The next day it was a flight back to KL, again business class, and we got a decent sized taxi to our hotel, which was this time the Ritz Carlton.
The Ritz Carlton is a very nice place and obviously attracts a certain type of guest as it’s the first hotel I’ve been in where security guards stand outside and greet you (as well as other staff). It’s also the first hotel where I’ve had my bags scanned and then had security checked stickers put on them, and it’s definitely the first hotel I’ve been to where you get butler service 24 hours a day should you require it. Very nice indeed. We decided to take a little walk out to some of the malls near the hotel (all very high priced goods – Louis Vuitton, etc) that afternoon, before having dinner in the Italian restaurant. However before dinner we headed up to the Ritz club which is free for all guests (as are your drinks) which is nice. The restaurant was quite empty, so we ended up talking to the staff for quite a while, which was nice as it made a change from them saying “It’s my pleasure”. However I did almost crack up when the assistant manager came to check how everything was, and greeted us with the line: “Where are you lovely people from?”.
The next day, after the butler served breakfast in my room, we headed to the KL Tower, the fourth largest tower in the world, not as high as the CN but probably a much nicer view and they give you an audio guide to tell you what to look for. There also seemed to be some challenge going on to bake enough naan breads to hang from top to bottom of the tower, but we’re not quite sure what was going on. We then headed to the Suria mall below the Petronas towers, before heading back to the hotel, then mum and I headed off to another mall before joining dad at the leisure club that had the amusingly altered sign in one of the pool stating Poo Dept. The leisure club was also very nice, with separate men and womens spa facilities (i.e. steam room, Jacuzzi, sauna) but also the mens changing room provided deodorant, aftershave, combs, hair products, dressing gowns etc. Classy.
The next day was time to go, this time we got a very nice Mercedes to take us to the airport. My parents were flying out at 12, I was originally meant to fly out at 14:00, but I knew since I was in Perth that the flight was moved to 15:20, except when we got to the airport just before 9, it had already been moved back to 16:15. The first bit of fun was actually getting my bags checked in, as I got passed from one row of counters to the next eventually I got checked in pretty much where we started after having some words with the Air Malaysia desk (and him then telling the check-in desk to check me in). I got my bags checked all the way through to London (even though I was changing airlines) as even though my flight wasn’t until 5:40 the next morning there was no point in clearing immigration at Singapore, staying in a hotel for all of 6 hours then going back to the airport. Anyway there’s plenty to do at Singapore airport. I saw my parents off about 11:15 and then just wandered round KL airport for a while. When we eventually got on the plane I discovered that checking in over 7 hours early has the advantage of getting you at the very front, so plenty of leg room, even though the flight was only another 50 minute affair. After landing at KL I headed for the transfer desk in the next terminal to get my boarding pass hoping to pull another cushy leg room seat out of the hat, but was told I couldn’t get a boarding pass 12 hours before my flight, so I’d have to wait until after 11pm. So I bought a Gameboy Advance and that whiled away a few hours, as well as being able to watch the qualifying for the Grand Prix and use the internet for free. I headed back to the transfer desk just after 11pm, and was told to come back after midnight. By this time of night the airport was pretty dead, most of the shops were closed, however the transfer desks had their own sort of lounge obviously meant for use only by those waiting to get a boarding pass during the day, but at night, there’s no-one about so you’re free to just sit down in their lovely comfy seats (compared to other airport seats). They also had a lovely big plasma screen showing WWE Summer Slam which whiled away quite a lot of time, when I got my boarding pass I got told that I’d got an aisle seat with two empty seats next to it, lovely jubbly! I didn’t actually manage to get any sleep before boarding the plane, and it was very empty when we eventually boarded, even though it had flown up a load from Sydney. Still I was in one of the middle fours, with two spare seats between me and the next person, which worked out quite nicely. I still couldn’t get off to sleep, so I put on the Matrix Reloaded, which was better for the second viewing, especially as I had my own sleep edit, where all the Zion crap at the start was cut out. You also notice a lot more hints (to it all having happened) before on the second viewing, I also decided to actually watch the trailer for Revolutions at the end of the credits (having found out after I first saw the film of it’s existence) and for once it didn’t give too much away. I didn’t really get any sleep on the flight whatsoever, watched a couple of other films, Bruce Almighty and Identity (which I wanted to enjoy but perhaps I was too tired to appreciate). Then despite landing earlier than scheduled (but known since we took off) we had to wait over an hour whilst Heathrow decided on which gate we could actually disembark at. The luggage then took an age, immigration was very quick, I don’t think they were even bothering to look at UK passports, apparently anyone without one could be waiting up to 3 hours that day.
