remember the name) rebuilt a few years back with donations worth about AU$850 000. It is covered in lovely tiling and has huge buddha statues inside!
It has been another massive day again though and now it's time for bed. Sean has already hit the hay about an hour ago and I think I'm out of stories for now anyway!
-Y
Also, we just realised that today is Sunday. That explains why booking hostels has been so difficult (when we're trying to book a room at midnight for 2pm check-in that day! silly us!) and means that I should have already said.. GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR FINAL EXAM TOMORROW KIM, WE ARE THINKING OF YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The bus out here was only RM28 (Malaysian Ringgit, about AU$10) and was spacious and only diverted once to pick up more people! [Our reaction after Friday's efforts: Not everything sucks!!!!]
We got to Tanah Rata at 1:30pm, hoping to get a couple of dorm beds at Father's Guesthouse (Lonely Planet's "pick" of 2009) but unsure because we'd had trouble booking it online last night. Father's is up a few flights of stone stairs, at the top of a hill looking over the town. It's awesome! And for only RM15 a night each (5 bucks!) it's super awesome! The people here are friendly and helpful, helped us out with a bus ticket to Penang tomorrow and got us on a countryside tour immediately! Half an hour later we were on a mini bus driven by a (very) informative Indian-Malay man called Rajesh. We went to Taman Rama Rama- a buttefly house with cool bugs, creepy snakes and spiders-, the Boh Tea Estate where we saw tea being made and stood in awe at the carpet-like tea plantations, a strawberry farm (this is the only area in Malaysia where you can grow them cos of the climate!), to a rose garden and finally to a big temple (can't remember the name) rebuilt a few years back with donations worth about AU$850 000. It is covered in lovely tiling and has huge buddha statues inside!
It has been another massive day again though and now it's time for bed. Sean has already hit the hay about an hour ago and I think I'm out of stories for now anyway!
-Y
Also, we just realised that today is Sunday. That explains why booking hostels has been so difficult (when we're trying to book a room at midnight for 2pm check-in that day! silly us!) and means that I should have already said.. GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR FINAL EXAM TOMORROW KIM, WE ARE THINKING OF YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
KL & Cameron Highlands
just a little note to let you know that we are now in the Cameron Highlands and heading to Penang tomorrow, we're doing a very quick-and-dirty style visit of Malaysia's West Coast!
Love to you all at home
Y&S
Love to you all at home
Y&S
Singapore, city of the future?!
Okay.. so it's been a few days and not such a good start to the blogging but pretend that you are reading this 3 days ago and we are still in Singapore :)
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16th
On our first day in Singapore, we decided to get straight onto our visas for Vietnam, because we knew that they were going to be a major pain in the bum to get (you are supposed to get the visa before you leave home, but with everything else that was happening in the past few weeks, it got put on the backburner.
So, we caught Singapore's incredibly amazing, ridiculously simple and organised public transport system to Holland Park, where the Vietnamese embassy is.
The train and bus network is so good here that Sean can put our destination into his phone (even when we're not online!) and it tells us which trains or buses to get. The MRT (mass rapid transport) is super efficient and we have never waited more than 6 minutes for a train. And they are NEVER late. And there is no eating or drinking allowed so the entire place is spotless. Melbourne, you have a lot to answer for! (We reeeeally should have just taken their system rather than spending billions of dollars on making our own, Sean says "they could have built a children's hospital, but no!").
Arriving at 12:30pm, we discovered that the embassy's visas time ends at midday, so that was that and we would have to come back tomorrow.
We headed back into the city (which is funny to say, seeing as Singapore is really just a giant city, but we went back to the CBD) and wandered down the waterfront.
Lunch was from a hawker centre called Lau Pa Sat which is found in an old victorian-era building, Japanese lunch set. Not exactly Singaporean but yummy. And it seems that 'Singaporean' is actually very hard to pinpoint, because food in the city is a melting pot of so many cuisines and cultures.
Not expecting to see too much in the bay, we were just casually passing some nice waterfront cafes after lunch when BAM! between the buildings we saw this ginormous space-agey looking building. I cannot explain how out of this world it felt, it was three skyscrapers with a massive boat-thing resting on top of them. To explain why we didn't know that this landmark (eyesore?!) existed, our copy of the lonely planet (thanks Sue and Steve!) is from 2009 and it seems that Singapore has really developed quite a bit in the past few years! The building is actually a hotel/casino/skypark/mall and is called Marina Bay Sands- I recommend that you google it to understand what it is!
