Melaka and Kuala Lumpur

Melaka

We travelled the 5 hours from Singapore to Melaka on a very comfortable bus. Travel days like this with the help of Netflix just feel like a sofa day, it’s amazing how quickly the journey goes. After a short Grab ride we arrived at our hostel to find it all locked up. We rang the buzzer but nothing, then noticed a sign on a door with a number on, so I sent a whats app and received a voice recording back saying she had left and would be back in 4 hours! I replied saying that we had a booking and we wanted to check in, she gave us a code to get into the building so we could leave our bags and then said she would message us when she was back. So annoying, but at least we got to drop off our bags so we could explore the town. Melaka is actually a really cute little town with a lot of history. It was first colonised by the Portuguese, then the Dutch, then the British, then during world war 2 occupied by the Japanese (like most of south east Asia) and then the British again. When Malaysia finally got its independence in 1963, Melaka’s location was the main attraction as it was a very important port for trading between the east & the west. However, the British moved this to Singapore so Melaka (known also as Malacca, its British name) froze in time preserving all its heritage, and up until 2008 when it got its UNISCO status, was a very sleepy quiet town.

After a couple of hours we got a text from the hostel lady and headed back to collect our key. She wasn’t exactly the friendliest of ladies and we seemed to be a annoyance to her, we usually don’t stay anywhere that has less than a score of 8 on booking.com however the good rated accommodation was a little pricy and we wanted to save a bit of money between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. The room was only £7 a night and included breakfast. We seemed to be the only people staying in the hostel which was ideal for us as the rooms were basically cubicles with thin walls with the bed being up a ladder, so you got some space underneath. On the first morning I realised no one was at reception again, so I messaged her asking if she would advise where we get our breakfast. She replied saying the free breakfast is only at weekends, there was no mention of this on booking.com and even on our key it said free breakfast, after a little message exchange she gave up and said please wait I will come. She then plonked a couple of rice packets and teabags on the table and left. Now fried rice is beautiful usually but this was pretty spicy and really fishy, we have noticed they cook with a lot of fermented shrimp paste in Malaysia. So we drank our teas and ended up chucking the rice and heading to the nearest coffee shop for some breakie. The following days she delivered Roti Carnai which is a roti with a curry dipping sauce really tasty local breakfast, something we enjoyed in Langkawi too.

During the days we mainly spent our time wondering around the old town and taking it easy in coffee shops, we enjoyed a walking tour and visited the Nyonya and Baba house, Kirsty (Chris’ sister) had recommended this to us. We enjoyed exploring the well-preserved historic Chinese house, learning about the straits Chinese. We also tried the local dish of chicken and rice balls.

In the evenings we enjoyed beers in the bars on the river front and strolling through the night market down Jonker Street and trying all the local street foods. I have really enjoyed the Asian night markets, they have such a great atmosphere and this one did not disappoint. We tried a few new things, Puta Pining which is a rice flour steamed cake with coconut and gula melaka, which is a sugar made from the coconut palms. You had to order 5 at a time but when we first saw them a kind lady gave us one of her five and we loved it so much we got the full set the night after. We had some BBQ local sausages, Portuguese egg tart, popiah which is a local spring roll, and pineapple tarts which apparently were introduced by the British. They were a bit dry really so it’s a shame they are British legacy, we don’t have the best reputation for food around the world as it is.

Kuala Lumpur

The journey to KL was only 2 hours from Melaka by bus and a bargain of £2 each. The bus dropped us at an terminal outside of the centre and we had planned to get the local bus but were told by a tout the bus didn’t take cash and that we would need to purchase a card. He tried to sell us one for 25RM (£5) we thought this was a bit odd, but realised when the bus arrived we couldn’t pay cash and we did need one of these cards and went back into the terminal to purchase one. No one knew what we were on about, so we thought it would be easier to get a grab. The driver was the friendliest guy ever and gave us loads of tips of where to eat and shop. We arrived at our Space Hotel and checked into our capsule, we were pleasantly surprised that the capsule was inside a little room so we had privacy and could leave our bags out without having to lock them away each time like we did in Singapore. It was a pretty cool hotel with the theme running throughout. The reception was on the 3^rdfloor and our capsule on the 2^ndwith a slide running between floors. Being the big kids that we are, we had a go straight away, I somehow managed to give my knee a friction burn and Chris hit his ankle, we didn’t dare go on it again!

