Us and the bike reunited at KL airport. We had an amazing taxi driver who not only took us from Arrivals to the Customs office and then on to the Malaysia Airlines warehouse but stayed with us for over 2 hours to help us get through the whole process! The guys in the picture did a great job of helping with the uncrating and disposing of the wood for the princely sum of 10 Ringgit (about £2).
We had just left the airport when the afternoon rain started (regular as clockwork this time of year). It was torrential for most of the journey to our hotel which should have been around 56km but as we got horribly lost was closer to 80km! The rain was so heavy we couldn't see road signs or read the map, we nearly got to the point of hiring a taxi to guide us in but somehow we look a lucky turning and ended up in the right part of the city.
John soon got into the Asian way of driving on two wheels, anything goes! Driving on pavements and the wrong way down one way streets is perfectly acceptable.
Views above and below are from the Menera Kuala Lumpur communication tower which is 1099 feet high (plus a bit more for the antenna). The lurid red and white building below is our hotel, at £18 a night for a decent room with aircon and a bathroom it doesn't matter what colour it's painted!
In the middle of this big city is a small patch of jungle called the Bukit Nanas Forest Reserve, Tony pictured below is a knowledgeable volunteer who guided us round the area. Our main memory of the experience will be the voracious mosquitoes who started biting as soon as we set foot in the place!
KL's most photographed landmark, the Petronas twin towers that is (in case you thought we meant John). These were the tallest buildings in the world until 2004, now it's that other one in Dubai.
As is the norm in Asian cities there is a shopping mall inside the Petronas Towers, mind bogglingly big. We only wanted to use the toilets!
KL has a good monorail system, 50p a journey and much easier than using the often gridlocked streets.
Views above and below of Merdeka Square, many of the buildings in this area date back to the time of British rule in Malaysia but the square has been used for the Independence day parades since Malaysia gained independence in 1957.
The Masjid Jamek Mosque (below) is one of the oldest in KL (opened around 1909). We had to cover our heads (luckily had our own scarves) and wear lovely long nylon gowns that had been worn by many others before us in the hot and sticky climate (mmm lovely). We chose not to include those photos!
John with Cheah a KL local who has been great company and a big help planning our trip around Malaysia. Also with whom we enjoyed some fantastic food in places non-Malaysian speakers would not have ventured alone! Thank you Cheah, we're looking forward seeing you again soon.
We left KL on Christmas Eve and set off north to the Cameron Highlands a range of hills in the centre of the country where the weather is cooler and fruit and tea growing along with tourism are the main industries.
We stayed in a place called Fathers Guesthouse (thanks for the recommendation Cheah) in Tanah Rata. Good budget accom, beer for sale and big cooked breakfasts, all you could ask for.
Christmas Eve had quite a party atmosphere, BBQ, beer and a free raffle. Quite glad we didn't win anything, most of the winners had to do embarrassing forfeits!
Christmas Day felt a bit strange, as Malaysia is officially a Muslim country it was basically open as usual for all shops and businesses and the Cameron Highlands is a very popular holiday destination for Malaysians so was busy with holidaymakers and foreign tourists.
We decided to drive to a tea plantation about 8km from where we were staying the problem was the only road in that direction was absolutely gridlocked, if we had sat in the traffic the journey would have taken over 2 hours. But as mentioned before the Asian style of motorbike riding has been adopted and with much weaving and squeezing we got there much quicker. The car drivers are pretty considerate and see the benefit of letting the bikes through to reduce the jams, it was funny to see them frantically waving us through a gap that was just about big enough for a slightly built person on a small moped but not us two on the Tenere.
The tea plantation was interesting, the 1st and 2nd pictures below were taken about 10 mins apart. The weather is definitely changeable here.
Our non traditional Christmas dinner, tasty and about £8 incl beer.
We went out for a day on an organised trip, lots of bumping around in a Land Rover on a sticky mud track. Fun until it got so deep they had to stop and we had to walk the last mile!
The point of the Land Rover ride was to take us to the start of a jungle trek to see the Rafflesia a parasitic flower found in this part of Asia. As you can see it is quite big and impressive and so it bloody well should be! We hiked up steep hills, over fallen trees, across streams, a couple of hours of relentless struggling. Although it doesn't show in the photo my face was the same colour as the flower when we got there!
John crossing a loosely tied bundle of bamboo known locally as a bridge!
John the hunter gatherer using the ancient method of the blow pipe and poison dart to provide for us. It didn't work so we went for a curry.
The left over influences from the days of English Colonialism make for some oddities in this area, one day we're in the jungle and the next we're having afternoon tea in a 1939 mock Tudor hotel called the Old Smokehouse. Weird but nice to have a cream tea on a warm Boxing Day!
What a great blog,looks like you a had a wonderful Christmas,boxing day cream tea in that beautiful hotel I could handle that.Love you .xx
ReplyDeletegood to see the progress, sounds like fun, my tenere has not see the light of day since its safe return from Adelaide, A big huntsman spider was in the garage today i think he has been using it at the weekends. We have had a bit of rain here too but not as much as up north, safe travels, look forward to the next blog. Stev n Vic, xxx
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