After discovering this alien landing pad (one of the many things we predicated it might be) we had a look at the Merlion fountain (exactly what it sounds like!) and the Theatres by the bay, called the 'big durians' by the locals because they look like the spikey national fruit. Many of the buildings in Singapore are really very modern and futuristic and it was very funny to walk around and see a UFO on top of the Supreme Court, a glove-like building for the Arts & Sciences museum and huge purple flower-like towers (these, it seems are part of the new Botanical Gardens currently being built and on preview for the International Orchid Festival, also not in our lonely planet!).
From the waterfront, we decided to find out exactly what the huge-ungous towers were. Full of swanky shops, casino and rather posh hotel, Marina Bay Sands is out of this world (or ours at least!) but it does have an amazing view of the city from the SkyPark on the 57th floor.
In the evening, we saw the nightly light show over the bay, which involves lasers coming off the Marina Bay Sands towers, fountains with lights shining on them and music played all around the bay and esplanade (seriously, there is so much money thrown into what I only describe as 'cool stuff' in Singapore, it's insane).
Dinner was a rushed affair as we had watched the lights show not realising how late it had become, laksa and chicken rice at a cafe called Toatbox. Do not recommend meals from a place that makes coffee and toast!
Sean fell asleep mid conversation as soon as we got home and I followed soon after. We were both so buggered!!!
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17th
This morning we headed back to the embassy, and decided that even though visas would cost S$145 each to have a one-day turnaround, we just wanted to have them done ASAP to have peace of mind (and we didn't want to have to hang around Singapore or KL for more than three days..). Left our passports with the surprisingly organised embassy staff (bit nervous but they seemed to know what they were doing) and headed back to the CBD to go to Sentosa, the 'Resort World' of Singapore.
For lunch I had Gado Gado, which was a delicious mix of vegetables smothered in peanut sauce and then covered in prawns crackers and Sean had some -very- chilli prawns and vegies.
Sentosa is on an island just by the port in Singapore, and is accessed by monorail and cable car. The entire island is chock-a-block with hotels, kind of fake beaches, rides and shops- all in a very small space and connected by the monorail. While it's only S$3 to get to the island, everything on it costs a hell of a lot and it would be very easy to spend a lot of money there, so we didn't!
Although indoor skydiving and segway-riding did sound like a lot of fun, we decided to hire some bikes and ride along the beach paths and roads instead. It was a good way to get a feel for the place without actually doing anything costly! And because it was such a beautiful day, it was lovely. We rode to the top of the ziplining hill and up and down hills in a mini-jungle, got sufficiently tired, dropped off our bikes and wandered through the vast array of fountains and tiled statues to the cable car station.
Hmm, how to describe the cable car? It was amazing. It goes super high and over the bay and you have a brilliant view and because it's Singapore it was very well designed and safe. But I was terrified!!! Only for about the first half of the trip into the city but it turns out I'm a massive scaredy cat! Sean took lots of photos for me and got me back safely so it's all good :)
For the evening, we took a stroll through Chinatown and started our hunt for the famous Singapore Chilli Crab. Long story short, it seems that the Chilli Crab is hard to find, too expensive for our shoestring budget and although it's a bit disappointing, the Indian that we had for dinner (for a quarter of the price!) was delicious and totally worth it. Perhaps we can find a yummy chilli crab in Thailand or Vietnam? It absolutely poured this evening and we have quickly learnt that this is a standard day in Singapore- beautiful morning, wet afternoon or evening, humid night.
From our short visit so far, I think it's fair to say that most people in Singapore are quite friendly- they are serious, cautious and well organised but very very friendly. Several times throughout the day when we were looking either a little bit lost or unsure, people had come over to us and offered to help. It is really lovely and comforting to know that we have some kind souls about.
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18th
Today we made our third and final trip out to Holland Village (quite a swanky area with lots of fancy houses and cars so not really too much trouble!) and picked up our visas for Vietnam. The guys at the embassy were so helpful (for the fee of course) but very nice to have that out of the way.
I had read about a place called the French Stall, which is owned by a 2 Michelin starred chef and serves relatively cheap but high quality French food so we headed there next, but were devastated to find that they were only open from 3pm, when we had planned to catch a bus back to Malaysia. Determined to try it (great french food at a fraction of the price!) we went back to the hostel to organise our bags ready to leave and then quickly went back to stall. We were totally disappointed when they only then told us that it's just drinks and dessert until 6pm, and the dessert options were chocolate cake, ice cream and creme caramel! Not the orange zabaglione or any of the yummy savoury snacks (pate, foie gras, bread and cheese??!!) that we would have liked. It would have been nice to stay for a meal, the banquet was only about S$30 for two courses and drinks, but we had a bus to catch!
