Malaysia

So, having had another trip home for my brother's wedding at Easter we arrived back in Bangalore at the end of April. I have now made the decision to head back to the UK permanently. I am in need of some more gainful employment now that our list of visitors has dried up a little! But I'm back for a while, applying for jobs and waiting to hear back etc. Oh, and keeping my husband company of course!

Meanwhile, Ben is now into his new holiday year! And since he is unlikely to use much of it on his own we are putting it to good use while I'm here.

So, after a bit of research I found a destination that met all my criteria; direct flight from Bangalore, we didn't need a visa, not rainy season, not ridiculously hot. Malaysia. Yes, I agree, hot and potentially wet, but no more than any other time of the year, and not up to the 40C + of Northern India at the moment. May day is a public holiday in India, so Ben took the Monday, Tuesday and half of Wed off too to make a reasonable length trip.

We flew on the Thursday night at 12.45am, a little delayed as one would expect, and with the time difference we arrived in Kuala Lumpur at 8.30am. It is a 4 hour flight, so we were pretty exhausted, but better that than wasting a day arriving in the evening. Having figured out the trains, we checked into our hotel in downtown KL, pretty close to the Petronas towers. We were a bit surprised how close actually as a few days later when we were back in KL we were staying at the Renaissance which had been recommended to us by some friends as having a great view of the towers. We had gone a little more downmarket (we thought) for the first 2 nights. Turned out it was just across the road!

So we headed out for a bit of exploring, first up, the tourist information for a map. It was about the fanciest tourist information centres I've ever seen!

The tourist information centre

Next we walked through Bukit Nanas to see KL tower and on to the old part of town. Bukit Nanas is a forest reserve on a hill in the middle of the city, in the middle, at the top of the hill is the KL tower.

Menara Kuala Lumpar (Or KL tower)

It was a lovely walk, hot and sweaty and we got bitten a lot, but it was nice. We decided not to go up the tower at the moment, but to find out about the restaurant at the top and aim to go there one night. From there we headed to the old part of town, but couldn't reach any of the sights because of a protest that was about to start against government goods and services tax that has just been brought in. So, we had some lunch and a little wander through china town and then worked our way back to the hotel. We chilled out for a bit (well, fell asleep for 2 hours which had not been the intention!), and then went to an excellent restaurant for some Malay curries. 

China Town

The next day we started at the Petronas towers, but since we had a lie in we didn't get there in time to take a tour that day (only a certain number of tickets are available each day), we settled for some pictures and a coffee at the mall at the bottom and then had a little wander around the city park. From there we headed back to the old city and actually managed to see the sights this time. 

At the Petronas Towers

Sultan Abdul Samad Building

The National Mosque

Just in time to avoid the rain we arrived at the Islamic Arts Museum which was extensive, but good. From there we headed back to our hotel via a quick peak at the old railway station. After a quick swim we tried to go to a Chinese restaurant that got really good reviews, but were very rudely told there was no space. So we ended up at a not particularly good Lebanese around the corner. Ah well, you can't win 'em all.

The following day we set out on our trip to the jungle! Various things I read said that the most convenient way of doing the trip was to do an organised tour. It was probably quite an expensive way of doing it, but it did mean we managed to pack quite a lot in to 2 days.

First up, Batu caves. About 45 mins drive from KL, the main cave contains a Hindu temple to Lord Murugan. The cave is up 272 steps past a huge statue of Murugan. It is certainly an impressive sight. The cave at the top of the steps is just as massive. See the right hand picture below, this is looking in from near the entrance, the temple proper is on the left and the steps go up another temple in an area where the top is open to the sky.

Batu caves - Left, from the bottom of the steps, right from the inside

Next stop, the Kuala Gandah Elephant sanctuary. It is hoe to orphaned and injured elephants which will, when ready be released into the wild. They also relocate elephants from who's original habitat has been encroached by farming etc. Anyway, we spent a while feeding them sugar cane and generally admiring them. Unfortunately we didn't have time to watch the film that was showing a bit later on or join in with elephant bathtime (well, in truth, we would have had time, but we were hurried along!). 

