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| Other countries sue_and_nathan visited in yearaway |
| Australia (4) |
| Cambodia (2) |
| Czech Republic (1) |
| India (6) |
| Indonesia (2) |
| Japan (1) |
| Malaysia (6) |
| New Zealand (2) |
| Singapore (1) |
| Thailand (7) |
| United Kingdom (2) |
| Vietnam (4) |
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| We arrived in Malaysia after a very long overnight train journey from Bangkok feeling knackered and skungy only to find that the first train to KL didn't leave for another ten hours! This wouldn't have been so bad had we not been in Butterworth where there is absolutely nothing apart from a train station and a port. So we hopped on a ferry to Georgetown in Penang for the afternoon. We realised when we got there that it would have been a really nice place to have stopped for a few days, but our onward ticket was already booked. Penang has a real ex-colonial feel to it, full of crumbling shophouses and cycle rickshaws. We went into the recently reopened Eastern and Oriental Hotel (this is where the British planters first came when they stepped off the P+O ferry from Dover) and sat at the bar drinking Penang Punch. We got to KL early the next day and tried to check into a hotel only to find that we'd have to wait another 4 hours for any rooms to be ready. By this point we had had two nights trying to sleep on trains, so we were shattered, and hadn't had a wash or changed our clothes in this time, so we were smelly as well!! Spent seven days in KL replacing our now worn out clothes. KL really is the best place for shopping. There is shopping plaza on top of shopping plaza (there is even the S&M Shopping Arcade although we steered clear!) They're all so big you could easily get lost (as we did!) and end up wandering aimlessly for hours...days...in fact, you could easily get old before you find the exit! You'll be surprised to hear this but the two of us actually enjoyed our shopping experience in KL. We did a bit of sightseeing too. We went up onto the skybridge of the Petronas Twin Towers (the worlds tallest building) and had hi(very high)tea in the revolving restaurant 300 metres up in the KL Tower. The views from up there are actually far more spectacularly than from the skybridge as it's on a hill so is well above the Petronas Towers. From up there everything below looks like tiny models - even the fifty-storey office blocks look like minatures. After a week we decided to head out to the countryside - a place called Bukit Belimbing which is famous for its fireflies. When we got there it didn't take long to realise why it's famous for the fireflies - it's because there is nothing else there for it to be famous for - ABSOLUTELY NOTHING apart from a seafood restaurant that didn't open until the evening and our chalet! So we had to survive for a couple of days on 2-minute noodles (reminiscent of our student days) and read a whole lot. The fireflies were an impressive sight. We took a cruise out on the river after dark and watched them flashing in unison in the trees like Christmas lights. We did consider catching a few and putting them in a jar to bring home as they would have saved us tonnes on our electricity bills. From there, we moved onto Bukit Fraser where we decided to have a little splurge and stayed at a place called Ye Olde Smokehouse (http://www.thesmokehouse.com.my/fh.htm). The hotel is in a mock-tudor cottage complete with flowers around the front door, oak beams and large wooden armchairs. We stayed there as a bit of a fix for the dose of homesickness we had been suffering from. We ate roast dinners, took cream teas in the afternoon and drank port by the open logfire into the night. We could have easily been in the Cotswolds which was kind of spooky. It was a wonderful place to stay - the staff were superb and made us feel so at home there which was much needed. Now we are back in KL and heading out on the overnight train to Singapore in a couple of hours...... | ||||||||||||
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| 15 Jun 2001 : Bangkok - Thailand | 4 Jul 2001 : Raffles Hotel - Singapore | |||||||||||
| End of Part I - Indochina | A luxurious interlude at Raffles Hotel | |||||||||||