A fine time was had in KL by all. It took three attempts to get up to the sky bridge crossing the Petronas Towers, the first time it was closed for the night, the second all the tickets for that day had sold out, I say sold, they're free to get, and then the third time we got it right. It's a double decker bridge that you reach by a service lift (very glamorous) with about another 30 people or so and shoot up, and then back down at a rate of two stories per second. We went for a peaceful stroll through the butterfly world, where Nic, deciding she wasn't excited enough threw herself down a set of stairs cutting her foot, trying to outdo my mum who threw herself across a pavement the night before. Both are still adamant that dinner was accompanied exclusively with soft drinks.
Transport across the city was undergone mostly by monorail or the underground trains which are driver less and all operate from the big brain hidden in the depths of the city somewhere. Roads were never really the fastest option, partly because everyone in the city who thinks they are important, and this goes right across the board down to minor politicians and such like, get escorted by a huge cavalcade of police cars and bikes. You could not sit in our 11th floor suite for 10 minutes without hearing the wail and honks of another apparently Very Important Person passing by. The PM back home wouldn't get a cavalcade half as big as some of these people who seem to be crippling the road infrastructure and the road police resources.
Evenings were spent either dining or window shopping. There was a big mall attached to our hotel and in the basement, there were no shops, but the floor is full of restaurants - all of them proper restaurants, not like a food court. The really neat thing was that you could pick the restaurant you liked the most and then ask for a menu to be brought to you from one of the other companies and you could order from their menu. We ate in the steak house, Dad and I ordering from their menu while Nic ordered from the Turkish restaurant and my Mum had Malaysian. At one point we had three different members of table staff attending to our table, and then at the end three different bills to sign. It was all lots of fun and very confusing.
After KL, Mum and Dad headed off to part two of their journey which was to an exclusive private Island resort called Pangkor Laut. We in turn set off following their shadow so as to spend more time with them again later and went for the less exclusive location of Pangkor Island, which to try and prevent confusion here, is the big island that people live and work on, and which Pangkor Laut (meaning Pangkor little) sits off the shore of.
We arrived on our Island (big) which is a popular holiday location for Malaysians and got a bright pink minibus taxi van thing to our little village that we had pre-booked our accommodation at. We had only about 12 hours on Pangkor in the end because my parents had got their customer service manager on side and had worked a very good deal for us to be able to come and spend a night on their island too. The first ferry onto Pangkor Laut was at 8am from the mainland town of Lumut, the same place the public ferry to Pangkor (big) departs from. To maximise our time on Pangkor Laut we decided we get the first ferry over from Lumut and then leave by the last ferry the following day. This meant though, that as we got off our ferry on Pangkor (big) at about 6pm, we would be getting back on the ferry at 6am the following morning to return to Lumut where we would get the next ferry back out to Pangkor Laut.
Still following this? It was all very confusing but meant that we basically had 12 hours to soak up an authentic Malaysian holiday spot where the Malays go on holiday and see how they do it before heading over to the posh private holiday resorts where the westerners do it - not quite so authentic but very very nice.
ANYWAY, first we had Pangkor (big) to enjoy and we had come during a holiday weekend. The village we stayed in had a lovely beach probably about a kilometre long but it was one of the thinnest beaches I have seen. Less than 20 metres of sand sat between the waves and the grassy verge which climbed up to the row of food stalls which hid the road from view behind. The beach was mobbed with people, all having a good time. Palm trees sprung out from between the stalls and leaned across the beach meaning you got your feet wet walking around unless you ducked underneath it, not an option for the few that had little rope swings with wooden seats hanging from them. Some people were offering rides on the back of jet skis and motor boats and these would roar towards the sand from the water and push up onto the shore as paddlers leaped out of the way as fast as they could. One of the things that stood out though was that it was mostly men and boys in the water - not a lot of girls. This small puzzle was solved on closer analysis which revealed most of the holiday makers were Muslim and as such the women dressed very conservatively and wore headdresses, not really an ideal swimming combination. A good time was being had by all though, including ourselves.
After the sun set the crowds (who were a well balanced mix of ages and families) headed to the restaurants and spent the night in what seems to be a national past time for Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia - Karaoke! I think I forgot to mention the Karaoke booths in KL and Singapore where you pay money to get sealed inside this big plastic pod and screech away to your heart's content. And these things are not confined to video arcades, in Jogjakarta (Indonesia) there was a row of them randomly in the middle of a mall. Anyhow, the howls from the restaurants (they don't have pubs or bars) rose into the night while, back at the hotel, I descended the complex into darkness by tampering with our ill working electric shower. An early rise the next day would take us to Pangkor Laut where there was no such problems with the showers.