Day one

We had watched some of our favourite YouTubers in Kuala Lumpur, which helped us plan what we wanted to do and see, we also got some personal recommendations of bars to try out from friends that have been here too. A couple of food spots we wanted to try that the Best Ever Food Review Show had recommended were in Chinatown, so we headed there on our first day. We tried the Kim Soya Bean, soya bean pudding which was like solid warm milk with a brown sugar syrup – it was pleasant and super cheap but I wouldn’t say it was that memorable. The next dish we tried was the famous chicken rice clay pot at Hong Kee, which is a street side stall with tables and chairs on the pavement. We had a large one between us and it was more than enough, there was a sticky sweet sauce coating the rice and the chicken. The rice along the bottom was nice and crispy where it had stuck to the bottom, with a great smoky taste from the wood fire. The chicken was juicy and tender, except you have to be careful eating it as every bite has bones on it. Its super hard to get chicken out here that hasn’t just been put on a chopping board whole and hacked up. With a couple of fresh juices and this large clay pot was a cheap dinner at only £6.50. Wondering around China town is interesting as it is full of stalls selling fake watches, clothes and bags and loads of people just hanging around, we presumed they were look outs.

Day two

On our second day in the city we headed out to get some breakfast and found a local restaurant, ordered some banana roti’s and Teh Halia which is ginger spiced tea. The sweet banana roti worked really well with the spicy curry sauce, a great local breakfast. The ginger tea was like chai tea, a milky sweet black tea with the warmth from the ginger spice, again it was lovely, and what’s better is it was just over £2 for the both of us! After breakfast we strolled around the jungle, yes there is a jungle in the middle of the city had that been preserved, actually there are quite a few. It was up a hill and I soon got too hot and bothered and didn’t fancy another jungle trek today, so we headed out when we got to the 421 meter tall KL tower. You can go up the tower, but we decided on a few bars we would visit at sunset, so decided to save the money and skip the observation decks. We then headed through some shopping malls and bought a few new outfits, I wanted to get some more tops that cover my shoulders as with us being in mainly Muslim countries its best to dress a bit more reserved. We then set our eyes on the Petronus Towers in the distance, our next destination. These towers were the tallest in the world until 2004 when quite a few others took over the title, but they still hold the title for being the biggest twin towers in the world. They are 451.9 meters tall which is actually 34.9 meters taller than the twin towers were in New York and 141.9 meters bigger than The Shard in London. We stopped for some lunch at the Traders Hotel, they had a little café at the bottom of the hotel with the view of the park and the towers. After lunch we made our way through the park, stopping to take pictures of the towers along the way, the closer you get to them the more spectacular they are – the detail is beautiful. We made it to the photo point of the towers and snapped a few photos, they have such a unique design and are mesmerising up close.

Then we headed to the vertigo bar in the Bayon Tree Hotel, I always find the best way to take in a city is to get up high, have a sunset cocktail, and watch the sky line go from day to night. On the lift on the way up the lift operator was welcoming us but only spoke to Chris and only shook his hand, I haven’t noticed it as much as I thought I would but as Malaysia (and Indonesia) is a majority Muslim country they will often only address the male. The views of the bar did not disappoint, as we got there early we got a great table with a view of both the KL tower and the Petrous towers. Always budget conscious we ordered the ‘happy hour’ special which was two fruit margaritas for 55RM which is £11, such a bargain, we had a second round. They gave us some nuts and we sat enjoying the view, when the sun went down, and the buildings were all lit up it was beautiful. Chris loved this view with the mountains in the background. We had planned to get some dinner, but we filled up on nuts so just headed back to the hotel.

