Wanderings in SEA - part 1: Malaysia

 In 2O22, finally borders reopened, so I had the chance to visit new countries - outside Thailand! :-) At the same time, living in Bangkok also kind of grew on me - I came as close as to liking it, let's say. But this time, come with me on a journey and explore some bits of Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and finally Vietnam - for now! :-)

                                                  

                                                            Landing in Pulau Pinang. 

1. Malaysia

You know for a long time, that I love reading. One of my favourite books is "The Garden of the Evening Mists" by Tan Twan Eng, who is a Malaysian-Strait Chinese writer, located in England. This (and other novels of his) take place in Malaysia, so there was no question which country and place will be the first target for me outside of the land of smiles. 

Since Malaysia and Singapore are nearby, I did a short loop during my August holidays: my itinerary was as follows: 

BKK --» Penang, Kuala Lumpur --» Singapore, Singapore --» Phuket, Phuket --» Bangkok. 

Actually, Phuket came up just like that because the airplane algorithm offered it and I knew that otherwise I wouldn't go and visit it. But since it was quite close to Singapore, I did the visit actually and spent 3 days on the island. 

My itinerary for Malaysia was as follows: 

3 days in Georgetown
3 nights in Cameron Highlands (Tan Twan Eng books!)
3 days in KL... where I moved on from to Singapore. 

I can very easily grow tired of Thailand because no one understands me, I don't understand Thai, and most of the time travelling here is kind of frustrating for me. :-( Sad. But true! :D (See previous entry.) I knew that English is widely spoken in Malaysia, so I was looking forward to the new experience. Mind you, this time there were still many COVID-restrictions in place which also meant that I had to download countless applications on my phone where I had to upload my Vaccine Passport and what not, arrival-departure times and flight numbers, and so and so forth. It was all checked before boarding too, so glad that I did it! :-) And this time, everything went really really smoothly. 

I also downloaded the necessary maps from maps.me - that offline map application I use - and I bought a 1O-day roaming package for Malaysia, as well. (I supposed that there would be WiFi everywhere in Singapore, but I also knew that there is Grab in Malaysia, so I thought I might need to use that.)

(Grab = an app where you can order food, taxi, delivery, etc.)

So after the necessary precautions, I set up for the adventure - of course, collecting the advice from Debra too to exchange money before going... and here I went! :-) 

The moment I landed in Penang, I felt... a zest of the air. It was somehow different. 

Everything was in English - all the names, really, as a former British colony, names like Georgetown, Butterworth, etc, sometimes with Chinese characters, but everything was transcribed nevertheless. There was a wide mixture of people, too: Indians, lots of white people, Strait Chinese, etc. I looked up the info of the hostel where it said which bus to take and till which stop, to reach the destination, so upon landing, I headed to bus No. 4O. Where I encountered the first problem: the bus has tickets where you slip in the money but it doesn't give back any change. Luckily, a Thai person also wanted to take the same bus and he had the correct amount of money, so I paid him in Thai baht - and I didn't need to lose 2O ringits right away. (The bus costs something like 4?). 

Just arriving at Georgetown was a huge shift and an interesting change after Thailand. In one sentence, it could be described like this: 

A Chinese lady is burning jolt sticks in front of her European/Peranak style house door while there is the sound of the muezzin. 

Ah, so different, so sweet. :-)  I loved the atmosphere immediately. I loved the multiculturality, where I had chance to hear English, Chinese, Indian, Malay, and other languages. I enjoyed that I could read the scripts and everything, and I didn't have to struggle. The streets were straightforward, I found the hostel easy and it just... everything clicked together. I thought I would never travel anymore, but here I was, again on a trip and it seemed that I could leave all my frustration behind. :-) 

I arrived quite in the afternoon-early evening, so it didn't give me too much time to discover the city, but anyway, I went out for a quick moment to hunt food in the nearby streets. And surprisingly, almost everything closed by 8. Finally, I chose these walnuts noodles near a Hindu temple - which I have no idea what they are called but they were extremely delicious  and simple - and sadly, nowhere to be found later on my trip. 

Here are some pictures of my first impressions of the island: 

Waiting for the bus.

Trying to find the hostel and awing at the skyscapers. 

Little shrine for incense sticks to light up.

The hostel's inside. I was scared at first: the bathrooms were quite run-down and it's been a while since I shared room with so many people. 

Next to my hostel. Gotta love the architecture!

Walnut noodle something something. Yummy! 

