Malaysia - Penang and then back to KL

We arrived in Penang, an island off the north west coast of Peninsula Malaysia and checked into the great apartment that Dad had booked for us in Georgetown. We had planned to stay here for 4 nights but we ended up staying for 10.

Dad went to a private hospital, which was conveniently located about a 5 minute walk from the apartment (we could actually see the hospital from our balcony) and they said that they could arrange an MRI scan for the same day and that they would keep him in the hospital overnight. Anyway, to cut a long story short, Dad ended us having key-hole surgery on his right knee and was in hospital for a week. When he came out he had a few days with us in the apartment and we hired a wheelchair so he could go out. Luckily, after a lot of hassle with the insurance company, they told us that they would pay for all of the medical bills and they arranged for them to get back to the UK. They ended up flying from Penang to KL and then they got their original flights home but Dad got upgraded to Business Class. So all in all it was rather a disastrous holiday.

I also went to see a doctor in Penang and received the happy news that my corneal ulcer had healed. I think I'll be sticking to glasses until we get out of the tropics though, just to be on the safe side!

In between hospital visits Nic, Mum and I did manage to see some sights.

Here's me and Mum at Fort Cornwallis, which was built when Captain Francis Light first landed in Penang. The brolly is for the sun not the rain:



They have many lovely buildings in Georgetown; this is the Town Hall:


We went to the museum and saw the Rolls Royce that had belonged to Sir Henry Gurney, the former British High Commissioner who was shot dead. The Rolls ended up with 32 bullet holes!



Due to the important Gurneys who lived here, we now have our own road, hotels, shopping mall and food stalls. This is the mall:



This is a shot of Gurney Drive:




The 3 of us went for a drive around the island and took in some sights, here's Mum at a fruit stall in Balik Pulau sniffing some very smelly Durian fruit.


We also went to the amazing Kek Lok Si Temple (temple of supreme bliss). It's built on the hillside and looks amazing from the road below. It has a 30 metre high bronze statue of Kuan Yin:


These fellas wanted their photo taken with Nic???







This pagoda is 7 storeys high and you can walk up it to get amazing views of Georgetown:








This is the hospital were poor Dad spent most of his holiday:



The 3 of us had another outing to see some of the wonderful temples in Georgetown. This is Khoo Kongsi, the most renowned of Penang's Hokkien clanhhouses.




The man below apparently eats ghost!


We're not sure what this man is doing?


This is Han Jing Ancestral temple:

These guys were flogging Durian, the whole temple stunk of it (think cheesy feet smell!)



I think these two may have drunk enough!!


We had lunch and then got Dad some take-away. Here's Mum with his bag of iced-coffee:


On our last night we had a lovely dinner in the very posh East Oriental Hotel. A fitting end to our strange holiday.


Yesterday Mum and Dad started their trip home and Nic and I drove the 5 hours back to the hotel in KL. It was so sad to say goodbye. I miss them very much.

Now it's the two of us again and tomorrow we're going to cycle out of KL (should be fun!) to the bus station so we can get a bus to Melaka and then we plan to cycle up the west coast back to Penang! I think it might take us more than 5 hours on the bikes!

Malaysia - KL to Penang by car

We arrived at Kuala Lumpur bus station at 4.30 am and then cycled to the hotel. One good thing about arriving in the middle of the night is being able to cycle on empty dual-carriageways that during the day you wouldn't want to go any where near on a bike!

We arrived at the hotel at 5.30am and thank god the night receptionist let us in and told us that they had a room available. So we got to check in 8 hours early! We went to bed to get some much-needed sleep and then waited for my Mum and Dad to arrive. We got a phone call from Dad who said that they had made it to a bar around the corner and that is where we had our tearful reunion. It was so wonderful to see them.

That afternoon I went to an eye centre and found out that I had a corneal ulcer on my right eye. Oh dear! Luckily it was treatable with anti-biotic drops and the doc told me to go back and see her in 2 days.