Transport across the city was undergone mostly by monorail or the underground trains which are driver less and all operate from the big brain hidden in the depths of the city somewhere. Roads were never really the fastest option, partly because everyone in the city who thinks they are important, and this goes right across the board down to minor politicians and such like, get escorted by a huge cavalcade of police cars and bikes. You could not sit in our 11th floor suite for 10 minutes without hearing the wail and honks of another apparently Very Important Person passing by. The PM back home wouldn't get a cavalcade half as big as some of these people who seem to be crippling the road infrastructure and the road police resources.
Evenings were spent either dining or window shopping. There was a big mall attached to our hotel and in the basement, there were no shops, but the floor is full of restaurants - all of them proper restaurants, not like a food court. The really neat thing was that you could pick the restaurant you liked the most and then ask for a menu to be brought to you from one of the other companies and you could order from their menu. We ate in the steak house, Dad and I ordering from their menu while Nic ordered from the Turkish restaurant and my Mum had Malaysian. At one point we had three different members of table staff attending to our table, and then at the end three different bills to sign. It was all lots of fun and very confusing.
After KL, Mum and Dad headed off to part two of their journey which was to an exclusive private Island resort called Pangkor Laut. We in turn set off following their shadow so as to spend more time with them again later and went for the less exclusive location of Pangkor Island, which to try and prevent confusion here, is the big island that people live and work on, and which Pangkor Laut (meaning Pangkor little) sits off the shore of.
We arrived on our Island (big) which is a popular holiday location for Malaysians and got a bright pink minibus taxi van thing to our little village that we had pre-booked our accommodation at. We had only about 12 hours on Pangkor in the end because my parents had got their customer service manager on side and had worked a very good deal for us to be able to come and spend a night on their island too. The first ferry onto Pangkor Laut was at 8am from the mainland town of Lumut, the same place the public ferry to Pangkor (big) departs from. To maximise our time on Pangkor Laut we decided we get the first ferry over from Lumut and then leave by the last ferry the following day. This meant though, that as we got off our ferry on Pangkor (big) at about 6pm, we would be getting back on the ferry at 6am the following morning to return to Lumut where we would get the next ferry back out to Pangkor Laut.
Still following this? It was all very confusing but meant that we basically had 12 hours to soak up an authentic Malaysian holiday spot where the Malays go on holiday and see how they do it before heading over to the posh private holiday resorts where the westerners do it - not quite so authentic but very very nice.
ANYWAY, first we had Pangkor (big) to enjoy and we had come during a holiday weekend. The village we stayed in had a lovely beach probably about a kilometre long but it was one of the thinnest beaches I have seen. Less than 20 metres of sand sat between the waves and the grassy verge which climbed up to the row of food stalls which hid the road from view behind. The beach was mobbed with people, all having a good time. Palm trees sprung out from between the stalls and leaned across the beach meaning you got your feet wet walking around unless you ducked underneath it, not an option for the few that had little rope swings with wooden seats hanging from them. Some people were offering rides on the back of jet skis and motor boats and these would roar towards the sand from the water and push up onto the shore as paddlers leaped out of the way as fast as they could. One of the things that stood out though was that it was mostly men and boys in the water - not a lot of girls. This small puzzle was solved on closer analysis which revealed most of the holiday makers were Muslim and as such the women dressed very conservatively and wore headdresses, not really an ideal swimming combination. A good time was being had by all though, including ourselves.
After the sun set the crowds (who were a well balanced mix of ages and families) headed to the restaurants and spent the night in what seems to be a national past time for Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia - Karaoke! I think I forgot to mention the Karaoke booths in KL and Singapore where you pay money to get sealed inside this big plastic pod and screech away to your heart's content. And these things are not confined to video arcades, in Jogjakarta (Indonesia) there was a row of them randomly in the middle of a mall. Anyhow, the howls from the restaurants (they don't have pubs or bars) rose into the night while, back at the hotel, I descended the complex into darkness by tampering with our ill working electric shower. An early rise the next day would take us to Pangkor Laut where there was no such problems with the showers.
3 comments:
Your words paint such vivid pictures of the places you visit but I would love to see more of your wonderful photos. I can't be the only one to feel that way.
Anyones? :)
You really should become a travel writer (apologies if you already are) because you tell it brilliantly!!
Do be careful in the Kareoke bars over there. There was a story in the news a couple of weeks ago about a security guard relaxing in one of these bars who told a singer to shut up, and when they didn't - he shot them!! Dangerous activity, Kareoke!
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