Malaysia on an Adventure!

D-Day, we're off!

We take the Turkish Airlines plane at 16:00. First stop: Istanbul after a 2½-hour flight, during which we fly over, to my great pleasure, some islands of Croatia, my country of origin! Just time to change gate and it's almost time to take the next flight to Kuala Lumpur. Too bad there's a delay... a good start!... Finally we set off. The plane is a modern Airbus and we expect to find mini monitors on every seat, but no, Turkish preferred the economy version with a few televisions placed up high in the central row... Moreover, we have the unluckiest seats, that is right at the back, and in the middle!...

How am I supposed to stretch my legs? My seat is half broken and the remotes for the TV don't work! We do manage to change seats though and everything goes fine, apart from the fact that I can't sleep and I watch all the films on the programme (in English of course, because I don't yet have a command of Turkish!) Meals strictly without pork and not exactly exceptional...

Arrival in Kuala Lumpur

Stopover in Bangkok after 12 hours and 40 minutes of flight: almost all the passengers get off! We have to wait on the plane while they do the cleaning, which lasts about 1 hour... While waiting, I can't resist: I lean out of an open door to breathe in the "scent" of Bangkok (we were there in '99).

The plane sets off again almost empty for Kuala Lumpur. The few passengers lie down on the central seats to get some sleep. I enjoy the spectacle of flying over the islands of Koh Tao, Koh Phangan, Koh Samui and the Ang Thong archipelago, also ones we visited in '99...

After 2 hours we arrive in KL. An ultra-modern and beautiful airport, with its glass panes protecting a garden of palms! An automatic little train takes us to the other terminal. It seems unbelievable how big this airport is! And yet there are very few planes parked, almost all of them Malaysian Airlines. They've thought about the future, it seems...

Once we've collected our luggage, changed some travellers cheques, and bought 2 tickets for the airport coach, we catch the latter at the last moment, and after an hour we arrive in the city. At a bus station, they tell us to get off and we continue with a minibus that takes us in front of the hotel I had booked over the web from Italy: the Wira. It's a Chinese-run hotel, not luxurious but clean and comfortable. It's well located, near the metro (PWTC stop). In the room, I rush to open the curtains to enjoy the view, I'm already imagining seeing the Petronas, and no! I have a view of a wall!!! It's an internal courtyard between 2 buildings!... OK, never mind... we take a shower and go out for dinner, in Chinatown, in a little restaurant serving Malaysian/Chinese/Indian cuisine... Then, in bed at 21:30, a long day awaits us...

Kuala Lumpur

We go straight to the tourist office to find out where the office of the Taman Negara Resort is (our next destination). The lady is kind, she phones herself to find out the address and when we ask her if there's a bus to get there, she says: "taxi"... OK, we get it! It was written exactly like that in the Lonely Planet!!! At the office, they tell us that only places in the hostel remain, at 45 Ringgit (1 Ringgit back then = about 590 lire) per person per night, we accept and pay for the 3-night package.

Afterwards, we go to the station to find out about train times from Jerantut (near the entrance/exit of the Taman Negara) to Tumpat (north east, near the border with Thailand). Too bad our guidebook (even though it's the latest version, May 2001, in English) has a map indicating the new station as still under construction (whereas it's actually already quite finished!), so by metro' we get off at the old one, which is beautiful by the way. Having realised we'd made a mistake, we take a walk around the area and see the National Mosque. After that, we go to the new station, ultra-modern, and find out about the train times. The schedule of the Kenalis express is perfect: it leaves at 12:45 from Jerantut and arrives at 19:00 in Tumpat. But... it only runs on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays (we had booked the nights in the Park until Sunday!).

Otherwise there's the famous Jungle Train that runs every day, takes 11 hours (if all goes well) but the schedule doesn't suit us (it either leaves too early or at night). And now what do we do? We decide to give up a day in the Park to leave already on Sunday with the express train.