The following day, I decided to explore the city a little bit. I visited some streets, the Ghost and the Upside Down museum, and just was wandering around up and down the town. It was easy to get lost in the little alleys and get trapped by the beautiful architecture. I liked that - unlike in Bangkok - the streets ran parallel and thus I could explore without the fear of being really lost: one street I walked up, the other one I walked down and I came back to square O. So, it was easy! (I used maps.me though to find the museums.) I also found a super cute book café, where I completed reading the current novel I was reading. Meanwhile I tried many new foods: like: Nasi Lemak, Dahl sauce, Roti, roti and roti - which is completely different and not like the roti I could eat in Bangkok: it's softer and served with a spicy sauce. Malaysian food is based mainly on Indian food, I found. I also tried to search for all the famous wall murals that Georgetown is famous for. :-) 

Glimpses from the Ghost museum which was really really interesting and I learnt about a lot of legends throughout SEA. 

UNESCO World Heritage building. 

The book café, called Nook. :-)

Next to the building I took with my Polaroid. 

Murals and buildings. Love the arcadic style - it's from the Portuguese. 

Murals hidden everywhere!

The oldest Chinese style house. 

Chong Fatt Ze building - now functioning as a hotel. 

Finishing the day off with a Hokkien style noodle soup. Hokkien are those Chinese inhabitants, who originate themselves from Fujian province, mainland China. 

The next day, I headed to Komintern which is the local terminal to buy my tickets to Cameron Highlands and also to take the bus to Penang Hill. Penang Hill is a hill in the centre of the island where you can take a train (fogaskerekű or cable car in English) to the top where there are various touristic routes. The original rainforest is cut out for most of the parts, so the routes are very artificial per se, but it was good as I was wandering alone. This also meant that I did not meet any snakes/spiders/strange animals. It was really good! :-) I was walking up and down for hours and on the way back, I met one of my hostel mates who just told me about the Komintern tower which is around 6O storey high and has a bar on the top. A glass-made, rooftop bar. We headed there to take pictures of the nightlife of Georgetown, as well. So cool! :-) But I didn't stay up too late as I had to check out quickly. I had time for one more tosay at the bus stop, so on the third day, I managed to get to Cameron Highlands, to Tanah Rata, the setting of my novel. 

On the way to Penang Hill - some shrines, some temples, some interesting buildings. 

I am really in Malaysia! 

Rainforesty-view.

Run-down train. 

The Atmosphere- viewpoint.

The view from Penang Hill.

Saw real pitcher plant - or as they call it in Malaysia: monkey cup!

Chickpeas and... very delicious yet a bit spicy!

Just finishing off book No.1 before I jump on to Book No.2!

You can only step on the glass ceiling barefoot.

Night view. 

Wandering in the forest and later in the mountains made me feel as if I was in South America. It made me question: maybe it's not Ecuador that I miss but mountains and nature. I'm very fortunate that I could do this trip. It was a nice refreshement after smoggy-foggy Bangkok. (Needless to say that I already started to look up for jobs from this area, haha! :-D ). 

The mountains were amazing. I love them. I felt a bit stupid because I didn't do the "normal" or "proper" touristy stuff and you know, backpackers can be a bit mean to each other too. There is always a hidden comopetition among backpackers: who does more, who makes it from lesser budget, etc., and when they asked me and I only answered I'm here to visit only the tea plantations, they looked at me like "huh?!" But no worries, me being me still got into some adventures! :-) 

    First of all, I didn't want to be late for the bus so I got to the main bus stop in Penang really early: there was no food, no drink selling stall, just one working toilet and ... basically it was in the middle of nothing. No worries, as I had a book on me, it was okay to pass the 2+ hours - and plus one because the bus was apparently - late. The journey was supposed to be around 4 hours but it ended up being 6. You know, topsy-turvy serpentines and such. The bus went through Ipoh. It is funny because I felt nostalgic throughout the whole journey: maybe mountains make this effect on me, but maybe it's just me, having read the Book No.2 (The Garden of Evening Mists) at least once a year, that I felt like having visited these places for countless times. It was truly wonderful and to be honest, if I hadn't done anything from Tanah Rata, I would have been that happy as now, too. I made it! :-) Me, who doesn't dare to travel around Thailand, who is afraid of communicating in Thai for the fact of being laughed at, I really did it and went to the famous scenery of my favourite book! It's really a bookwormy thing to do but anyway. I did it. :-) 

Now enjoy the views: 

The first day, I visited BOH Tea Plantation, and on the second day, I visited Cameron Hill Tea Plantations. Both times, I took a taxi there. (Apparently, there are no more buses because of after-covid closures.) I was afraid a bit at first, that I will be cheated with the price but in the village, there is a big sticker which shows all the prices of the taxis. I think I prefer the second tea plantation - it's closer. If I did it again, I would probably try to walk up the little hill, as it is less than 4 km-s away, and all the time available from the main road. Coming back from the BOH plantation, I managed to jump in to another people's taxi who also came here for a visit, and dropped out of Brichang where I visited the Time Travel Museum. It's like the perfect continuation of the Jetty Museum in Kanchanaburi! I got really emotional by this visit and discovered some other things too! But first, let's show the pictures: 

Pictures on the road.