Also, whilst we were in KL my Dad injured his knee and it was really painful for him to walk. He went to the hospital but they just gave him really strong painkillers and anti-inflammatory medication.

We did manage to have a few outings, including a party at friend of a friend's. Dad was asked to do some magic tricks and everyone enjoyed the performance. We met some nice ex-pats and the evening ended with free drinks at posh bar until 3am.


Whilst in KL we left Dad in the apartment and visited the Bird Park. We had a really lovely time there. Here are 2 visitors having a crazy bird-experience! I like the way she's hugging the hornbill; I guess he likes it!


A Hornbill feeding it's chick:


They had adorable chicks and ducklings. Aaaaa.




We left KL and in our hire car we drove to an Elephant Sanctuary. Poor Dad waited for us whilst we went off and fed, rode on and washed elephants. Their habitat is being removed and so this place is sadly necessary.

Here's one ellie having fun at bath time:


Mum with a couple of baby ellies:


Nic got the opportunity to help wash 2 baby ellies; due to my eye problem I couldn't help but it was fun to watch and take photos:




Our first ever ellie ride:


Nic, our sole driver, drove us up to Fraser Hill, which is about 1500 metres above sea-level and therefore quite chilly. This is the view from the apartment:



Here's Nic relaxing in our enormous, but rather dated apartment:



The following day Nic drove us back down the hill, along the highway and then all the way up to the Cameron Highlands. More very twisty steep roads with great views. Cameron Highlands is very touristy and there are huge resorts. We found a small hotel to stay in and had 2 nights there.

Nic, Mum and I had a trip to a tea plantation:


The following day we had a drive up the highest tarmaced road on Peninsula Malaysia which had more great views:



We left Cameron Highlands and drove to Penang, where it all went a bit pear-shaped!

Last week on East Coast Peninsula Malaysia

We left Dungun and continued cycling north up the east coast to Kuala Besut. We stayed the night in the small harbour town in Marang and the following day we cycled to Merang through Kuala Terengganu and saw the huge mosque (edutainment) complex, which includes this floating mosque.


On the 11th June we woke up in our cabin/shed in Merang and Nic gave me a lovely home-made birthday card and this key-ring. (Our presents to each other our very lavish as you can see!)


We then cycled to Kuala Besut, left the bikes behind and got the boat to Pulau Perhentian Besar. Here's me looking very happy:

I had a lovely birthday and we spent the evening sitting on the gorgeous beach, drinking the local 'monkey juice' and chatting with the people from the dive centre.


We had a few days diving and chilling out. Our cabin was next to the dive centre so we didn't have far to go. Here is the shot of our dive centre and our cabin:



While we were here I had a problem with my right eye and although I could still dive I knew I had to get it checked out. It was very sore and red.

We left the tropical paradise, were reunited with our bikes and then we got the 'night' bus to Kuala Lumpur.

Hello Malaysia

On Wednesday 25th May we set off early and cycled out of Singapore along the coast to Changi Point to get the ferry over to Malaysia. On the way we saw hundreds of ships in the harbour and lots of people doing their morning Tai Chi.

The small boat left once there was 12 people and we were the first. Luckily 6 men turned up after about 10 minutes but then we had to wait for an hour until 3 more people arrived, making 11 in total. Instead of waiting again we all paid and extra S$1 (50p) and finally got on board. The crossing took just over an hour and then we arrived in Malaysia and got a 90 day visa for free!



We got on the bikes in the midday heat and cycled about 50 km to Desaru. How different from Indonesia? Smooth, empty roads surrounded by plantations. We only passed a few shops and houses and we wondered if we would be able to find somewhere to stay. We passed a few closed or very shabby resorts and eventually arrived in Desaru. Desaru had some pricey resorts but we found a cheaper place that was very old and unloved but at least it had a pool.

