Malaysia & Singapore, Selangor, Malaysia

Koh Phi Phi was our final day on a Thai island and we both felt we saved the best until last. It was certainly more of a party island than Koh Lanta but the scenery was breathtaking. All jagged cliffs, white beaches and turquoise water. And of course, ‘The Beach.’ The island was badly hit by the tsunami in 2004 and visitors numbers are just returning to pre-tsunami levels. We’d been told it was so much more expensive that other Thai islands so decided to fit just one day/night in before heading to Malaysia. As it happened it was no more expensive than anywhere else we had been and wished we could have spent a few more days there.

The following day we began the long trip to Kuala Lumpur, and two consecutive nights on a train. Via a boat, minibus, coach, tuk-tuk and despite the best efforts of the coach company to rip us off, we got to the train station and boarded the train to Butterworth, a city in Northern Malaysia, arriving at around noon. Our train out of Butterworth to Kuala Lumpur wasn’t until the evening so we used the few hours to explore Georgetown, the capital of Penang, an island just off the coast of Malaysia. We decided to do this after meeting a fellow traveller in his 50’s who has been going there on and off for the best part of thirty years. Figuring we didn’t really know what we were doing or how to get to Georgetown, he was kind enough to stay with us all the way to Georgetown.

Strangely, the ferry to the island costs money (only about 40p) but doesn’t cost to come back. A bit like getting into Wales, but a lot cheaper and as a ferry needs to be sailed and manned you can actually see what your money pays for. Founded by the East India company in the 1880’s and named after George III, it’s an odd place, with a mixture of dilapidated colonial buildings, renovated colonial buildings and skyscrapers (a result of massive amounts of Chinese investment from the 90‘s up until today.) The highlight’s in Georgetown were both culinary. Firstly, feasting on a bag of roasted buttered monkey nuts from a street vendor then one of the cheapest and best curries either of us has ever had for dinner (mains, rice, naan and drink for under £2 each).

Although we didn’t have sleepers for the night train to Kuala Lumpur it wasn’t as uncomfortable a night’s sleep as we thought it would be. We’d booked in to stay at Reggae Guest House in Kuala Lumpur and luckily our room was ready when we got there at about 10am. Decent place for the price (around £20 ), very good facilities and great location. After checking-in we ventured out into humidity of the city, went to the Petronas Towers (formerly the tallest buildings in the world, now fourth tallest), went to the park, saw a mousedeer (it does what it says on the tin. It’s just a very very small deer) and generally sweated a lot.

Unlike what we had been used to in Thailand, alcohol was very expensive due to the ‘luxury’ tax they slap on. A half pint was nearly £2. So we retired early and headed to Singapore the following day (about 9 hours on the train, around £8).

If there’s one city in the world you’d expect to be able to safely whip out your laptop at a bus stop at 2am in the morning, connect to the internet, pull up Google maps and work out where the hell your hostel is without being mugged or abused, it’s Singapore. And you’d be right. Singapore does live up to it’s stereotype. Everyone knows that chewing gum is illegal in Singapore, the result of an obsession with cleanliness, and yes it is very clean. It’s also very safe and very modern. In the main park there is even an escalator to take you up a grassy bank which some city planner has obviously deemed too much effort to climb manually. If that’s the future, I’m scared.

Many people would hate Singapore because of this, yet to be honest, we struggled to find too much wrong with a place where there is negligible amounts of crime, no homelessness and very little unemployment. We marvelled over the cities in Indian because they were so different: crowded, polluted, poverty-stricken. Singapore is the polar opposite, and because of this it is also a place to marvel over. It does have a slightly edgy side, Chinatown and Little India, which gives it a bit of a South East Asian feel, but on the whole it’s unlike any other city we’ve seen so far. That said, I don’t think we’d rush back. There are too many malls, too few independent shops/cafes and not enough character for it to be a city with real appeal. It feels like an experiment, an ideal location should they ever decide to film the Truman Show 2. Maybe the lack of crime and poverty means the experiment has worked and this is the way our cities will look in the future? There must be a middle way, a less sterile way to make a city, but it’s one to ponder.

Oh yeah, for anyone who’s interested, we stayed at a hostel called One Florence Close, about the cheapest you can find in the city if you want a private room not a dorm (£25 a night for a private room). It was a few miles from the city centre but on the metro line (about 20 mins to the centre, around 80p one way) so no problem getting around. This place also had the two fluffiest cats we have ever seen, apparently the result of some micro-biotic diet which means guests are forbidden from feeding them lest they lose their fluff. Fairly cute-ish. Pictures below.

Our next blog will be on Bali (from where we are writing this).

Via | TravelPod

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