We continue our tour of KL: the Friday Mosque (Masjid Jamek) where, wearing a long sari and a scarf (for me), we can go in and tour this beautiful open-air mosque.

Then Merdeka Square, with the flag of Malaysia, Little India, the Petronas Towers which at sunset are fantastic! I shot almost a whole roll of film!!! The sun reflects in the steel and glass creating beautiful effects.

In the evening, we have dinner in an Indian/Malaysian restaurant eating only with our right hand as they do (the left is "impure").

Kuala Lumpur

Metro' to the Petronas where we book our visit to the sky bridge, we have to come back at 15:45.

So we go to the Bird Park. We don't see the 200 species announced but the visit is relaxing.

Afterwards, we go to the Hibiscus Garden, but they're not in flower, what a shame...

We go back by metro' to the Petronas where we eat satay (chicken skewers with peanut sauce) at the Asian Food Court. We then go to collect our pass for the visit. The lift, to go up 41 floors, takes almost no time at all... The first steps on the sky bridge, 170 m above the ground, are a bit intimidating, Catherine Zeta-Jones indeed!!! I have vertigo! Luckily, it passes a bit and I enjoy the view over KL.

Afterwards, Golden Triangle where we search in vain for sheets for the hostel in the Taman Negara because the girl at the office told us to bring our own. But we can't find any, or rather they're too expensive for 2 nights... I make a phone call to the Taman Negara Resort to ask if they rent them, but the girl who answers says "Yes" to all the questions I ask... I, sceptical, ask her contradictory questions, but she always says "Yes" and the line drops! I call back and there, a man answers who understands English so he tells me that they provide the sheets themselves! We're saved! Ah yes, I forgot, we also need raincoats like ponchos, but not a trace! Never mind, we'll do without...

We end the day in an Internet Café, where 1 hour costs 4 RM and we send a few messages to friends to make them die of envy! How mean!

Dinner at Bangles, an Indian restaurant with the air conditioning on full blast!

Off to Taman Negara

we set off for the Taman Negara with a coach (it's part of the package) to Kuala Tembeling. But after an hour of travel, the coach stops along the motorway, broken down!... There's no shade and we're roasting! After an hour a mechanic arrives who changes a belt that had broken and we set off again after the applause!

Arrival in Kuala Tembeling at 13:30, little boat at 14:30. We travel on the river for 2 and a half hours, the jungle is very beautiful and very dense, we see monkeys, water buffaloes, colourful birds, a monitor lizard and even a tapir that runs away (which is very rare, I'm told later).

We arrive at the Taman Negara Resort at 17:30 and check in. We have a room in the hostel shared with another potential 6 people. There are bunk beds. Only 3 guys arrive, who were with us on the coach: a Swiss, an Englishman and a Malaysian, all friendly. We each have a locker with a padlock to store our backpack, but it's not very sturdy... The bathroom (shared) is very basic but the shower works well.

Dinner with the Swiss (Stephan) and the Englishman (Robert) at the Resort restaurant for 40 RM (really expensive for what they offer: bad westernised food). In the room next to ours, there's a group of Japanese making a racket so I ask them if they could make less noise and in 5 minutes we can't hear them anymore!

Taman Negara

Today we do the Jungle Trekking. There are 12 of us + the guide. The first part of the walk is easy, he shows us all the plants (they all have a very specific function: shampoo, painkiller, aphrodisiac!...) and the trees, we even see a fine specimen of a non-venomous scorpion but if it stings you, you stay paralysed for a few days! Some non-venomous scorpion! Afterwards, we have to climb a hill for almost 1 km, my goodness, what a sweat!!! We're literally soaked! After the panorama, we go down and arrive at the entrance of the Canopy Walkway, a series of 9 suspension bridges among the trees with a total length of 500 m! Made of ropes, cables, nets, ladders, wooden planks... Only 4 people can be on a bridge at a time and at a distance of 5 m from each other.

