7th May-17th May 2003. Our Mini bus picked us up as planned at 7.30am. I think we were both sad to leave the Dutch Inn on Phuket as the room had been great and the food even better - I can see a trip to Denmark or Sweden coming about based on the food alone! The Mini bus was cramped and filthy, typical when we have a twelve hour journey ahead.
We hit the Thai/Malaysia border late afternoon, we were herded into a separate queue for foreigners, our passports were taken and we were subjected to a quick SAR's examination, nothing more than a 'once over' plus our temperature was taken - no problem. The interesting thing was that none of the locals were being tested at all - even the three Malaysians who were on our bus returning from a holiday in Thailand - are they immune ot something? A few hours later we arrived in Penany city. We were dropped on Churhc St. and decided to make our way into Little India. We found a room easy enough but it was grim, simply a box with a bed and a fan. The room was clean enough I guess, just well used. However, with the exception of the bathoom the rest of the hotel was filthy. We decided to stay put as we were both shattered, opting to spend most of our time out and about for as long as possible!
We managed to find a great street restaurant the first night there in Little India, they did the best Tandori Chicken we've ever had, cooked right there in front of you in a real clay tandoo oven, they even slapped the Naan's on then inside too and they were just divine! Two meals cost in Ringits no more than a few pounds. We found several good eateries in Penang, but to be honest that is the only good thing we can say about the place. There's very little to do there(and we did get out and about and make the effort to look) other than eat. The place is also scruffy, neither of us have been so many rats openly running around the streets, sometimes they were only feet away from you while you were eating- not nice. After two nights we'd had enough and made plans to head down to Kuals Lumpur.
Kuala Lumpur(KL) was a breath of fresh air, clean, open and possibly the most impressive skyline we've seend to date. We liked the place immediately, within half an hour we'd found accomodation in the Golden Triangle on Jalan Hicks. Naturally digs are a bit more expensive being a Capital City, but the cheap food around allowed us to claw back towards our budget. There's stacks to do also in KL on our first evening we explored afor a few hours and managed to get up the Petronas towers - naturally we blagged our way in past security for free-not lost my touch eh! The view from the bridge is truly amazing, i'd have loved to have gone all the way to the top. Over the next few days we spent our time walking miles, following the various walking tours in the Lonely Planet round Chinatown and the Colonial Districts-the latter being beautiful around Merdeka Square. We also managed to down our fair share of McDonalds and Starbucks coffee - not very travller eh, but there you go - try eating noodles and rice for three and a half months and see how YOU react when somebody faces you with a burger - even that rubbish from McD's!
Four days later we hit Melacca. Again the place had a realy nice feel to its, it certainly seemed cleaner that Penang anyhow. We managed to find the guesthouse we were looking for, the Travllers Lodge pretty easily. Now this is hwere we had our luckiedt break yet, the place wwas fantastic - and cheap! Harry, the Malsysian bloke who ran the place had really tapped into what travellers want in a guest house. It had its' own kitchen, the rooms were spotlessly clean and had hot showers. There was also a communal living room with books and mags etc, they even showed films each night downstairs in the cafe - tops! The only downside as that Harry was Muslim, which was not a problem, but it meant he would't allow pork in the house, so I couldn't cook myself a bacon butty! We decided to stay for three nights before moving to Singapore which gave us plenty of time to explore. Ther is plenty of history in Melacca, the Portugese and Dutch had the place origianlly and some of the buildings areoun Town Square date back to the 1640's St. Pauls Church on the hill above goes back to 1521 and had a great view over the surrounding Malaysian coastline. Close to this are the remains of A'Famosa fortress, built by the Dutch and 'naturally' blown to bit's by guess who? Yeas i'm sure you guessed, the British! The only thing we left standing (saved by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles nonetheless) is Porta de Santiago, the main gate which impressively still bears the arms of the Dutch East Indian Co above the remains of the gatehouse. Most evenings we walked into Melacca's own Little India and ate at a great street restaurant there, the curry was served typically on a banana leaf and tasted fantastic. I soon developed a penchant for Mutton valuval, a gently spiced dish with lots of lime - delicious! We slao tookin in a film at the local cinema (x-men 2) which was a laugh. The Malsysians obviously have no concept of being quiet during the performance, it was so blatant that you just can't get angry - you have to laugh. They walk around, phone their friends, shout at the actors on scree its absolutely bananas! After four days we'd seen most of the sights so bookied our onwards tickets to Singapore. Teh multi talented 'Albert' a local tax-driver (of Lonely Planet and the Rough Guide fame!!) took us to the bus stop, we left the hotel at 7.50 and the coach left at 8.00 plus I had to stop at the ATM - we still made it with 2 minutres to spare - scary ride - enough said. Either way, we'd made the coach, we donned our anti SARS face masks and headed on South.
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