Malaysia
Hey folks!
Today I would like to take you to Malaysia.
First of all we should maybe start with some facts:
•The peninsula of Malaysia adjoins, with an area of 329,758 km² and a population of about 28 million inhabitants (about 52 % are Malays, about 23 % Chinese, about eleven % indigenous people, about seven % Indians and seven % others) to Thailand and in the south to Singapore. •Islam is the official religion in Malaysia, but all other religions can be exercised unhindered. •The capital of Malaysia is Kuala Lumpur.
We just fell in love with Asia, and when we found a cheap flight to Kuala Lumpur by coincidence, we booked it right away and without further research.
Unfortunately, we could only take three weeks of vacation, so we weren't able to see even half of the country.
With this blog post I would like to bring you closer to Kuala Lumpur, Tioman and Rawa.
Kuala Lumpur:
While having our travels through Thailand and Sri Lanka in mind, we expected Malaysia to be similar: communication problems with the locals, because English is hardly learned, insane traffic, dirty and noisy cities and people gazing at us because of our different look (sounds very negative, but I don't mean it that way).
We were completely wrong!
Kuala Lumpur offers a lot of impressing architecture, builds futuristic shopping malls in a blink of an eye and is due to its history (keyword British colony) very Western influenced.
There were hardly any communication problems and we felt like living in a cosmopolitan city without prejudice.
First we stayed in the "Lantern Hotel", located in China Town. The hotel offers a pretty good price-performance ratio. While you should not expect a lot of luxury, the location is awesome. As soon as you step a foot out of the hotel, you are in the middle of the chaotic Chinese market, where you can hardly save yourself from fake Guccis and street food.
To get around in KL we took the subway, which is a great experience after understanding (kind of) the timetable.
We never expected people to wait in line for the subway to arrive, but everyone was waiting patiently and in perfect order.
Kuala Lumpur is heaven on earth for everyone who loves shopping. We shopped ourselves through seven huge malls in two days. I came with only a half-filled backpack to Asia on purpose, since the clothes prices are unbeatable ;-) so in the end (after those two days) we had two pretty full backpacks.
Sightseeing took one day, on another we explored the Batu Caves.
We also went to a cooking class at Ana's from LaZat (http://malaysia-klcookingclass.com). I would definitely recommend it! If you are interested in further information, please don't hesitate to contact me.But until then.. some pictures from cooking @ LaZat and our yummy result :-)
And now another highlight and (as I believe) still an insider tip:
We have more or less the tradition, while staying in such a world city, to watch it one night from above from a skybar.
We tried to find one via Google, but didn't want to dress up to get into one of those snobby bars.
In the end, a local guy recommended the "Heli Lounge Bar": a heliport, which transforms into a bar with a few plastic chairs in the evening.
No dress code and German prices - perfect.
Pulau Tioman:
The cheapest way to get to Tioman is, to take the bus from KL to Mersing and from there a boat to Tioman. This journey takes up a whole day.
First we slept in the "Tioman Dive Resort" on ABC-Beach. The rooms were well..okay, but they did take us with the boat to snorkle, which was great! Incredible coral reefs, uncountable fishes and we think, that we might even have seen a shark!
The ABC-Beach is a good address to arrive and to snorkel / dive, but if you are planning on spending a beach holiday, you should probably explore other areas of the island.
After two days, we took the taxi for 50 Ringgit across the hill of the island (which was quite an adventure, because our driver lost his exhaust while the hill had 47% gradient and had to restart his car every 5 minutes :-D by the way his name is Uncle Rahim and I still have his number, if anyone is interested) to Juara. We slept at "1551 Coconut Grove" and it was a dream come true! Although July and August are high season, we only sunbathed at empty beaches. Plain nature with a maximum of five other people.
You can trek from Juara without a guide through the jungle with the destination waterfall.
Not so paradise-alike was the jungle dweller whom we unknowingly brought back to our beach hut: a gigantic spider.. but as the hotel owner cleverly said "no touch no danger" ..
Pulau Rawa:
After one wonderful week in Tioman, we went back to Mersing and from there to island Rawa.
Pulau Rawa is a private island with only two hotels, both owned by the same family. One of the hotels is for the "adventurers" (pictured below) without air-condition or fresh water, the other is a luxury family resort.
The booked package includes food, transfer from and to Mersing and all sports / beach utensils.
The price is (for Malaysian conditions) not exactly low-priced, but still the visit is definitely worth it!
We ended up staying one more night than planned, because this island is truly incomparable and beautiful :-)
Those three weeks went by way to fast and we still have so much more of Malaysia to explore ! Pinky promise we will be back ! Of course, I have much more to report, so if you are planning a trip to Malaysia and have any further questions, I would be super happy to help :-)