It's very narrow, it's scary, and as soon as the guy behind me gets on (a fat Dutchman who absolutely doesn't suffer from vertigo), everything moves!!! Help! We're in the middle of the jungle, there are trees and plants everywhere so you don't get too much of a feeling of emptiness, but... The sixth bridge is 45 m high and 70 m long!

After the tour, we go back to our hostel to change and eat before setting off for the second excursion: Lata Berkoh. Four of us get on a little wooden boat and go along an arm of the Tembeling river, the Tahan River, narrow, shallow, with lots of rapids and in the middle of the jungle. It's beautiful! We arrive at a point where we get off and do a quarter of an hour of easy trekking to reach some mini waterfalls where we go for a swim. The water is lovely even if a bit brownish due to the earth it carries. We're surrounded by beautiful turquoise, yellow, green butterflies... The feeling of freshness from the swim disappears after 5 minutes of trekking to get back to the boats!

At about 18:30, after the shower, it starts raining very hard! It doesn't stop, everything is flooded. And we, of course, are without raincoats! It stops after almost two hours! We go out straight away with Stephan and Robert and this time we cross the river by boat and in 20 seconds we're at one of the floating restaurants where we eat abundantly and very well for 23 RM for two!

Train journey to Kota Bharu

We take the boat at 9 and arrive in Kuala Tembeling at 11. I see two more tapirs: one with its little one! We take a taxi to the small station of Jerantut, open-air. We buy two second-class tickets for Wakhaf Bharu. Since the bar/little restaurant has no food left, I go to get two nasi goreng in a little restaurant in town, and we eat them with the little spoons stolen from Turkish Airlines (because the plastic ones the lady offers me don't appeal to me much: she's just cleaned them with a disgusting rag!) We leave at 12:45. The train is clean, comfortable, with air conditioning, there's even the TV showing programmes in English. The route is very beautiful, in the middle of the jungle, over the rivers, among the villages... After a while, we overtake the famous Jungle Train, which had set off 2 hours before us, and which was stopped!...

Arrived at the station, we're mobbed by unofficial taxi drivers, but there are no alternatives. We share one with a Swiss guy as far as Kota Bharu. The taxi driver tells us he has a friend who has a hotel in the city, very nice, etc... There are no rooms left but he gives us a dormitory just for the two of us at 15 RM each with breakfast. It's a big room with 4 beds, clean, with air conditioning and the bathroom! What more could we want from life?! The Swiss guy stays there too, also in a dormitory by himself. For dinner, we go to the Night Market, the most impressive in Malaysia, there are loads of food stalls, we get satay, murtabak, roti canai, for very few ringgit! They even give me a satay and a roti for free, perhaps appreciating my enthusiasm for the local cuisine!

Kota Bharu and arrival at the Perhentians

We take a stroll through the Central Market, also fantastic, full of vivid colors and more or less pleasant smells. Food is on the ground floor while on the 1st floor you find fabrics, sarongs, batik, multicolored scarves and accessories.

In front of the hotel, the taxi driver from the day before and the Swiss guy we had arranged to meet are waiting for us, to go to Kuala Besut to catch the boat to the Perhentian Islands. Along the way I stop to buy rambutan and mangosteen, typical Malaysian fruits. The taxi driver, however, also takes us there to a friend of his who has a small speed boat company, a bit north of Kuala Besut (we realize this afterward). In the morning I had called the Coral View Resort on Perhentian Besar to book a bungalow. So we arrive after a 40-minute boat ride.

The sight is gorgeous: dense jungle, rocks, very white beaches, turquoise/emerald water! The boat leaves us at the pier in front of the Perhentian Island Resort, the most luxurious resort on the island, and we reach the Coral by walking along a 200 m wooden walkway (with the luggage and the stairs it's long!). At the reception, luckily they have my name and we settle into our bungalow at the top of a wooden staircase, among the trees. It's very nice, with a sloping roof, small but pretty and in Malaysian style. There's our own little private terrace! Inside, everything is made of wood, two beds, a small table with a mirror, a small bathroom with shower and toilet but no sink, just a faucet and a bucket! And then the fan. It's just fine! It costs 100 RM per night.

