Penang
Northwest Malaysia

Our first stop in Malaysia was the northwestern island of Penang, where our plane from Laos landed amidst a spectacular lightening storm just before midnight.  Upon arrival, we were soon whisked away by taxi to the island’s capital, Georgetown.  The town was originally named after king George III; as Penang was once an important British colonial trading post in the early to mid 1900s. 

The Georgetown city hall and clock tower reflect the colonial history of the town.

Malaysia is officially a Muslim state, the first of our trip.  When we initially arrived we found the Muslim presence very visible as many of the women wear headscarves and the men don white skullcaps; however, the Islamic influence is not oppressive and mixes well with Malaysia’s increasingly western culture.  

We booked a room at a centrally located hotel just minutes away from the bustling streets of Chinatown and a few streets down from Little India.  The ethnic and cultural diversity that seemed to blend together in the everyday life of the local population was fascinating.  Indians, Chinese, Malaysians, Thais, Indonesians etc… all mixing and living together with no visible prejudices.  A very impressive sight!

Unfortunately, one of our own stereotypes was exposed during our hunt for outgoing bus tickets.  The bus ticketing business in Georgetown is primarily run by the Chinese and Indians.  Although we initially paid a visit to both Chinese and Indian vendors, our problematic bus ticket experiences in India were still very fresh on our minds, so we couldn’t quite cope with going back down that route.  Without too much thought, we headed to the Chinese vendor to purchase our tickets.  Upon hearing our request, the Chinese salesman picked up the phone and called the Indian travel agent next door to confirm seat availability on the bus.  The Indians owned the bus… and yes, we felt very embarrassed!!  Perhaps we should take a leaf out of the Malaysian example and leave our prejudices at home.  Later that evening, we boarded the 9-hour overnight bus to the Perhentian Islands. 

The Perhentian Islands
Northeast Malaysia

After a surprisingly comfortable bus ride (the best bus journey we’ve had on our trip so far – the seats reclined until practically horizontal!!!), we arrived at the Kuala Besut jetty, where an hour-long speed boat dropped us off at Long Beach on the Perhentian Kecil Island.  The Perhentian Islands have made a strong case for being Malaysia’s most idyllic islands, with crystal clear waters, stretches of long white sandy beaches and acres of untouched lush green rain forests. 

The view from our beach towels...apologies to those of you viewing this from your windowless offices.

The scramble for accommodation began as soon as we landed on the beach.  The island is covered with thick unpenetrated rainforests, with the only signs of man, ie guesthouses and restaurants, were clustered around the shore, sandwiched between the trees and the sand.  We secured ourselves a simple hillside bungalow, dumped our bags and went for a long cooling swim in the sea. 

Our hillside bungalow came complete with 2 'pet' lizards who kept us entertained in the evenings with their nightly moth hunting antics.

We spent most of our time on the island snorkeling and resting in the shade, making the most of the island’s cooling sea breeze.  We did manage to explore some parts of the rainforests by embarking on a small jungle trek across the breadth of the island.  Sweltering heat, swarms of mosquitoes and giant spiders deterred us from wandering too far away from the beach.  Even so, we did mange to see some wildlife, which included giant monitor lizards  (2 to 3 meters in length!!), and large sea eagles, which stood over half a meter high as they perched on the beach. 

Eric relaxes on the beach after a busy morning snorkelling. 

Our visit to the Perhentian islands also brought with it the first and long anticipated opportunity to go scuba diving on our trip.  Our first dive was a five-minute speedboat trip up the coast to the dive site, D’Lagoon.  We spent an hour diving down to 12 meters and exploring the reef and admiring the plenty of colorful corals and fish – which included Nemos (also known as clownfish), angelfish, batfish and a huge porcupine fish with giant bulging eyes.  The highlight was most definitely our stop at a ‘cleaning station’, where we saw tiny shrimp (less than a cm long and almost completely transparent) emerge from the coral and swim on to our fingers to clean our cuticles… amazing!!! 

Our second dive took us down to 18 meters to explore a reef formed on huge boulders and rock that seemed to have tumbled into the sea.  We swam up, around, down, under and through the gaps.  Fish highlights included large angelfish, bright yellow boxfish (literally the shape of a 3-d box – quite a bizarre shape for a fish), a well-camouflaged scorpion fish and more large porcupine fish.

The island also gave us the opportunity to get plenty of snorkelling done.  The 'house' reefs weren't the best, but they were teaming with plenty of fish.

Eric tries to blend in with the locals.... 

Don't you hate it when you try to take a photo of someone and a school of fish keep getting in the way?

In the evenings we feasted on beachside seafood BBQs, before falling asleep to the almost nightly thundering tropical rains and enjoying the cooling drop in temperature they brought with them. 

After a week on the island, we packed up our stuff, took a speedboat back to the mainland and boarded a mini bus which took us to our next destination, Taman Negara National Park.

Taman Negara
Central Malaysia 

Taman Negara gave us the opportunity to visit one of the most pristine primary rainforests in the world.  This area of the jungle is claimed to be the oldest in the world, and has been in existence for the last 130 million years – having been untouched by ice ages, volcanic activity and other geological events. 

