Asia: Malaysia

Arriving KL Malaysia (16/02/2015 - 17/02/2015)
KL for me is like any big city, fast paced and largely impersonal. The airport bus transfer was full on, it was an absolute scrum to get the bags in the luggage compartment. Everybody surged to throw their bags in the moment the luggage compartment doors opened. Given the size of our bags this was not fun. Michelle's previous Asia experience came in handy here, without a moments hesitation she flung herself forward to block other people and secure a spot for our bags. We got on the bus with our faces glued to the window to check that someotne else didn't reorganise our bags onto the pavement. They didn't, primarily because they are very heavy more than anything else.
We arrived in China town to our hotel and it was heaving. People, cars everywhere we were missing quiet Kuching already. This was a massive slap in the face next to our experience in Kuching. It was Chinese New Year's Eve and it was busy, busy, busy. Red lanterns were hanging everywhere, street hawkers selling food, ticket touts trying to entice us into shops, restaurants etc. in the middle of this we were making our way down the street where our hotel was located (having been told of it's location by some very honest taxi drivers). The two human turtles with massive bags (us) eventually made it our hotel. The hotel was great, reasonable size, clean and bright inside and with wifi. Only funny thing was that the room had no windows which made it impossible to determine whether it was day or night, good weather or bad weather.
Most of our first day in KL was spent sorting out travel and accommodation for the reminder of our stay in Malaysia. We did get chance to visit the butterfly park in KL botanical gardens which was nice.

Next stop Malaka.

Melaka Malaysia (18/02/2015) Apa Kaba Guest house
Our next stop was Melaka by 2 hour bus ride. I am happy to report that our second bus experience was a much more civilised experience. In fact it was from a brand new bus terminal that was incredibly was organised and efficient. I fact it was more like an airport terminal than a station with departure gates and ticket check in gates.
Arriving in Melaka we caught a taxi to our home stay. The irony here was the seat belts in the taxi were broken and if ever we needed them it was that journey. The taxi driver liked both speed and proximity to other vehicles. We arrived at our home stay which was a lovely little villa with a out door seating area and then went out to explore.

Happy Wife, Happy Life
There is no easy way of telling this tale except for being very upfront about it. It involves the shredding of male dignity in support of my wife's interests. I feel that I gained a lot of points for husband of the year. See what you think.
Melaka is known as a tourist hot spot and is listed as a world heritage site. One of the most unusual experience in Melaka is a trishaw ride. The trishaws (bicycles with passenger compartments attached) have died out everywhere else in Malaysia in favour of motorised taxis. What makes Melaka trishaws special is that they have been excessively decorated (pimped out). Decorated how, I hear you cry. Well, decorated with flowers, dolls, cushions, banners, streamers, flashing lights and stereo systems. They are usually themed for maximum effect. Such themes include Disney's 'Frozen' ,Spider-Man, Chinese New Year, florists day and the one Michelle was entranced by, hello kitty. Michelle was so delighted by a beautiful pink hello kitty trishaw that I knew, like a moth to a flame a trishaw ride purchase was inevitable. I, am colour blind but even I could tell that nothing should have that much pink on it not even the colour pink. The crowning glory was the I love you cushion on the front. Every possible reason not to do this was crushed by the sheer joy on my wife's face and I faced what was to come. Omar our trishaw driver took us around the sights of Melaka in an hour's worth of pure hello kitty delight. It probably was the best way of seeing the sights and we also got free entry into the custom's museum to see all the things that are banned in Malaysia. I won't lie to you there is no way to look masculine on a pink hello kitty trishaw. It was also very expensive at 50 ringgit but it made Michelle very happy so it was worth every ringgit .
Another couple of points worth mentioning about the trishaws were the sound systems and flashing lights. When the sun set the whole of Melaka was lit up by the the flashing lights of the trishaws, think Christmas decoration war between neighbours and you get the picture. Some trishaws have sound systems that belt out modern day tunes. The image of a Disney frozen trishaw coming round the corner with "let it go" playing at full volume and two small children sitting on their

parents lap singing along at the top of their voices will forever remain with me. It is not the first time that I have appreciated the sacrifices that parents make for their children.

To be fair it is unique and therefore very special. There is no doubt by doing this the trishaw drivers have saved their livelihoods and given the tourists something to write home about. Apparently Singaporeans make the journey especially. I will never forget it.

Back to KL (20/02/2015)
Back to KL for a quick stop over. Almost every thing is shut for Chinese New Year.