Our bus from the Queen St bus terminal in Singapore to Johor Bahru (on the Malaysian side of the causeway) was good, the border crossing was easy, and as always the people at every point were incredibly friendly and helpful. Across the border though, we were bombarded with bus operators and food vendors and taxi drivers and who knows what else! Reality check: we are in South East Asia!! The bus that we caught from there to KL was godawful! It left an hour and a half late, stopped all over the place to pick up people and drop others off ("Yes miss, express non-stop to KL") and then on top of it all, we got dropped in the middle of nowhere! Fortunately for us, a lovely young Malaysian guy with great English (and friends who go to Monash apparently!) quickly told us that we were in KL and that 'this bus no longer stops in Puduraya', where we had planned to get off and where our hotel was. A bit of wandering and asking around found us a taxi (CRAZY lady with car seriously about to fall apart!) who with quite a bit of trouble and arguing eventually dropped us at our (dingy) hotel, Zass.. just after midnight. One hell of a day and what a contrast between the two countries. We were both pretty grumpy and over it by tonight and honestly hoping that things would look up!
-----------
16th
On our first day in Singapore, we decided to get straight onto our visas for Vietnam, because we knew that they were going to be a major pain in the bum to get (you are supposed to get the visa before you leave home, but with everything else that was happening in the past few weeks, it got put on the backburner.
So, we caught Singapore's incredibly amazing, ridiculously simple and organised public transport system to Holland Park, where the Vietnamese embassy is.
The train and bus network is so good here that Sean can put our destination into his phone (even when we're not online!) and it tells us which trains or buses to get. The MRT (mass rapid transport) is super efficient and we have never waited more than 6 minutes for a train. And they are NEVER late. And there is no eating or drinking allowed so the entire place is spotless. Melbourne, you have a lot to answer for! (We reeeeally should have just taken their system rather than spending billions of dollars on making our own, Sean says "they could have built a children's hospital, but no!").
Arriving at 12:30pm, we discovered that the embassy's visas time ends at midday, so that was that and we would have to come back tomorrow.
We headed back into the city (which is funny to say, seeing as Singapore is really just a giant city, but we went back to the CBD) and wandered down the waterfront.
Lunch was from a hawker centre called Lau Pa Sat which is found in an old victorian-era building, Japanese lunch set. Not exactly Singaporean but yummy. And it seems that 'Singaporean' is actually very hard to pinpoint, because food in the city is a melting pot of so many cuisines and cultures.
Not expecting to see too much in the bay, we were just casually passing some nice waterfront cafes after lunch when BAM! between the buildings we saw this ginormous space-agey looking building. I cannot explain how out of this world it felt, it was three skyscrapers with a massive boat-thing resting on top of them. To explain why we didn't know that this landmark (eyesore?!) existed, our copy of the lonely planet (thanks Sue and Steve!) is from 2009 and it seems that Singapore has really developed quite a bit in the past few years! The building is actually a hotel/casino/skypark/mall and is called Marina Bay Sands- I recommend that you google it to understand what it is!
After discovering this alien landing pad (one of the many things we predicated it might be) we had a look at the Merlion fountain (exactly what it sounds like!) and the Theatres by the bay, called the 'big durians' by the locals because they look like the spikey national fruit. Many of the buildings in Singapore are really very modern and futuristic and it was very funny to walk around and see a UFO on top of the Supreme Court, a glove-like building for the Arts & Sciences museum and huge purple flower-like towers (these, it seems are part of the new Botanical Gardens currently being built and on preview for the International Orchid Festival, also not in our lonely planet!).
From the waterfront, we decided to find out exactly what the huge-ungous towers were. Full of swanky shops, casino and rather posh hotel, Marina Bay Sands is out of this world (or ours at least!) but it does have an amazing view of the city from the SkyPark on the 57th floor.
In the evening, we saw the nightly light show over the bay, which involves lasers coming off the Marina Bay Sands towers, fountains with lights shining on them and music played all around the bay and esplanade (seriously, there is so much money thrown into what I only describe as 'cool stuff' in Singapore, it's insane).
Dinner was a rushed affair as we had watched the lights show not realising how late it had become, laksa and chicken rice at a cafe called Toatbox. Do not recommend meals from a place that makes coffee and toast!
Sean fell asleep mid conversation as soon as we got home and I followed soon after. We were both so buggered!!!
----------
17th
This morning we headed back to the embassy, and decided that even though visas would cost S$145 each to have a one-day turnaround, we just wanted to have them done ASAP to have peace of mind (and we didn't want to have to hang around Singapore or KL for more than three days..). Left our passports with the surprisingly organised embassy staff (bit nervous but they seemed to know what they were doing) and headed back to the CBD to go to Sentosa, the 'Resort World' of Singapore.