And that’s that for my travels, in the end given the time difference by the time I went to bed on Sunday night, I’d been awake almost 48 hours, which is something I wouldn’t wholeheartedly recommend, unlike the rest of my trip. I’d definitely say if you’ve ever thought about it, you shouldn’t hesitate going to Canada, my personal favourite places being Valemount and Tofino. New Zealand is still a wonderful place, but I’ve probably told most of the people reading this that in the past. Whilst I still don’t like Australia as much, Melbourne, Cairns and Perth are all worth a visit, although you should be prepared to hire a car or spend out on bus trips/tours to get the most out of them. That is with the exception of Cairns where you should learn to dive, which is probably the most enjoyable and challenging thing I did on the whole trip. Malaysia is also a very nice place, and is also a very quiet at the moment. Given the JI problem in Indonesia, Malaysia seems to have been lumped in as a place not to go. However the people are exceptionally friendly, all speak English, and there is plenty to see, do and eat.
For our flight to and from Penang we’d decided to go business class as it really wasn’t much more (an extra £30 a head or so), and we certainly got our moneys worth there. First of all there was the express checkin, and use of the Air Malaysia lounge, with free food/drinks. Then on the plane, a drink before takeoff and also warm towels and a newspaper for each person. The seats were very comfortable as well, the extra leg room makes a lot of difference. Then despite it only being a 60 minute flight, we also got a small meal (which economy didn’t) and more drinks, in fact me and my Dad had over half a bottle of wine between us as they just kept filling our glasses up! Then more hot towels before landing and magically our baggage was there pretty much straight after we got to the carousel.
We then got a taxi to the hotel, except we had to get two as their boots were somewhat too small. The hotel was rather splendid from the outside, and the concierge who looked like Tom Conte, as well as taking our bags presented us with drinks whilst waiting to check in. Our rooms were on the 34th floor and were opposite each other at the end of the corridor, there was also a door that we could close across the corridor which meant we could leave our doors open, which was nice. The rooms themselves were huge, a large bathroom with two sinks, toilet, shower and giant Jacuzzi bath. TV in the bedroom, TV in the lounge, dining area, study area and guest toilet and that was in both rooms. We didn’t do much for the rest of the day apart from lounging around the leisure centre on the 9th floor, which had a very nice pool that appeared to go over the edge of the hotel. We went for dinner in the Chinese restaurant in the hotel, which was very nice (and also very empty – much like the rest of Malaysia). However the waitress who took our order didn’t have the best grasp of English (and also a very noisy limp), but we eventually managed to order everything by pointing at the menu and saying “One”. The starter was quite interesting as we had no idea what we’d ordered (the waitress had told us that what we wanted was too big), so we got spring rolls and whole baby squid. Now whole squid may sound bad, but they’re not and you don’t really notice what you’re biting into (unlike the whole baby birds I once had in Jordan!). Earlier that afternoon we’d asked reception for a network cable for my laptop as they offered (2Mb/sec) Internet access in the rooms, about 10pm I receive a call asking if I’d still like it, I obviously did, however after plugging my laptop into the wall socket it was clear that either the cable was duff or the CAT5 wiring to the wall socket was. I decided to leave it to the next day.
