Pictures yet to be added!
Malaysia was one of the travel made easy countries. Travelling here feels more safe and regulated in a very good way. You have set prices for buses, working seat numbers, good roads and less exciting driving than most other countries around SEA. In addition to that mostly everyone speaks english. The country surprised us around each corner with somethibg different. One of my favourite things were all the local tourists travelling during chinese new year. To give you a heads up: This will be one of the longer articles I wrote since it presents our trip throughout Malaysia after KL.
New years eve part 2
Chinese New year in George Town was a blast. The year of the rooster is here. We saw some fireworks, experienced lion dances all over town, went to temples and enjoyed the otherwise quiet atmosphere in town since many shops and restaurants were closed for the holidays.
The attractions we visited we shared with mainly local tourists on an extended weekend get away. Due to this we stood in line to go up and down Penang hill longer than we might have walked up but we did share these periods of waitong with all the locals around us. The few tourists we saw opted mostly for the fast line ticket.
We stayed at the rope walk hostel and our hostel mom was great and gave us many recommendations. It was the first hostel we came across and we were lucky to still get a place to sleep since they had already blocked the online booking.
One of the craziest temples we witnessed was the illuminated Kek Lok Si temple. The streets of George Town with fun and partly informing street art and the old chinese clan houses are a bliss. Sadly I was still not feeling very well therefor I did not try all of the beloved Penang foods.
Cameron Highlands in short
It took us 7 hours in a bus to get from Penang to Tanah Rata and we decided to stay for two nights. Our day in the mountains was fully packed with everything the cameron highlands are famous for: a tea plantation, the mossy forest, a strawberry farm and a jungle trek.
The day we arrived I looked around for some not so pricey hiking boots since I had to send mine home due to a not anymore attached sole, see picture below for further information.
We spent half a day exploring the Camerons with a guide with great knowledge of all the plants around. The mossy forest is by far the closest I have ever been to a real fairytale setting.
After the tour we teamed up with a lovely english couple to explore the crazy strawberry farm/garden center/weekend attraction and afterwards as they would call it an impromtu jungle trek.
Since the treks are marked this seemed like a great idea. It was great but maybe a little foolish at the same time. All of us agreed after we got back to civilization that we would not have done it by ourselves. So yay to peer pressure! I would not want to have missed this but on a return trip I would do guided treks only.
We got back to town just in time for the rain to begin and had some indian food for dinner. The next day we were ready to head to Melaka.
City of culture
Melaka has a rich history with influences from different cultures and religions. We took part in two free walking tours sponsored by the museums of Melaka and both were grand. As we were waiting for one tour to start we talked to our guide and found out that he is friends with our guide from the camerons. So he immediately send his friend a pic of us trying out local couture.
During our time in Melaka we had Dim Sum for breakfast everyday. There was a traditional place just down the street. One day we even got invited by a nice older couple. And eventhough this restaurant is mentioned in the lonely planet we never saw other tourists here.
The only thing we did not like about the city was that Chris had to check out the Hospital because he had an infection. But after taking his meds for 5 days he was feeling a lot better. Unfortunately this limited our Singapore plans a little since the usual marathon walking was not an option.