We stayed just outside the park in the small village of Kuala Tahan.  The following morning we crossed the river and started our 3-hour trek through the rain forest.  There was no need for a guide as the trail was well-marked, and large and dangerous animals usually stayed clear of the tourist-trod areas.  We headed towards a treetop canopy walkway and encountered our first dangerous creature along the way – an extremely poisonous Red Headed Krait.  We stood and watched the snake slither away into a carpet of dead and rotting leaves before continuing on our way, a little more cautiously this time!

Eric: "Well it's big, but it's not quite a redwood".

A few km’s later, we reached the canopy walkway and were soon exploring the 400m long creaky set of ropes and planks suspended 25 meters high amongst the treetops of the forest.

Eric gingerly makes his way along the canopy walkway....

...with Nikki bounding on ahead.

Our wildlife sightings were mainly centered around the resort at the entrance to the park where we saw a highly poisonous Pope’s Pit Viper and some playful monkeys.

After lunch we went for another 2 hour walk through the jungle, but saw little of interest other than some giant ants and monitor lizards.  The heat and humidity quickly took its toll and upon returning from our day in the jungle we were in much need of a good shower to wash away the grime and sweat.  Unfortunately the shower head in our bathroom was situated immediately above the toilet meaning we had to lean over the toilet bowl in order to wash….’a good shower’ is certainly not the correct description, but it worked nonetheless.

Kuala Lumpur
Southwest Malaysia

The following day we headed to the capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur ('KL' as the locals call it).  We found a hotel in the heart of KL’s vibrant Chinatown district where the streets were lined with hawker stalls selling fake watches sunglasses, bags, t-shirts, etc; all of which seemed to attract every Aussie tourist in town.  KL is a very modern Asian city with clean streets, skyscraper shopping malls and an efficient monorail transport system.  Within this small city, the Muslim influence still prevails; mosques are found between tall concrete buildings and the Islamic star and crescent adorn many building facades.  The crown jewels of the city’s skyline are the famous Petronas Towers – the world’s highest twin towers.  We climbed (took the elevator) to the sky bridge, which links the two towers via the 41st floor, to admire the great views it provides out across the city.

The view from the bottom of the towers.

The view from the skybridge.

We spent the next couple of days strolling through the city streets and also paid a visit to South East Asia’s biggest shopping mall.  Our visit to KL was brief as we planned to travel back to the east coast of Malaysia to Tioman Island where more diving was on the cards.

Tioman Island
Southeast Malaysia

An overnight bus and a short ferry ride brought us to the shores of Tioman.  The island gained its fame in the 1950’s when it was the setting of the mythical Bali Hai in the film ‘South Pacific’.  Since then it has been proclaimed as one of the world’s most beautiful islands…and also a duty free zone….both of which have helped keep the tourists flocking in. 

Despite the size of the jetty, the beach wasn't overrun with tourists, making it a great island escape.

We rented an ‘A frame’ bungalow on Salang beach.  Our accommodation came with a few dozen mosquitoes, an ant’s nest, 5 or 6 jumping spiders, and a sprinkling of mice droppings; but after 10 months of travelling none of this bothered us and we had soon rearranged the beds, put up the mosquito net and made it livable. 

Our 'A' frame was set in a picturesque garden..... even the monkeys liked to visit to search the nearby bushes for grubs.

The setting on the island was similar to the Perhentians, a carpet of thick rainforest fringed by thin strips of white sandy beach.  Tioman (in our humble opinion) lacked the more isolated charm of the Perhentians, but more than made up for this with its excellent snorkeling.  Along with the abundance of underwater life the island could also rival the jungles of Taman Negara, with its population of monitor lizards, squirrels, monkeys and the usual contingent of alarmingly large insects. 

  

Large monitor lizards feast on left-over scraps of fish from the local kitchens.

Whilst in Tioman we did two more dives.  Our first dive took us down to a deep 28 meters where the visibility was excellent.  We did some narrow swim-throughs coming across large batfish and giant star puffer fish.  On our second dive we brought along a small disposable underwater camera; unfortunately our underwater photography skills leave much to be desired but luckily we did manage to get a few good shots.  On the dive we encountered some large cuttlefish flapping their ‘skirts’ and dancing around, rapidly changing color in a courtship ritual; we watched, fascinated, for a few minutes then quietly left them to it.  We also saw some blue spotted rays and menacing moray eels.

Eric floats over a field of 'potato' coral.

Nikki swims through a school of fish (the vague yellow stripes behind her).

Nikki takes a closer look at a moray eel hidden in the coral.

Eric exits a very narrow swim-through.

One of our few successful photos of life on the reef.

Colourful fish seek protection under overhanging red coral.

Little 'Nemo's' hide amongst the stinging tentacles of sea anemones.

In Tioman, we rediscovered the much-undervalued board game ‘Ludo’, to which we have now become addicted.  In the evenings we could be found in the local restaurants frantically rolling the die and accusing each other of cheating, much to the amusement of the waiters (and wonderment of the 6 year olds sitting at the next table).  Lightening storms continued to be a nightly event.  We were often woken up by loud crashing noises and the shaking of our hut as rain dislodged coconuts from the surrounding trees and they fell heavily onto (but not through) our roof.

Time flies when you spend your days snorkeling and diving, so five days and a few dozen mosquito bites later we left the island and headed south by bus to Singapore.