After breakfast I told reception of my problem and they gave me another lead. It still didn’t work, so they sent two maintenance men up, who really didn’t get what I was saying about it being a fault with the wiring to the wall socket. After them fiddling in various risers in the corridor and taking the faceplate off and looking at it (literally just looking) then wiggling my cables they gave up. Then reception tried to get me to go through my network connection settings, but eventually listened to me telling them that when XP says a network cable is unplugged when it’s plugged into your PC and the wall socket, that means either the cable or the wiring are duff. But there was nothing they could do so I’d have to call back after 3 when the manager came in. We then decided to head out for a walk, mum and I were sorting out some travellers cheques, when I noticed another concierge by the door, appearing to play fight with my Dad. It turns out he was warning him of bag thieves that drive round on mopeds, but it looked very amusing nonetheless. We walked around for a while but it was a bit on the warm side, so we decided to go back to the hotel and get a taxi out to the Gurney Plaza. This was quite a pleasant shopping mall, with some ridiculously cheap clothes shops. It also had the most blatant software pirates operating out of one shop, my favourite find in there was Windows 2000 Server Datacenter Edition for 10 Ringits (5.7 to the pound). What is the average computer user going to need that for, normal Server edition I can see they might want but that just made me chuckle. After getting back to the hotel, I rang up reception to get the manager, and eventually after they tried to get me to check everything again decided to send up the manager. He actually understood what I was getting at and so linked up the socket in my parents room instead which did work, so I was right all along (and this was proved when the local datacomms people came out and after some testing found the wiring to my room to be faulty.
We spent the rest of the afternoon in the leisure club and went for dinner in the other restaurant where they had a massive Japanese buffet which was very pleasant, especially the fresh sushi.
The next two days were spent again at shopping malls, the first wasn’t that good (and full of pirate software shops and pirate DVD and CD shops). So the next day we went back to the Gurney Plaza and I availed myself of some nice new Timberland trainers and quite a few CDs (they were legit and very cheap, seems when faced with large amounts of piracy in a non-western market record companies can lower their prices!). Now some mention has to be made of the taxi driver we got back to the hotel. As I said before the standard of driving in Malaysia is pretty poor to say the least, but it’s not helped when your man, the taxi driver, seems to have lost feeling in one side of his body. He literally hobbled along and couldn’t move his right arm, so much so that he had to use his left hand to reach through the steering wheel and activate the indicators when turning (I suppose at least he did use his indicators).
On the Monday we went on a tour around Penang, it would have been over the whole island but there was some quite torrential rain. Much like in KL we just had a car to ourselves with the driver. We started off going to an old fort where the cannon is believed by the Chinese to be a fertility aid! We then went to first a Thai then a Burmese temple, I can’t remember the order of these, they were only over the road from each other. The first however housed a giant reclining bhudda (which underneath it and behind it had the ashes of people and their pictures in front of the urns which was a little odd). The second provided the great sign on a seat – Please Don’t Sit – For Monks Only. We then went to another Batik factory and another pewter factory, before heading up to a Chinese temple which had a pool full of tortoises which apparently the Chinese used to when visiting have impromptu gambles upon as to which would stay the longest out of the water (in fact any bet on what a tortoise would do). We then headed down and had lunch at a very local shack, which was very good indeed although we didn’t get quite what we expected, it was still fresh and for a roadside shack there were no flies buzzing around. We then drove around for quite awhile, as we were going to take a cable car up a hill but there was a big queue so instead we walked round some botanical gardens. There were lots of warnings up about monkeys and how you shouldn’t feed them, because they’d probably get aggressive with you, but they had more sense than us and were staying out of the rain. Next we headed to a museum with some history about the area, before going to the snake temple, which presented another cracking sign in the form of: Mediums are forbidden to fall into a trance in the snake temple or its precinct to avoid causing inconvenience to worshippers and visitors. Before getting back to the hotel we visited a spice/food factory, and despite Malaysia apparently being the best place to get ground/dried nutmeg Mum couldn’t get any there. We also tried some awful tea which apparently is good for something, but they did have some nice products.
