What a fabulous trip!!! OK, we could have used two more days and it would have been great if the air con in the car didn't quit on the second day, but the sights we saw were just spectacular.
We started out in KL and spent most of one day in the Lake Gardens, including the Islamic museum, the bird, butterfly, hibiscus, and orchid gardens. We also went to the Saturday night market in my old hood, Little India. Of course, we ate all along the way and never went hungry for a moment. In fact, I'm not sure we ever got hungry...the food in Malaysia is quite amazing. I will miss that.
On Monday we got the car and headed off to Ipoh. I had my Garmin Nuvi GPS and it was really helpful although do NOT rely on it in KL as it doesn't understand the crazy traffic patterns in the city. Of course, no one really understands the crazy traffic patterns in the city. The drive to Ipoh was nice including passing through some of the most amazing limestone rock formations ever. It looked like something out of an ancient Chinese painting (thx to J for the analogy). We made it to Ipoh without a hitch and had a simple room above the old train station with a huge veranda looking out into the town. I was did have a touch of the flu when J & R arrived but found that those bubbly vitamins pretty much kicked it over the next few days. Feeling a bit under the weather, R got to have her first experience driving around Ipoh town. We ended up at a Steamboat restaurant, where we ate, you guessed it, steamboat. If you are not familiar, it is a bubbling vat of broth, usually two types, we had chicken and vegetable broth. Then you order a whole bunch of stuff to drop into it. It's fab! We had the best noodles EVER, which is something Ipoh is known for...awesome noodles.
Tuesday a.m. and off to the Rainforest in the northern part of the state of Perak. This is untouched rainforest country up here and is probably the oldest rainforest on earth at 130 million years old. Thankfully, the Sultan of Perak is known to be quite a naturalist and although we saw quite a bit of logging in the national forest, the state of Perak Royal Belum Rainforest does not allow anything to be disturbed. I pray that it stays that way as this is some of the most beautiful and wild country in the world. They say if the Malaysian rhino still exists, it is in this park. There is also lots of Malaysian tigers but they are rarely seen. The jungle is unbelievably dense. It was quite a drive from Ipoh but the North-South freeway in Malaysia is an excellent road. We did make the choice of trying to find some ruins on the coast and got a bit off track doing that. Unfortunately, we never found the ruins although we did see some signs, we ended up driving around in circles and felt like we needed to get on the road to our hotel in the rainforest before it got dark.
The hotel is on Palau Banding (palau is island in Bahasa) in the middle of the Temenggor Lake. The lake was man made in the 1960's by a dam located at one of the rivers. They created the dam to chase away communists...or so we were told. The lake is HUGE and incredibly gorgeous surrounded by pristine rainforest. This is an extremely remote area of Malaysia (and the world). We were fascinated that we didn't see monkeys at the resort and our guide to see the rafflesia told us it is because all the animals in this forest are still afraid of humans. They hide from us which is why it is difficult to see wild animals in the park. We spent two nights in the rainforest resort and all agreed we could have spent a few more days, so peaceful and the sound of the forest at night is beautiful. The best part of all...hold on to your seat...WE SAW A WILD ELEPHANT!!! Not in a zoo, not in a reserve, not trained and domesticated, but a real wild elephant. We had given up on seeing one as we drove around the night before trying to see them and didn't. So this was on our way to Kelantan (another state) from Perak. I think I almost scared R to death as we were just driving along and I saw it and screamed and slammed on the brakes. Yes, of course, that is EXACTLY what you are not supposed to do. Anyway, in the interest of breaking all the rules, we then stopped, turned around and drove right up to him. He was hanging out munching on the grass at the side of the road. We all noticed when he looked right at us and we decided that was our clue to move on and leave him in peace. I still keep repeating it...I saw a wild elephant in Malaysia. I will NEVER forget that moment as long as I live.
We continued along the way to Terangganu where we hung out for 2 nights before taking the ferry to the amazing island of Redang in the South China Sea. This has to be some of the most amazing water in the world. So clear and a lovely moderate temperature, you could hang out in the water all day. Yes, I took this picture from my room...it is not a postcard. We did a great snorkel trip with 4 stops and saw tons of fish. I had my first experience with my underwater camera. I got some decent shots but had a hard time getting down far enough in the water.
Redang is all designated as a marine park, they take you snorkeling where the water is quite deep so you don't damage the coral. This made getting good shots of the fish quite difficult. I think my favourite is those amazing parrot fish with the aquamarine colours. The colours are so inspiring. I sitting here now wearing my Save the Oceans Hello Kitty t-shirt and I sure hope we continue to try and do that. The coral reefs and all the life in them is very special.
Headed out of Redang and drove all the way to Fraser's Hill. This is where we REALLY needed another day but we did it. The last 2 hours of getting to Fraser's Hill was almost all switchbacks climbing a huge mountain. It was really our only experience driving late at night so interesting to be in the mountainous jungle in the dark. There were some pretty amazing sounds coming out of the jungle. We finally arrived at the Ye Olde Smokehouse Inn and spent a lovely night in the coolness of the mountain air. This place is an old English tudor house built 85 years ago by some of the Brits when they were in KL as they needed a place to get away from the heat. Fraser's Hill is only about 100km from KL. We woke to the birdsong of thousands of birds all around. It was a lovely clear day and I think we were all glad for the nice long sleep and fresh cool air. A yummy full English breakfast and we were off again to our final stop in Melaka. A bit of a delay on the travel as we were stopped on the road while they pulled a truck out of the jungle. Very interesting indeed.
I wanted to stuff one more place into our journey and Melaka seemed like the perfect place. I've been there twice before and really enjoyed it. I thought J & R would enjoy it too. We had a lovely room at the Heeren House, right on the edge of the river. It is owned by Jan and Bernard (she's a Brit and he's a Baaba) and in the Jonker Walk section of town which is the most interesting, in my opinion. We the best Tandoori we had ever eaten anywhere, thanks to the recommendation of the owner of the hotel. That is one of the really great things about Malaysia, the mix of Chinese, Indian, and Malay food. We walked all over the Jonker area, drank some beer, and ate piles of delicious Indian food. We were going to have some Nyonya food before we left but we all felt sick in the a.m. from stuffing ourselves at the Indian Tandoori place.
I was very sad to see my playmates go back to the US. We had a great time and did some amazing stuff and ate like pigs. Oink oink!!! J & R were very kind to put up with me and my idiosyncrasies. Of course, that goes both ways and we are a great travel group.
I have created a YouTube account, the name is HSGWorld. Did I mention the awesome flip video my friends brought me from the US? It has Hello Kitty on it...too cool! Will have some videos out there soon.
Here are some pics from the trip:
http://picasaweb.google.com/hellokittyinlondon/UltimateMalaysianHoliday?feat=directlink
I am that I am. Off to Bangkok next.
Cheers!
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