Malaysian Getaway

It is late summer and there large numbers of thermal refugees from Arabia holidaying in Malaysia and Indonesia to escape the 50 degree temperatures at home. As a result we were stuck for a few days in Penang, an Island about the size of lake Taupo with a population of half a million people and lots of manufacturing industry connected by bridge to the malaysian peninsula. Really not much more to say about the place, if holidaying don't bother.

We travelled on to Langkawi on the recommendation of a couple that we met in Vietnam. Langkawi is a beautiful group of forest covered hilly islands off the south of the Malay penisula near the Thai border, the biggest of which is about 30km across. Langkawi has a lot going for it; relatively sparsely populated (for Malaysia) with fantastic beaches, and it is a Duty Free Zone so alcohol is actually cheap (a minor miracle for a Muslim country). Development has been patchy with economic burps leading to the odd old half finished building and some boarded up businesses - in the way you might see in a slightly economically depressed area of a city or town. Langkawi (and Malaysia) is favoured with an incredibly benign climate where it is never too hot or cold, there is never strong wind and the worst extreme you have to build for is heavy rain, so there are a lot of open air cafes and restaurants that are nothing more than roofs on poles.

We got a cheap bungalow (NZ$11 per night) on Cenang beach , a huge long strip of beachfront resorts, shops, and cafes on the north west of the island. The couple running the place were a helpful if slightly disorganised (of which more later) couple, an ex Iranian Colonel from the Shah's days and his Japanese wife, both in their 60's.

Hiring a car was cheap - about NZ$25 for the day including fuel so we travelled around for a day, seeing some of the sights. The cable car was very scary, suspending us 100-200m above the forest canopy as we went to the highest point on the island, but very nice architecture and engineering. We also went to the seven pools where we swam in catchpools at the top of a big waterfall, the most pleasently cool we managed to be in four days on langkawi.

Going out at night was trickier than for other countries. Due to the predominantly muslim population a lot of places exclude alcohol entirely and westeners tended to cluster strongly in the few that do sell booze. Arabs and others are scattered in twos and threes through the other 100 restaurants and cafes, but even so most places are open till 2-3 in the morning every day of the week. We thought we had just not found the night spots and spent an hour and a half walking back and forth along the entire strip one night looking for where everyone was, eventually realising it just wasn't that sort of place unlike everywhere else we have been in Asia. This reconnaisance yeilded just three bars, of which one was right next door (Debbie's run by a Malaysian women with one arm and an Irish husband). But it also saw us walking along a dark road at 1am in the morning after a few drinks not paying too much attention to where we were going when I noticed a wiggly outline on the road a metre or two in front, did a double take and realised it was a snake. Jane and I both jumped, but the snake wasn't moving and neither were it's two friends a few metres away, we didn't stop to check but we think they may have been someone's dinner dropped on the road - catering-screwup rather than close-encounter (sort of dissapointing not seeing a snake after 4 months in Asia).

After four days it was time to check out, go to the airport and fly to Kuala Lumpur, hungover after meeting a couple of Brits the night before and drinking flaming lambourghini's (Just say no kids) we got to the motel checkout 40 minutes before we needed to check-in at the airport to be told that the wife with the keys to the security box and our passports had gone out somewhere without her cellphone. Husband jumps in car to go and find her (but without telling us when he would be back). We wait till 10 minutes before we have to check in but no-one had come back, unable to contact either of them we took the next step: We broke into their house, kicking down the front door, searching around, kicking down their bedroom door, then using a pry-bar to break into the security cabinet. Gear retrieved we then jumped in a taxi and hightailed it to the airport, jumping queues to get checked in in time and going directly to the gate in the hopes of avoiding any consequences. Not quite a clean getaway though, the Japanese lady owner somehow managed to get though to the gate without a boarding pass, and confronted us. She just looked totally shocked and hurt, saying that her house had been broken into three times in the last year now, and that her kitten had died this morning (believe it or not I patted it while lifting the matress it was sitting on looking for the box). But despite feeling bad we stuck to our guns and wouldn't give here any more money than the $20 token payment for damages that we had left. Pretty worried when Jane was asked to identify herself to the flight attendents before takeoff - thought we were about to get dragged off by the police, but turned out to be just a problem with our boarding passes, quickly fixed.

Kuala Lumpur was a lovely step into comfort after the last month of budget accommodation. Staying with my cousin Richard and his lovely new wife (of ten days) Joelle, in a delicsiously air conditioned apartment we were treated to a couple of great nights out at his new restaurant and bar "Twenty One" in the heart of the city. Richard has been in this game learning the craft for 15 years but this is the first place that he has owned personally (with his partner) and it is going brilliantly, but a very full-on life: up at 11am in bed at 5am, and having to be a convivial host and manager 340 days a year. To relieve stress he has a number of outlets, the latest of which (after being told to sell his motorbike) is a ridiculously big remote controlled "Monster" truck, with 5hp and capable of about 140km/hr. We headed out at 4am in the morning to a nearby motorway to play with this baby. Thankfully the video camera we've been carrying survived the little prang we had when doing some onboard video.

While Richard was off working Joelle took us to Batu (Stone) Cave inside Kuala Lumpur, this is a massive cave probably 40m wide and 100m high and 150m deep, used as a Budhist temple with a 20m Golden Budda statue out front. It is a truly spectacular natural formation complete with monkeys that climb the surounding cliffs and challenge people for food. Every year there is a religious ceremony in which thousands of the faithful gather as devotees pierce their faces with steel rods, and their bodies with hooks in penance.

Impressions of malaysia have been great, wonderfully helpful (taxi drivers were just fantastic) and friendly people, good food (mix of enthnicities, 10% Indian, 30% Chinese and 60% Muslim). Don't get hassled to buy stuff all the time like you do in other parts of Asia, and infrastructure all works. Kuala Lumpur is really almost a modern western city, pretty, lots of greenery, and cheap. Easy to have a good life here with a really good three bedroom apartment close to the city centre costing NZ$70 per week (unfurnished).

Next stop: Istanbul.