We spent the next day doing pretty much nothing, apart from visiting the leisure club again. On the Wednesday we had a trip to Langkawi which to cut a long story short wasn’t that good at all. The ferry over was pretty ropey, however they did give out sick bags before departure, a few people in our compartment were making use of them during the journey but we got by alright. They also had TVs, so they showed half of Gladiator on some dodgy VCD which passed some of the two and a half hours. When we arrived in Langkawi before we even found the tour guide (if that’s what he can be called) there was a bit of Chief Wiggum action, as there were police about as ferries from other countries dock at the same terminal. There was this group of men who a policeman was talking to, he then walked off, but then decided to come back at which point one of the men makes a run for it, the policeman gives chase through the crowd, the man jumps over the side fence to cut out the crowd moving forward and the policeman realises that with his belly he isn’t going to make the jump so just gives up, doesn’t shout after the man or anything. Made me chuckle anyway, he didn’t even go back to the others either, quality law enforcement. Eventually everyone turned up for the tour and we headed off, the first stop was a giant eagle which I’m still not too certain was meant to symbolise. Then we headed to the Langkawi aquarium which was quite good, this however was followed by possibly the worst meal I’ve had in all my travels. There was a fish ball soup (which I didn’t think was too bad), some spring rolls (which at least were fried enough) a sweet and sour dish (which we think had fish in) and then another dish which tasted in places like chicken but had bones like no chicken I’ve ever seen. Perhaps it was a chicken of the proportions that Alan Partridge believes is hidden in farmers big barns, although the bones were more like those found on a lamb chop, I’m personally favouring that we were fed dog. Needless to say I didn’t each that much. Simple word of warning if you are ever in Langkawi and at the aquarium do not believe the signs stating that the best Thai restaurant on the island is just at the end of the building. I should also say we didn’t eat there out of choice as it was part of the tour. Also we pitied the people on the big tour bus that came in after we left as their food (which consisted of a lot of shellfish) had been left out at their tables for at least 30 minutes, it was smelling pretty ripe when we left, let me tell you. We then went to a beach where apparently we could enjoy duty free drinks, however said drinks outlet was a small hut and the water was pretty filthy. My mum was talking to this chap from Penang on our tour who’d bought his father over as they’d never been to Langkawi and they also agreed the food was awful.
We then went to the cable car that went up to provide a good view of the island and this was actually worthwhile, it was quite a strange sight to see mist just rising out of the valley below and suddenly encompassing everything, then just disappearing again. We then headed back to the ferry terminal one and a half hours before our ferry back (apparently this was a requirement). The ferry ride back was OK as we were sat in the rear compartment, however half the seats were broken, i.e. the one in front of me that was fully reclined, probably more than it should ever have been. Still was probably more uncomfortable for the chap in front as he didn’t want to recline so spent the whole journey sat without a back rest! When we arrived back in Penang we were told that we’d have to wait for another 10 people before we could get the tour bus back to our hotel, so we told them where to stick it and took a taxi instead. My parents then had a chat with the concierge about it, he was quite thankful that they’d said something as he won’t ever use that company again (and he did mean it as apparently in the past concierges have had their pay docked for sending guests away with rubbish tour companies).
The flight up to Singapore was pretty comfy, mainly due to there being plenty of spare seats, so the chap next to me moved. However despite it being September 1st the plane didn’t have the latest movies (as detailed in the new magazine), so I ended up watching exactly what I watched between Christchurch and Melbourne (the In-Laws). We also landed early which meant more time to waste around Singapore airport (I didn’t have to go through customs or claim my baggage despite changing carrier which was quite handy). I did think that I’d take up a lot of time going from Terminal 1 to 2 as walking it takes quite a while, but they have an automated train which only takes about a minute. The flight to KL was very quick, we were only in the air for about 50 minutes, but still we got a free drink and it was quite comfy. KL airport also has a train to get you from one terminal to the other, but it was a little bit more cramped. Immigration was very quick, especially compared to other countries I’ve been to. I should also mention the lovely welcome to Malaysia greeting they give on your landing card. IN MALAYSIA DRUG TRAFFICKING RESULTS IN THE DEATH PENALTY. Or something along those lines anyway in big red letters, just in case you’re thinking of it obviously. KL airport also has the best trolleys I’ve seen in a while (and you don’t have to pay for them unlike certain airports in Canada, America and Australia). I then took the cheap option for getting to our hotel, in the form of the 20 Ringit coach. This is about £3.50 for a drive of over 80km which I think you’ll agree is very reasonable. After checking in I waited until 11:30pm for my parents to arrive and then went to bed. I should mention our suite was again very nice it actually took up in effect the whole floor, which did also mean that the two lifts up only serviced two rooms on each floor.