Day three

Our last day full day in KL & Malaysia. We headed to the central market which is an indoor market selling local crafts and souvenirs, we bought a couple of personalised luggage labels and then found a place for us to get a local breakfast. Chris had the banana roti again and I opted for a tosai which was like a thin pancake but had a slightly different texture to the roti, maybe rice flour. It was served with 3 different curry sauces, all were pretty mild, it was nice but the banana roti with the curry sauce was the better option. The teh halia were great again. We then headed to the train station to catch the train to the Batu Caves, the train wasn’t for another 45 minutes so rather than hanging around we decided to get a Grab. The Batu Caves is a popular Indian Hindu temple in the limestone caves on the edge of the city. This Indian Hindu temple is one of the most important Hindu temples outside of India. You have to climb 270 steps to reach the cave temple and outside guarding the stairs is a 42.7 meter high golden statue of Murugan (the God of War and Victory Commander of the Gods), and also A LOT of monkeys. People are so stupid around these monkeys, anything for a photo, I can’t imagine how many people get bit by them. We climbed the colourful steps and reached the temple. We have seen a lot of temples whilst we have been in Asia and this is unique being set in a cave but not the most spectacular, we have seen, so we didn’t really stay very long.

We then got the train back and headed to the National Museum, wandered to the 85 foot flag pole (one of the tallest in the world) which is where they declared independence in 1957. We then headed back to the central market to get a coffee, however, all I could taste was durian so it really put me off – I really can’t stand the stuff! In the evening we headed to another sky bar, this bar is actually a helipad by day, and then at night they put tables and chairs out and it becomes the most amazing bar. Having 360 views of the skyline was pretty awesome, but it was a lot busier than the bar we went to the evening before. Although the prices were the same the service was not comparable, however, it is one of the coolest bars we have been to. For dinner we headed to a place to get nasi kandar which is basically rice and curry and then had an early night and made a few more plans for Indonesia.

Bye Malaysia

Next were flying to Surabaya on the island of Java (Indonesia) to get up close and personal with some volcanos. This will also be the first time either of us have been in the southern hemisphere. We worked out the cheapest and easiest way to get to the airport was to take a bus, we booked our tickets online the night before. We arrived at the bus station and showed our tickets and the man said we needed to print them and to head upstairs to do this, so I left Chris with the bags and headed up to find the ticket office, the place was massive and I spent ages looking for the ticket office. In the end I found it, but it was closed and our bus was leaving in 10 minutes so I showed the men a picture of the closed office and he got quite aggressive with us and told us without the piece of paper he had no proof and we needed to print it. what I hadn’t understood is that we needed to just get the email printed off and not actually find the ticket office to pick up tickets. Chris went and got this sorted and we got on a slightly later bus.

Malaysia isn’t quite what we expected the people weren’t as friendly as most of the countries we have visited with the exception of our Grab drivers – they have been awesome. The food was good but not incredible. Don’t get me wrong we have enjoyed each place we have been, but for each country there are always one or two things we loved about it. We have liked things about Malaysia, but there’s nothing we ‘loved’.

We’ve now travelled over 12,500KM since arriving in Bangkok in February!

Lisa & Chris xx

Penang

After a 23 minute flight from Langkawi we arrived at our guesthouse in Georgetown at about 10.30am. Amazingly our room was ready, so we checked straight in and headed out to explore. First, we had a couple of things to do – post some bits home as we are getting tight with flight baggage allowances, also I (Chris) wanted a haircut. It was about a 20 minute walk to the post office, and when we got there we found it was closed on Sundays – I was quite annoyed as this now meant we had to carry the stuff we were posting around all day with us. We then walked another 15-20 mins to the hairdressers, which was fully booked. Although the morning was a bit of a failure, we did love walking through the streets of Georgetown. It is so full of character with the beautiful architecture, colours and friendly people. It feels so chilled out, especially for an Asian city which are usually so hectic. Even the traffic is very calm here, with everyone driving around so slowly. You can also really feel the British colonial influence here, with the architecture, UK plug sockets and people driving on the left.

