Pulau Lankawi

Our final bit of Malaysia has been a two week stay on Langkawi just below Thailand. The island is a bit more of a holiday destination with lots of very nice beaches and an industry geared up towards visitors. We stayed at a beautiful place called Soluna guest house just off the main resort town of pantai cenang, Claudia and Aidi the owners house is pictured below with Aidi tending the fire with one of their cats keeping him company 

 ...one of their many cats...

 ....many many cats....

 ...and theneighbours cats. Lets just say there were a lot of cats, well looked after and well fed which was nice to see

 We got our first taste of the Japanese ladies bathing dress sense much to Louise's amusement

 We travelled the island extensively and managed to see some nice wildlife like  this macaque stealing a bag of crisps from an unsuspecting ladies bag

 A very lovely new to me species of monkey called the dusky leaf, a beautiful but very shy creature who only gave me a quick glimpse of his face to fire a shot off

 There were plenty of lovely spots to see and the waterfalls were just about still falling despite the weather on the coast being sunny and the temperature sticking around the mid 30's

LAngkawi was lovely and somewhere that both me and Lou enjoyed immensely, the placed we stayed was situated in farmland that gave us a peaceful base from which on several days we didn't leave. The beach was close enough to walk to and the food again was excellent. The lady who lived next door was happy to knock up a main meal for around 60p and made the best milo (really sweet iced chocolate milk) i've had since we got here. We have almost relaxed too much here and could have stayed longer but we feel its time to move on so tomorrow we make a move to Bangkok.

pulau Penang

For Chinese New Year it was only fitting that we headed to a busy China town so we went North again up the coast to Penang island and Georgetown where we stayed just on the edge of China town in a lovely little guest house. Georgetown is massively populated and busy all day long, the peaceful serenity of some of the temples we visited was a welcome break

 It wasn't long though before we were sucked back into chinatown and the chances to get more delicious nighttime food

 As the preparations for CNY started to ramp up it gave us the oppurtunity to see some of the most lavish lion dancing we had seen, back street in china town on the night itself

 The lion getting ready for the show

 ..and in full swing

 With the finale of the dragon dance being the icing on the cake

Only a short trip to Penang just for the celebrations and then we were off to more peaceful surroundings

Pulau Pangkor

North up the coast and a trip across the ocean took us to the small fishing island of Pangkor, quiet and only slightly developed for tourists this was a nice break from the noise and chaos of our previous destinations, less  than hour to motorcycle around and with only one road it was a great little spot

 The wildlif here is used to mingling with humanity and used our constructs to its advantage, two macaques using the power lines to move through the neighbourhood

 A white lipped malaysian viper that was getting cover from the rain as were we

 One of the local guesthouses fed the hornbills and finished the show by throwing bits of banana into the air for them to compete over

 It was a lovely spot and once we'd settled in it was perhaps worthy of more time than we gave it

Melaka

 

 

 

 

Ashort bus ride to the South west took us down onto the coast and the Unesco world heritage site of Melaka. A beautiful old traders town based around the river and the old port which once a hugely important and busy trading post for thi area of the world

 The streets were brightened up by many trishaws that had sound systems to envy any boy racer back in the UK, once again mainly pumping out that theme of the trip Gangnam style

 One of the main pulls of the place is the night market of Jonkers walk that happens over the three nights of the weekend, lots of lovely street food and dodgy knocked off bargains to be had

 As it was the run up to Chinese New Year we were able to see several lion dances that are used to bestow good wishes for the next year onto the businesses and restaurants througout the town..

 ..with each getting there own personal dance

 We spent an evening at a bar called Me and Mrs Jones who were very gracious hosts and we had a chat with this chap and his iguana who are local celebrities of the night market

So that was Melaka after just under a wek it was time to head out to some of the islands for a relax on the beach in the sun

Kuala Lumpur

After our short stop in Singapore it was time for a quick flight into Peninsular Malaysia to Kuala Lumpur. We decided again to stay for a couple of days before moving on. We found a hostel out of the Lonely Planet in China town which was an absolute shocker so we didn't spend very much time there apart fom sleeping. The first full day we headed downtown and visited some of the landmarks which included the KL Tower....

...and the Petronas twin towers, both of which were pretty spectacular 

 The rest of our time was spent wanering the back streets of China town sampling the many different varieties of street food and basically avoiding having to go back to our room

KL was like a less refined version of Singapore and a couple of days was enough for us, onwards to the next place!!

So we landed for a couple of days in Singapore, a place we weren't sure about as we had had mixed comments from people we spoke to about it. First thing was welcome to the humidity of Asia 30 degrees and 70-80% humidity. We took a train and a walk down to the botanical gardens where we were quite suprised to see a 1.5m monitor lizard basking by the waters edge  

 Singapore itself is quite a weird place with enormous skyscapers climbing their way up between open green spaces which led to some great framing oppurtunities

 We also had our first introduction to the mix of old and new that was to become indicative of Asian cities. Points if you can see the  futuristic bad robot coming to stomp on the heritage of old Singapore 

 We also headed down into Chinatown where the year of the snake is almost upon us.

 Chinatown was a crazy place with every fake fashion item you could think of for sale, it truly never stopped no matter whether you did or not. Great for people watching with a cold beer

Singapore was a crazy place and not what we expected the old and crowded streets of Chinatown which were our favourite and Little India where in sharp contrast to the sterile sky reaching central business district, rounded off by the piece and tranquility of the Botanic gardens made it a great place to visit.