The next day we decided to book up a tour for the next day around KL and go and visit the Petronas Towers and do a bit of shopping. Things turned out a little differently when we went to book the tour. The concierges were basically useless and looked in bemusement when we asked to book a tour from the pamphlet reception had given us. Then this taxi driver standing next to them states that he can do the tour for less so they book it with him. We then ask them if we can get a taxi to the Petronas Towers, so he [the taxi driver] ends up taking us. Turns out we didn’t really need a taxi at all as it was a very short walk from our hotel. Anyway the taxi driver told us where to go and get tickets to get up to the skybridge (as featured in the woeful Entrapment), and that he’d wait outside for us. I should explain that the Petronas towers are unlike the CN Tower not very tourist oriented, but do allow so many people a day to visit the lower level of the skybridge that links the two towers (and unlike the CN Tower it’s free as well). The tickets we got were for two hours later so we went back to the taxi driver (who we still hadn’t actually paid) and I was expecting that we’d just settle up and go shopping in the large mall at the base of the towers or go to the big tower in town (the KL Tower) as despite what most people think the Petronas Towers aren’t the tallest structure in the world (that still falls to the CN Tower). Anyway to cut a long story short we ended up heading off to do the tour we’d booked for the next day before going back to the tower (we didn’t realise this until after the fourth place he’d taken us to, he mentioned that we’d probably get the tour done that day and would we like to go to Malacca the day after?) We ended up going to the Kings palace (well the gate anyway), a butterfly farm, which also had a great display of all the species of beetle found in Malaysia, then the war memorial which was very spectacular and a few other places. Oh and we also got passed by the Prime Ministers car at some point.
We then got to the KL Tower for our visit and headed up to the bridge which gives quite a good view (but nothing in comparison to the CN Tower and the glass floor therein). We also spent a while in the visitors centre (basically four puzzles or tests of skill), apparently I was the only person to solve the following puzzle that day, although it’s not that tricky when you think about it. You have a six by six grid as such:
O O O O O O
O O O O O O
O O O O O O
O O O O O O
O O O O O O
O O O O O O
You have six pegs to put in, but they must be arranged in such a manner that no two pegs occupy the same horizontal, vertical or diagonal. (BIG Hint you can’t use the four corners, but that’s pretty obvious if you think about it). After the Towers we headed to a Pewter factory, an authentic Malaysian house, then a Batik factory and the Batu caves, which are located at the top of a 272 step staircase (which they kindly number for you). Despite being full of statues of strange religious figures/stories (such as the half woman/half cow and the man being cut in half) the Batu caves were full of pigeons and the occasional monkey (not sure exactly what type, but they were the ones that carried the virus in the film Outbreak). There was also some strange booth with a curtain and topless men standing outside, we didn’t find out what was in there though. We then headed back to KL and arranged with Anthony the taxi driver to take us to Melacca the next day. In all he only wanted RM150 for the tour round KL, which is not very much at all (less than £30). After getting back to the hotel we headed back to the big mall under the Petronas towers. The next day we headed down to Melacca and firstly visited a museum with reconstructions of traditional houses from each of the states of Malaysia. After about the fourth they got very boring until the last two which had bamboo floors providing a very strange walking sensation as you have to remove your shoes in Malaysian homes. I was also slightly amused by a particular Malay word: bumbung. However I’ve since discovered that this actually means roof, but it still makes me chuckle. It is also quite easy to pick up various Malay words as almost every sign, if not in just English is in Malay and English. Hence I figured out almost as soon as I got here that they have a ridiculously long word for No: Dilarang, and Keluar means exit and Merokok smoking. So now you all know some Malay. Anyway I digress, we then headed into Melacca itself, visiting the museum, and various other places including an old Portuguese church and another museum built into a ship.
I should also take a moment to mention just how bad the standard of driving in Malaysia is. If you’ve ever been to Greece or Italy, then you may well think you’ve seen a whole nation of bad drivers. The kiwis also go on about how bad they are at driving (they can’t overtake to save their lives), but in Malaysia you really are putting your life in the hands of the taxi driver. There’s no concept of lane discipline, in fact if you watch a road you’ll see most of the cars just driving along over two lanes. Changing lanes is also fun as this just seems to involve going and worrying about it later. I could go on for hours about how bad they were but I just wanted to give a little taste before describing the belter of a taxi driver we had in Penang one day (but that’ll be in the next update!)