We then walked up to Little India, this was a really vibrant area with lots of bright colours and loud music playing. As the Indian food has been so good in SE Asia, we decided to find a place to grab some lunch. We both had curry and rice, and to be honest it was pretty mediocre. The curry sauce was very thin and not particularly flavourful.

After this we went to a little Chinese coffee shop and Lisa ordered a dragon ball, it was a scoop of coconut ice cream coated in crushed ice and then covered in a rose syrup, however, the ice cream tasted like durian (the popular stinky fruit here in SE Asia). Lisa asked the lady if she had made a mistake and put durian instead of coconut but she said it was 100% coconut and that Lisa must have a phobia of durian. The durian smell is so strong we think it must have tainted the flavour of the other ice creams.

We decided to drop our stuff back in the room, and then walked back into the centre. We spent some time walking around exploring the interactive street art (for which Georgetown is famous for). We also wandered down some of the jetties (Chew Jetty is the main one), where people live on in stilted houses. There are lots of Chinese immigrants in Georgetown, and the jetty really reminded us of Tai O – the stilted fishing village we visited in Hong Kong. We stopped by a hawker centre (street food outlets) in the evening for some food, and then headed back to the guesthouse for an early night.

Day 2

We started with a second attempt at posting some stuff home. We were quite confused when we arrived, and stood by a counter for a while waiting for someone. Then we saw a load of locals press a button for a ticket when they arrived, so we did the same. But of course after waiting for our number to be called, we found out we’d pressed the wrong button, so had to queue up a second time. Once we arrived at the correct counter, the ladies were super helpful (and so was google translate!). We sent back about 4KG of souvenirs and clothes which cost about £50, so not cheap, but cheaper than paying extra baggage allowance on the flights.

We tried a few different foods today which our guesthouse had recommended to us. First stop was a little Chinese tea house, where we had a Chinese cookie and egg tart. The Chinese cookie was quite dry and not really to my taste. The egg tart was lovely though, very similar to the egg tarts we have in the UK, but not as sweet and with a more flakey pastry (and the same as the one we had in Hong Kong).

We also stopped at a bakery for coconut tart, which was delicious, I would definitely have those again. The bakery also let us try some pepper biscuit, which tasted much better than it sounds.

Later in the afternoon we went to the Antarabangsa Enterprise, which apparently has the cheapest beer in Georgetown. It was a really cool place with lots of tables outside, and shortly after arriving a local gentleman (Andrew) asked if he could join us. We had a nice chat with him, he said he works at a hotel 6 days a week and stops there for a beer most evenings after work. I told him all about Watford FC of course. The Premier League is really popular all over Asia, so it’s a pretty easy conversation starter – especially when people see my Watford shirt. There are so many Liverpool fans in Malaysia, and of course they have all been proudly wearing their shirts. The guesthouse owners are all Kopites and every time I walk in they start chanting ‘Watford!’, then hold up their Liverpool shirts and start talking about their Champions League victory.

We’d heard Assam Laksa is a very famous Malaysian dish, so headed to Penang Road Teochew Chendul to try some. Lisa ordered this, and I ordered a Curry Mee, which Andrew had told us is his favourite Malaysian dish. We both agreed I won this one! The Assam Laksa was tasty, with a big mix of flavours (fish, sour, spicy, sweet), but the Curry Mee was delicious! It was very similar to the Penang Curry we had in Thailand, and was a creamy, delicately spiced curry. It was more of a soup than a curry, but still very nice. For desert we had a Chendul, which is green rice flour jelly, coconut milk, kidney beans and crushed ice. I don’t usually like kidney beans, but they worked really well in this. It was quite a nice desert to be fair, but I don’t think I’ll be rushing back for another.