For lunch I had Gado Gado, which was a delicious mix of vegetables smothered in peanut sauce and then covered in prawns crackers and Sean had some -very- chilli prawns and vegies.
Sentosa is on an island just by the port in Singapore, and is accessed by monorail and cable car. The entire island is chock-a-block with hotels, kind of fake beaches, rides and shops- all in a very small space and connected by the monorail. While it's only S$3 to get to the island, everything on it costs a hell of a lot and it would be very easy to spend a lot of money there, so we didn't!
Although indoor skydiving and segway-riding did sound like a lot of fun, we decided to hire some bikes and ride along the beach paths and roads instead. It was a good way to get a feel for the place without actually doing anything costly! And because it was such a beautiful day, it was lovely. We rode to the top of the ziplining hill and up and down hills in a mini-jungle, got sufficiently tired, dropped off our bikes and wandered through the vast array of fountains and tiled statues to the cable car station.
Hmm, how to describe the cable car? It was amazing. It goes super high and over the bay and you have a brilliant view and because it's Singapore it was very well designed and safe. But I was terrified!!! Only for about the first half of the trip into the city but it turns out I'm a massive scaredy cat! Sean took lots of photos for me and got me back safely so it's all good :)
For the evening, we took a stroll through Chinatown and started our hunt for the famous Singapore Chilli Crab. Long story short, it seems that the Chilli Crab is hard to find, too expensive for our shoestring budget and although it's a bit disappointing, the Indian that we had for dinner (for a quarter of the price!) was delicious and totally worth it. Perhaps we can find a yummy chilli crab in Thailand or Vietnam? It absolutely poured this evening and we have quickly learnt that this is a standard day in Singapore- beautiful morning, wet afternoon or evening, humid night.
From our short visit so far, I think it's fair to say that most people in Singapore are quite friendly- they are serious, cautious and well organised but very very friendly. Several times throughout the day when we were looking either a little bit lost or unsure, people had come over to us and offered to help. It is really lovely and comforting to know that we have some kind souls about.
----------
18th
Today we made our third and final trip out to Holland Village (quite a swanky area with lots of fancy houses and cars so not really too much trouble!) and picked up our visas for Vietnam. The guys at the embassy were so helpful (for the fee of course) but very nice to have that out of the way.
I had read about a place called the French Stall, which is owned by a 2 Michelin starred chef and serves relatively cheap but high quality French food so we headed there next, but were devastated to find that they were only open from 3pm, when we had planned to catch a bus back to Malaysia. Determined to try it (great french food at a fraction of the price!) we went back to the hostel to organise our bags ready to leave and then quickly went back to stall. We were totally disappointed when they only then told us that it's just drinks and dessert until 6pm, and the dessert options were chocolate cake, ice cream and creme caramel! Not the orange zabaglione or any of the yummy savoury snacks (pate, foie gras, bread and cheese??!!) that we would have liked. It would have been nice to stay for a meal, the banquet was only about S$30 for two courses and drinks, but we had a bus to catch!
Our bus from the Queen St bus terminal in Singapore to Johor Bahru (on the Malaysian side of the causeway) was good, the border crossing was easy, and as always the people at every point were incredibly friendly and helpful. Across the border though, we were bombarded with bus operators and food vendors and taxi drivers and who knows what else! Reality check: we are in South East Asia!! The bus that we caught from there to KL was godawful! It left an hour and a half late, stopped all over the place to pick up people and drop others off ("Yes miss, express non-stop to KL") and then on top of it all, we got dropped in the middle of nowhere! Fortunately for us, a lovely young Malaysian guy with great English (and friends who go to Monash apparently!) quickly told us that we were in KL and that 'this bus no longer stops in Puduraya', where we had planned to get off and where our hotel was. A bit of wandering and asking around found us a taxi (CRAZY lady with car seriously about to fall apart!) who with quite a bit of trouble and arguing eventually dropped us at our (dingy) hotel, Zass.. just after midnight. One hell of a day and what a contrast between the two countries. We were both pretty grumpy and over it by tonight and honestly hoping that things would look up!
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
Made it!
Sean and Yola have made it to Singapore! After a long and very tiresome journey involving two flights and much waiting around dyesterday, we have now had a much needed sleep and are about to take on what seems to be an amazingly efficient and still very friendly city. off to sort out or Vietnam visas now, wish us luck!
Much love from the Inn crowd backpackers
Sean and Yola
Much love from the Inn crowd backpackers
Sean and Yola