The flight from Perth was my earliest start so far, mainly due to the fact that the cheap bus from the hostel to the airport ran so infrequently. So despite the flight being at 8am I had to be ready for the bus at 5:35am, I did as a result get pretty nice seats at the front of both flights though. Cairns airport I thought was pretty bad in that once the flight is called and you hand over your boarding pass, you then basically go outside and follow painted lines on the concrete to your plane. But that was before I got to Alice Springs where you get off the plane and follow coloured lines to get to the terminal (and then cross the path of taxiing planes when you leave as well). There was a bit of a hold up at Alice which meant I ended up arriving in Perth about the same time as my parents, so instead of as planned me catching a bus over to the International terminal to meet them, they came and picked me up in the hire car. We eventually found our hotel/apartment which was very plush. The next day we headed out first around Perth, myself hobbling quite badly (it seems that a blister on my big toe had become infected whilst scuba diving in the reef). We ended up at the Swan Bells, which is a quite fancy new building (which the Australians naturally kicked up a fuss about, nothing to do with the way it looked, just that the government was paying for it, they don’t seem to see the point in spending money to boost the local economy do Australians). The bells were originally in St Martins church off Trafalgar Square in London, and we even got to ring one of them, which is actually surprisingly tricky. Then in the afternoon we headed up to Kings Park for more of a hobble. The next day we took a very long drive out to the Pinnacles which is a very odd place, a desert filled with what look like props from the original Star Trek, in other words large artificial looking columns of stone. We also visited a beach, and gave up on the idea of lunch due to the whole area being either very local or the only food store not really selling much.
We intended the next day to go to Scarborough, however much like the English town with the same name, there wasn’t much to see. We carried on up the coast and eventually found the AQWA centre which was a big aquarium type place with various attractions. The biggest attraction was the moving walkway which went through a tunnel under an aquarium full of turtles, sharks and other reef marine life. It was also here that I saw one of the most amusing sights I’ve seen in a while, the fat family who couldn’t actually manage to stand for the length of the trip round so were instead sat down on the moving walkway. We also got to so the seals feeding, although it has to be said they are very smelly creatures. We headed to another beach on the way home, City Beach, which provided some more amusing signs for the collection, my personal favourite being Caution: Dumping Surf.
On the Thursday we took an all day wine tour around the Swan Valley, which took in 5 wineries, a cheese factory, a brewery and a chocolate factory. Not all the wines were that good (and there were lots unlike the backpacker tasting trip in Melbourne, usually 7-9 different ones to try at each), but they all did some quite good ports and muscats. The cheese factory was good, chocolate factory expensive but providing lots of free samples, and the brewery was quite pleasant. The brewery did provide amusement in the form of the barman having the campest german accent ever (beat Herr Lipp of the League of Gents hands down), but it turned out that he just put the accent for the customers.
On Friday we decided to take a trip to Guildford and York which are both heritage towns, which means the National Trust owns them and determines what people can build there etc. That said they’re both only just over 100 years old which is quite young in English terms, oh and there’s not really much at either. In between we ended up at another winery which actually produced quite good wine (a novelty considering the others we’d been to the day before).
On the Saturday we just pottered about town in the morning before taking a boat trip to Fremantle and back. We had dinner at the Chinese restaurant at the pier which we’d been to a few nights before. It was quite an interesting meal as we’d asked the manager to serve us whatever he wanted. So we started with Oysters, followed by Squid and then something else which I forget. The main course was Lobster (which was very fresh) and noodles which was very nice. I should also mention the quite different Peking Duck we had the first time we went there. Instead of getting the duck to put in your pancakes you just got the crispy skin (and they made the pancakes for you as well), then you got a second course made of the actual duck that you ate inside lettuce bowls.
Sunday was spent doing not much except packing and getting some sleep for the early start on Monday for my flight to Singapore/Kuala Lumpur.
My parents dropped me off at 4:30am at Perth airport (they had a later direct flight to KL). My Dad mentioned something about the place being pretty deserted when he last flew out of Perth, but we saw a person at a check in desk through the glass and some people waiting. As it turns out despite being able to wait inside the airport the check in desks don’t open until 5am, and in fact it was a cardboard cut-out by the check in desk, and the person we thought was waiting was in fact a bronze bust of someone. Before 5 though a few more people turned up and whilst the duty frees etc didn’t open until 6am at least the café was open.