Pulau Pangkor (21/02/2015 - 25/02/0215)
First impressions were really bad. It was unbelievably busy, loads of people tearing up the road on mopeds polluting the air, dirty beaches full of rubbish, jet skis tearing up the water, shoulder to shoulder people and souvenir shops. Not a good start. Our room was nice though, set at the back of the building it was quiet and clean with a western style toilet so we were happy with it.
Next day was completely different. The crowds had thinned out and walking about 150 metres up the road we discovered a beautiful bay with fantastic views. The beach was 95% clear of rubbish and there were nice restaurants serving a variety of foods from local cuisine to western food. All the people from the night before had seemed to have disappeared ( We subsequently worked out that we had arrived on a weekend and on a public holiday so no wonder it was busy. ). All the westerners have gravitated to this beach and I am not surprised it is lovely. The water is lovely and warm and nice.

Toughing it out.
We're not toughing it out, not toughing it out at all. In fact we are probably as far away from toughing it out as we can get. We are having 12 to 14 hour sleeps then dragging our lazy bodies up to the beach where we were lounging around in hammocks on a beautiful beach with fantastic views listening to the waves lap the shore. We listen to music, write our blogs and just spend our energy loving life and relaxing. Fantastic, absolutely fantastic. We've seen hornbills, chameleons and eagles. Lazy days.

Mac attack part 2
There are naughty macaque monkeys here too, not as aggressive as Bako but just as cheeky. Big drama of the day was a monkey came down and took a drinking coconut off the table that hadn't been cleared away. It didn't want the spoon so he threw that on the floor then took the coconut into the tree. The restaurant owner came to clear away the food and started to look confused, obviously searching for the coconut. I pointed to the monkey in the tree still holding the coconut and she understood immediately. She thanked me and said "naughty monkey", I agreed.

Massive bags
People are really noticing our massive bags which are huge by any standards. Not able to explain they contain clothes for a year I have taken to following behind Michelle, pointing to her bags and mouthing the word "shoes" to people who are staring. People seem to

accept this explanation. Sshh don't tell her.

Wildlife is better than TV
The monkeys do provide great entertainment. One male thought he would try some monkey business with one of the female monkeys. Just as he was getting into the mating position she decided this wasn't going to happen and turned round and punched him in the face. Should have bought her dinner first.
We also saw a cat hiss at a monkey, leading to huge debates centring around cat versus monkey.

Travel to Penang (26/02/2015)
Our bus journey to Penang was by bus, took three hours at an average speed of 110 kilometres an hour. Unfortunately, only one hour of this trip was on roads suitable for this speed which was naturally a motorway. The other two hours were on small local roads with what I thought had very few overtaking places. This thought was not shared by the bus driver who was overtaking on blind bends, crossing double white lines and places that had minimal distance between cars. He was travelling at a speed and overtaking at places where I would think three times before attempting it in a small hatch back let alone a bus. I decided the best solution for this bus ride would be to close my eyes and try and get some sleep. I figured that a state of unconsciousness (sleep) would be the best way to get through the journey.

Penang (26/02/2015 - 01/03/2015)
Penang has a very strong Chinese influence and this is reflected in the historical architecture of area. We have had a very nice couple of days walking around the historical area looking at the old buildings, temples and mansions that dominate the area. What the local government have done really well is to make the streets really interesting. At various points they have had local artists paint murals for the walls and create sculptures that explain the local history. All together they make an interesting interactive tour of the city.
Penang has some very interesting mansions that demonstrate classic Chinese architecture, two of these are the blue mansion and the mansion. We spent hours in both. We had a tour of the blue mansion, the Cheong Fatt Zse mansion and a really good guide. He explained all about how the mansion was built on the principles of feng shui which is fascinating when pointed out to me. Examples include the open courtyard in the middle of the house for cooling, allowing the water to fall into the courtyard for prosperity, eight pillars instead of 4 because 8 is lucky and having the house higher at the back than the front to symbolise promotion. The tour also included a history of the man who built it, a man described as the Rockefeller of the East. Very interesting.

The Pinang Peranakan Mansion was also equally fascinating. This mansion was much bigger and contained jewellery museums, textile museums, kitchen museum and there own household temple. The house itself was on two levels and it's multiple rooms contained examples of pottery, games, clothing and glasswork. All authentic examples from the period. I was very conscious and careful of not knocking things over with my backpack. It would have been a very expensive mistake to make. We must have been in there for at least a couple of hours, there were heaps of things to see.