My little pod for the night.

The whole village looks like a little Alp's village somewhere in Austria. It was pretty cold as well, I wore a coat all the time. Still, I couldn't escape catching a cold. :-(

Tea and tea and more tea! :-)

Above the clouds lived once a man who had been the gardener of the Emperor of Japan.

I collected some strawberries on the way, too. It was a bit of expensive thing to do because first of all, they only have availability for 2 people, so I paid the double price. Plus, I paid extra because I collected more than it was supposed to.... :-) Whatever, the strawberries were delicious but advice for newcomers: you can skip this experience! :-)

Back to town... :-)

A little church and school on the hill... 

After such a long trip, I got really hungry. Paan - Indian food - with Dahl sauce. Strawberry/nutella Paan.

Tan's Camelia garden.

Cameron Valley Tea Plantation. :-)

This picture doesn't do them justice but on the way back, I saw some hauling monkeys who were playing on the trees. I saw them on a camping trip back in May, too. It was really nice and they have like a human-like face. 

Here is a better picture of them from Thailand: 

A cute postbox in town again. :-) 

As I said, I enjoyed Cameron Valley more because I had the chance to walk down to the tea leaves, smell them and as TTE says: 

The fragrance of the mountains. One who lived there, will never forget about it.

And here is a story, I read about in Time Tunnel Museum: 

There is a man who's widely known in Thailand called Jim Thompson because he collected silk clothes and revived the industry. He also used to build teak houses and just general - he was set up in South East Asia. He apparently also had tea or coffee houses and that's why he did numerous trips to Malaysia, to visit the tea plantations there. When he stayed in Malaysia, he stayed with a Strait Chinese family, the Lings. He loved taking trips to the jungle nearby. One day, on a particular rainy day, he took a trip to the jungle and he was never found (nor his body). Lings didn't start to look for him for a day, because he often stayed in the jungle before overnight, as well. But as time passed, they also got worried. The last reports said once he was taking the ultimate trip of his into the jungle, Mr Ling even offered him to walk with him but he refused... And so started the legends. And, so started the inspiration (probably) for Tan Twan Eng. Read the book if you have a chance. :-)

Finally, my last stop in Malaysia (this time) was Kuala Lumpur because by now I absorbed so much history about the Peranakan (Indian and Chinese) people, as well as the Portuguese colonnial style that I wanted to see Malacca, Langkawi, and so on...! But by now, I had a major sore throat so my first thing was to test myself for Covid (luckily, I came out as negative). In Kuala Lumpur, the weather changed really fast: the first night I got soaked. It didn't help me to get better. I booked a fancy hotel for KL because I knew I won't be able to do it in SG. It had a pool and a wonderful view, but by now I couldn't enjoy it. I was even too sick to climb the Batu Caves. The only thing that kept me going and falling asleep was that KL indeed is not that far away from BKK. I can and will be back at some point. :-) It would be nice! 

    It looked like after sleeping a day I felt better, so I could further enjoy the Lasi Nemaks, Roti with dahl sauce and the fancy murals around KL, too. I managed to visit the Petronas Twin Tower, which is one of the highest buildings in SEA with a bridge being on FL 42. It's actually quite interesting: the bridge is not attached to any of the towers, it slightly sways, as the towers are swaying in the wind and in the air in case of heavy winds. The whole thing is cool though! It has a really good architecture and some Muslim symbols since Malaysia is a Muslim state. The whole building is a shopping mall with lots of food stalls and clothes shopping, etc. 

One thing I loved in KL, it was also about the public transportation. It has an awesome transportation, lots of sky trains, metros and so on - which is surprising because Bangkok has a much larger population but only 3-4 metro lines whereas KL has at least 9 lines. (And they are all connected. Maybe the only annoying point is that you always have to keep buying tickets for them, as there is not a unified skytrain card like the Rabbit card here.)

Ok, let again the pictures speak: 

There are two metro lines which cross each other in the main shopping mall or KLCC centre. 

Some metro cars - as the mural indicates - are only for women.

Nasi Lemak with a fancy view.

Batu caves. There is a Hindu shrine built in there.. 

... and lots of monkeys. There were golden stairs and a Hanuman god statue (the biggest / tallest statue of the world? of this deity, at least) but I was too weak to walk up. Rather, I sat from a distance from the monkeys and drank a huge coconut. 

Petronas towers from outside. 

The city of lights - but I couldn't enjoy it too much. :-( 

A quick bubble tea at the bus terminal before taking the bus to the airport... 

... to be continued....! :-)