Hungry baby!

The bigger elephants had come out for feeding as it was a public holiday

Then a spot of lunch and about 3 hours drive and we arrived at Taman Negara (literally 'National Park' in Malay) is an area of tropical rainforest, said to some of the world's oldest and the edges of it are fairly easily accessible from KL.

Kuala Tahan, the headquarters of the park, which includes quite a fancy resort is on the edge of a kind of gorge, with the river at the bottom and accessible only by boat from the village on the other side. The river marks the National Park boundary so everything away from the river past the resort was forest. So here is where we could have stayed with the elephants for longer, as we had about 3 hours free before we were to meet our driver for dinner. So, we went for a wander around the resort. We found the way into the forest and followed one of their very well marked boardwalk type trails and had a lovely, if incredibly hot and sticky, walk for about an hour.

From the resort looking down over the river & the floating restaurants

A snake we found on our wander

For dinner we went to one of the floating restaurants, moored on the village side of the river where we met our guide for our night time nature walk. The idea is that you wander around in the forest in the resort and see what you can see. Mainly insects and spiders etc. although we did see a couple of snakes and a glimpse of a mouse deer. Then you end up at a hide which overlooks a salt lick, an area rich in salt where animals go to top on minerals. At that point we had meet up with another large (and rather noisy) group and one of the other guides told us that there were no animals and the hide, so we decided to skip it and go somewhere a bit quieter. 

A flower that only blooms at night

The following morning we eventually decided to get up quite early and go and explore the hide we had missed the night before. It was lovely and peaceful and pretty with the mist hanging in the trees, but we didn't see any animals. If we hadn't been so reluctant to actually get out of bed, who knows, but nevermind!

After breakfast we met our guide again and headed off by boat a little way up river for our trek into the forest. It was a really nice walk, and made better by the fact that we were about the first people to leave for that activity that morning, so managed to see a few animals before the crowds scared them away! We walked up to a peak called Bukit Teresak with a couple of look view points.

The first view point on the morning trek

It was a circular route with a forest canopy walk on the way back down. It somehow wasn't quite what we were expecting, but good fun all the same. GoApe eat your heart out! 

On the canopy walk

Then we hopped back in the boat and headed a bit further up stream to a Orang Asli village. Orang Asli people are indigenous to the Peninsular Malaysia and there are a couple of tribes who live in Teman Negara. One of the tribes which lives by the river allow visitors (for money of course) and show you how they make blow pipe arrows and start fires etc. It was slightly uncomfortable and felt a little like you were at a zoo, but they seemed happy enough to show us the blow pipes etc. 

Off up river to the Orang Asli village

Having a go with a blow pipe

And then for the long drive back to KL, which was not so much fun!

We had originally thought we would do a day trip to Melaka on the last day, but we were fairly tired and had both been suffering with a cold. We are still not immune to Indian germs and a lot of Ben's colleagues had been suffering! It is a 2 hour bus ride each way from a bus station a little out of the city centre, so we decided to give it a miss. Instead we went up the Petronas towers in the morning, Ben popped out to get the tickets first thing.

Amazing views from the top of the Petronas towers

In the afternoon we finished off the main sights that we hadn't seen before the jungle. The national war memorial, the botanical gardens (a bit of it anyway) and the bird park.

The war memorial

At the bird park

The bird park was nice. It is the largest free flying walk in aviary in the world apparently! It certainly is very large. It's situated on the side of a hill going down into a sort of dip, so they have been able to put netting over large areas. There are separate areas of netting, they are still really big areas, almost 21 acres according to their website! All sorts of birds from parrots to peacocks and flamingos and a whole load of others I don't know the names of. We probably didn't make the most of it, but we were starting to flag a bit from the heat, so we headed for a well earned ice cream in the central market. That revived us just enough to have a look around the shops (and buy Ben a T-shirt) and then head back to the hotel for a dip in the pool. Then we headed out for dinner to a place that was not too far away and got good reviews, the only thing the reviews didn't mention was that type of cuisine. Turned out it was British! Ah well, we were hungry and it was good, we had been intending something a little more adventurous, but never mind!