Day 3

In the morning we took a walking tour. Our guide grew up in Georgetown and took us around some of the local art pieces, temples and historic buildings telling us about the history. We learnt that a lot of people on the island were from India or China, the Indians brought over by the British to build the roads and the Chinese promised wealth from working in the tin mines, he said back then most people in China were very poor and they often just started a new life in Malaysia because they couldn’t afford to return or they lost contact with relatives as if they ever sent a letter home to their family, all the villagers would know and ask how much money had been sent and that they wanted some of it too, so no money no letter. He told us of the Chinese maffia and showed us where these gangs operated from during the tour. His family were originally from China, and he told us how a lot of people would die of starvation in China back then, and in that fact his grandmother died of starvation. They couldn’t understand why, as although she couldn’t afford to feed herself, her son gave her food. They then found out she had been putting the local hungry children first and passing all the food to them.

We had been recommended to try the coffee shop China House, it had over 50 different types of cakes and the servings were huge we actually couldn’t manage to eat it all and took the rest home for supper. The China House was massive and ran from one street to the next through a thin long building, a couple of doors down was an art corridor with some more amazing art inside.

We went back to our favourite bar for an evening beer, thinking we might bump into Andrew again when he finished work, however, this evening a local called Dennis sat with us. Dennis was about 36 hours into a drinking session and sat with 3 cans of 6.9% Fosters in front of him. He owns a guesthouse which he was inviting us to stay at and spent most of the time complaining about the guests from last night. He also invited us back to his guesthouse for a party, which we politely declined. He was pleasant enough to be honest, but quite hard work so we finished our drinks and left (not before he was telling us he used to play football for the Malaysian national team – not sure how true that was!). We were both hungry so stopped for some pork and rice not far from the bar which had been recommended to us. It was a busy street food restaurant, and we managed to get one of the last tables. The food was very simply plain rice with the pork roasted on a spit. It was so simple, yet so tasty – we both loved it.

The next morning we took a Grab to the airport to catch our flight to Sumatra, which we were both very excited about!

Chris and Lisa x

Langkawi

We checked out of our hotel in Koh Lipe, after which the manager gave us a ride in her motorbike sidecar to the Thai immigration office which is actually a small office straight on the beach! Chris did a little video to show it but got called back by the immigration officer and was told to delete it -oopsy! Our boat to Langkawi was little bigger then the one that brought us to Koh Lipe, so we had to get a long tail boat from the beach to it. We had heard this happens and usually you have to pay however we never did, so must have been included. Malaysia is our 7th country of the trip and we have been looking forward to the food and the different culture it has to offer.

Day 1

We arrived in Langkawi at the ferry port which was about 20km from where we were staying on the island. Its always hard to know what the prices of things are from country-to-country and when you’re fresh off the boat you’re an easy target for scams. We always walk away from the touts and work out the best way to travel, that’s if we haven’t already worked it out before we’ve arrived. As we were getting cash out a German girl traveling on her own asked us where we were staying and if we knew how to get there. We found a Starbucks hung outside to get onto the free wifi (unfortunately Starbucks does not fit into our daily budget!) and ordered the Grab for the 3 of us. The 30 minute taxi journey was only 23 ringgit which is £4.34 so we let her ride with us for free, Grab has been really handy for us whilst we have been traveling. We checked into our guest house and headed out for some lunch, Chris has found a cheap highly-rated restaurant on the main street. We managed to get a meal and a drink each for only 16 Ringgit which was just over £3 and it was soooooo tasty! Langkawi is a duty free island so there is plenty of opportunity for shopping, we did wonder around a few shops just to browse. We tried to get some cheeky perfume samples but they were all locked away! We then headed on to Cenang beach and it was so busy, it was about 5.30pm by this time so we were shocked to see so many people on the beach. Its not really a beach you could relax at, it’s more of a water sports area, so as we strolled the 1km from one end to the other we were asked by at least 10 stalls if we wanted a jet ski, banana boat or to parasail. We decided to find a restaurant for dinner and found a few cheap options on Trip Advisor, the ones with the one pound sign are usually our kinda place, but all of them were closed. We thought we would just head back to the place we went for lunch (Bellas) but that shut at 4.30pm. We realised that with it being the holy month of ramadan and Malaysia mainly being a muslim country, a lot of the more local restaurants were actually closed/ opened much later on. We ended up going to a Syrian restaurant for dinner and ordering the cheapest thing on the menu a Chicken kebab – it was a pretty good kebab actually, and Syrian cuisine was a first for both of us.