We've now been in Malaysia for about 2 weeks and the cycling has been very easy, although it's very hot here and if there are no clouds it's roasting from about 10am. The terrible cycling tan is coming on a treat! We have also seen lots of beautiful jungle, full of naughty monkeys.

Here I am taking shelter in front of one of the many Palm Oil plantations :

After Desaru we cycled to Kota Tingga, a small friendly town with no tourists. We ended up having 2 nights there so we could have a lie-in.

Next we cycled to Mersing, another small friendly town but this time with tourists, who were all there to get a boat to Pulau Tioman. We had 2 nights in Mersing and ate at a very cheap restaurant with fab Indian food with a very friendly waitress that kept taking photos of us.

We then got the boat over to Air Batang, Pulau Tioman and had 3 nights on this beautiful tropical island. We did some diving and snorkelling and very little else. Bliss!





Here is our little cabin on the beach:


They also have this sign on the Island telling the Muslims what will happen to them if they drink alcohol - nice!

We had one final night in Mersing and the waitress was so excited to see us that she constantly came over to give me huge hugs. How lovely is that?

Next we cycled to Kuala Rompin and when we had dinner the man at the next table, who we'd chatted to briefly, secretly paid for our dinner. The Malaysian people are so generous.

The following day we cycled to Pekan and we were struggling to find a place to stay as it's the school holidays. Anyway, we ended up at a new Guest House on a golf course, next to the Royal Polo Club and the Sultan's Palace. It was quite surreal but the new owners of the place were really helpful. The following morning we chatted to them and we told them that it was our wedding anniversary the following day and Asmastini gave me a silver bracelet as a gift. Amazing.

Here is me with Asmastini and her lovely hubby:


We cycled to Telok Chempedak and saw this sign on the way:


We arrived at 12pm but couldn't check in to the hotel until 3pm, so we went and watched all the Malaysian families having fun on the beach.

The next day (our 2nd wedding anniversary) we cycled the short distance to Cherating, where we spent 2 nights ralaxing and hiding from the sun.

Yesterday we cycled to Kuala Dungun and stayed at a wonderful guest house in Bidara Bay with a lovely couple that rescue, neuter and take care of dozens of very fortunate cats. They took us out for dinner and really looked after us. They've named a kitten "Liverpool" after us; we hope it survives. Here is Marcel, one of the pampered pusses.


Here is Nic with Hashim and Ayahchik. Such lovely hosts.


Here is a Hornbill that we saw on our travels.


Hope you are still following our journey, we've not had any comments for ages. Are you all getting bored of us?

Singapore

We left Jogyakarta, Java, Indonesia on Friday 20th May and flew to Singapore. We got a taxi to our hotel as we weren't allowed to take our bikes on the MRT (train). Welcome to Singapore - lots of rules but also incredibly clean and organised. We felt a bit in shock after the chaos of Indonesia.

We loved our lovely clean, air-conditioned room with hot water and TV and it was a novelty to be able to brush our teeth with tap water again.

We stayed in Little India for 5 nights and we thoroughly enjoyed the amazing Indian food there. We hadn't had a decent curry for 20 months, since we left the UK. Yum!

Whilst in Singapore we met up with a friend, who we'd first met whilst diving on the Barrier Reef. Since we'd seen him 10 months ago he'd got married and had a baby. Wow! This is Mike, his lovely wife Mai and their brand new 5 day old baby girl, Leah.



We saw a few sights in Singapore, including the Raffles Hotel and of course the amazing buildings around Marina Bay.



We also met up with a very nice guy from "warmshowers" called Chuen, who kindly bought us ice-cream and told us about the other cyclists that he's met over the past year or so.

We also met up with my Dad's mate Terry in Boat Quay and he very kindly bought us dinner and lots of beer. Here is Nic with Terry after a few jars. Thanks Terry for the great night out.


Singapore felt like Disney World to us after Indonesia but we were glad to get back on the bikes and start our next adventure in Malaysia.