Temples
The other big type of architectural element of Penang was the temples. All the temples have areas for the different types of deities and areas of worship. The architecture is classic Chinese temple and the intricacies of the carvings are impressive. Here's the thing that I found puzzling. In each and every temple we went into they were burning things. On the road outside the temple were big pillars of material slowing burning to ash, inside were big incinerators shaped as mini temples (where people would throw prayer papers) constantly burning and loads of people burning joss sticks all around the temple. Fire and burning all the time. Then there would be a sign that would say "no smoking", I think that is irony.

Happy Wife, Happy Life Part 2 Cat cafe
My submission for husband of the year must have reached the shortlist stage by now. In Penang there is a cat cafe. The cats have a room to themselves, completely air conditioned with climbing frames, scratching posts, toys and sleeping baskets. The idea is that a patron can purchase a beverage and either go into the cat room to consume their beverage or stay outside in the cafe to look through the glass at the cats. Now, one of us went in to pat the cats, the other sat outside in a huff. Can you guess which is which? The other thing worth mentioning is that these cats had special mystical powers which inflated the prices of all the beverages to ridiculous levels but still persuaded patrons to pay them. One of us enjoyed this experience more than the other.

Food
A quick word about food. We have eaten well while we have been here, I have found some favourites in black pepper chicken, beef rendang and a pineapple flavoured laksa. My staple diet has been fried rice of various descriptions. To be honest if you don't like fried rice then you're going to struggle. I have mostly eaten local food but there have been a couple of occasions when I have had to eat western style food just for something different to fried rice. It has been our most expensive meals and they have unsettled my stomach (not made me sick just unsettled) but I just craved something different.

Food: Banana leaf
This actually occurred in Melaka the place of trishaws but I forgot to include it. Probably, because of post trishaw stress disorder (PTSD).
With it being Chinese New Year most restaurants and food stalls were shut, the ones that were open were tourist traps that were charging a lot. We decided that we would try something a bit different. The best alternative was to venture into little India for a curry. I wouldn't exactly call this place a restaurant as I know it, it was more like a local gathering. From the moment we entered we had no idea what we were doing. There seemed to be a self service system operating but there were also a couple of very busy waiters/servers/guy in charge rushing about everywhere. We were, not only the only white people in there but also the only non Indian people. Our period of looking clueless was mercifully short as the guy in charge came over and enthusiastically pointed us in the direction of a seat. He was genuinely excited to see us in his restaurant.
We took a seat and tried to work out what to do next. Looking around we saw the locals with trays helping themselves to a variety of curries from hot plates. Just as we were standing up to go help ourselves the guy in charge came over and started to chat to us. I'm not sure how this next bit happened but there was a bit of a communication mix up. We were expecting to use the tray self service system, what we got was a banana leaf. It was actually a piece of paper in the shape of a banana leaf. The banana leaf was placed on the table, three different kinds of pickles/sauces placed at the top and a huge mountain of rice in the middle. This next bit was different because we weren't given any cutlery. It was pretty obvious this meal was going to be eaten with our hands. Like precious westerners we dug out the hand sanitiser. It was at this point we noticed that we had become the entertainment. All the locals were, as politely as possible, looking at us with curiosity and amusement. I think they were wondering whether we would go through with it. We did, and it was delicious but very messy. I am not the tidiest eater at the best of times, having the tendency to miss my mouth in favour of the table (as I have explained to Shell it's because I have a small mouth). You can just imagine the mess. It was at this point I was half expecting one of the locals to approach us with a knife and fork and ask us "why didn't you use these?". What happened was a very nice Indian gentleman approached us with napkins to help us clean up. Another added bonus was that the washing up involved throwing the 'plate' ie the banana leaf in the bin. It was also very tasty and very cheap.

The end of our Malaysia experience
We are coming to the end of our Malaysia experience because tomorrow we are flying to Thailand. We have really enjoyed our time here and hopefully I have reflected this in my writing. We have gathered many interesting stories and look forward to telling you more in the next stage of our journey.

Travel observations

Taxi drivers and drivers in general like to get as close to other traffic as possible.
The western food isn't great here but it does break up the endless torrent of fried rice.
Smoking is really big here in Malaysia but only amongst the men. Maybe women smoke at home but we haven't seen any smoke in public.
Mopeds are transport for everyone. Single person, couple, family all fit on a moped at the same time. Classic is mum at the back, dad at the front and baby in the middle. No car seat legislation required.