Day 2

One of the things we had been recommended to do here in Langkawi was to go up the cable car. So this was the plan for the day. We headed back to Bellas for breakfast and both had a roti and a coffee and a big bottle of water and the bill was only £2! Roti is a type of bread originating from India and was a firm favourite of ours in Thailand. The roti in Malaysia is little bit different, I think maybe they are thicker but still super tasty. After breakfast we got a Grab to the cable car which is situated in a park called the ‘Oriental Village’. Our ticket also included a few other attractions within the village – a 360 video experience, a 3D museum and a 4D experience. It looked pretty clear at the top so we joined the queue, which took about 30minutes. By the time we got to the top it was cloudy so we couldn’t see anything, just our luck! After about 30minutes or so the clouds cleared a bit just enough for us to see some of the beautiful national park surrounding us and the coast below. There was a couple of other things you could do at the top – a sky bridge, walk and a tram ride but with the clouds moving over again we thought we would give it a miss and headed back down.

As I mentioned our ticket included a few other attractions, so we went to the 360 video experience, It was a rollercoaster set on Mars and actually made me feel quite motion sick. Next we headed to the 3D art museum, this was a really cool place where you could interact with the art for comedy photos. There was a random show half way round which had a few cool effects in bringing the art to life but it was no Disney put it that way! We were fed up of queueing by this point so decided to give the 4D experience a miss.

Nadia at our guest house had also recommended a waterfall near by called 7 wells waterfall. At the top is 7 pools of water surrounded by jungle and a view of the ocean, so basically a natural infinity pool. We found a little path on maps.me and headed there from the village. It turned into a bit of a trek and the 600 odd steps from the bottom of the waterfall to the top were no easy feat. However I did get to see the cutest little black dusky leaf monkey in the trees along the way. When we reached the top I was ready for that refreshing dip in the water. Some of the pools were actually quite steep, and well lets put it this way, I’m glad Chris didn’t have the camera out when I was struggling to get out – although it might have made us bit of money! Some kids were sliding from one pool to the next on the naturally formed slides, but we didn’t see many adults give it a go and neither one of us fancied carrying the other down so thought we should give it a miss.

Armed with some recommendations of cheap local food for dinner, we headed out, to find the restaurant closed! We wondered around bit and came across a little restaurant attached to the nearby rainbow hostel and decided to give it a go. We tried the local dish of roti canai, which is basically the roti bread with a small curry. The dish was only 8 Ringgit so like £1.50 and so tasty, the curry was packed full of flavour without it being too spicy. Bellas was actually closed for Eid celebrations (end of ramadan) so we ended up having breakfast and dinner here the next day too. We always try to try new things but we were stuck for affordable options here in Langkawi.

Day 3

We had been told the beaches in the north are the best and much quieter than the one nearby, so we got a taxi to the other side of the island and had a relaxing afternoon on the Tanjung Rhu beach. We have been spoilt with beaches on the islands whilst we have been traveling and whilst this beach was beautiful it really wasn’t a patch on those on Koh Lipe or Koh Rong Samloem. After a spot of sunbathing and a dip in the sea we went to the beach bar and ordered the cheapest drinks on the menu, a couple of juices at 8 Ringgit each so like £1.60, when they brought our change over we thought they had short changed us. However, we soon realised they had given us more expensive drinks either by their or our mistake which doubled the price, so frustrating! I did find an awesome shell so all in all a good day out! In the evening we planned some more of our last couple of months and have some super exiting things to look forward too.

Tomorrow we’re getting a flight to Penang to explore Georgetown, our next stop in Malaysia. We were going to get the boat but the flight was cheaper at only £8.90 each, and it’s much faster at only 35 minutes so a no brainer!

Lisa & Chris