4 days on the Perhentians...

We spend 4 whole days on the Perhentians, always at the Coral. The little beach is gorgeous, the white sand is as fine as talcum powder, the water is crystal clear and very warm, the coral is very close by, there are lots of colorful fish, I even see a blacktip reef shark!

One day, we take a canoe trip to Turtle Beach, and we encounter a huge sea turtle, it's beautiful! The beach is deserted and even more beautiful than the others. It feels like being in the Seychelles! On the way back, another turtle! And every time I can't manage to take a photo, so people just have to take my word for it! That same evening, before a big storm, we witness a show put on by long-tailed monkeys among the trees! They make a huge racket! They throw themselves from one tree to another and jump onto the roofs of the bungalows (so that's that noise we kept hearing at night!!!). Then we see lots of red-tailed squirrels, a huge flying squirrel, bats, green geckos!...

Last day in the Perhentians

After one last swim, we catch the boat at 4:00 PM back to the mainland, the sea is rough, the boat goes very fast and we take some crazy beatings! At the pier, we take a taxi to Merang. We sleep at the Merang Inn, almost the only one around, in a bungalow. In the evening there are huge flying cockroaches (I don't know their scientific name!) that hurl themselves against the door, attracted by the light! The noise they make is insane! They seem to have gone crazy!

Arrival in Redang

We have a buffet breakfast at the only restaurant in the area for 3 RM and take the speed boat to Redang, an island a bit bigger to the south of the Perhentians.

At the pier, a minivan from the Berjaya Beach Resort (where I booked a 3-day 2-night package online from Italy) picks us up and takes us to the Resort. It's beautiful, with two-story wooden bungalows with 4 rooms, nicely nestled in the vegetation, a pool, a restaurant, etc... and a beach of very white sand. Since they don't give us the room right away (it's about 10:30), we take a walk along the beach and a lovely redhead comes up to us: Paola. We got to know each other thanks to a travel website and arranged to meet on Redang! She's with her partner and two other couples they met here join us.

Redang

Excursion around the island for snorkeling, there's bright yellow coral, purple, we see the famous trigger fish, some jellyfish, a sting ray, and giant parrot fish.

Last day in Redang and transfer to Kuala Terengganu

At 2:00 PM we have the boat back to Kuala Terengganu... What a shame, we were really comfortable here! The trip lasts 2 hours. On arrival, two buses are waiting for us, one heading to the airport for those whose vacation is over and one for those heading into the city (and who therefore haven't finished their vacation, like us, eh eh!). On the bus, I book a hotel in the city by cell phone. It's a modern 9-story hotel. The room is really very comfortable, clean and there's even a TV, for only 69 RM. We go out right away to change travelers cheques and we eat a big pizza at Pizza Hut (a bit of the West!). We take a walk in Chinatown, very pretty with all the pastel-colored buildings.

A mega storm is coming judging by the color of the sky, and we finally buy two yellow waterproof ponchos! Which we need right away! But it's raining so hard that I think I'll ruin my leather sandals, so I go back into the shop to buy a pair of flip-flops and so we're ready to face the tremendous rain. We witness a motorcyclist being hit by a car but he gets right back up. At the bus station, we buy two tickets to Mersing, the next stop. To pass the time, we go to an internet café with a suicidal connection, so slow that I ask the guy for a discount, and he gives me one!!! Then we go to have a beer at the Travellers' Café but we're the only travelers there!

Bus journey to Mersing

the bus leaves at 10. We're the only tourists. We make two stops, at 12 and at 4, to eat something.

We arrive in Mersing around 5:00 PM, we go to the Embassy Hotel, on the third floor with no elevator, it's tough with the luggage! Then we go out for a walk and to look for an agency to book some package on an island in the Serembut archipelago, but they're all closed... So our friend Lonely Planet, once again, saves our lives and I call a resort on Sibu Island: the Rimba Resort. It's expensive but all meals are included and they give me a bit of a discount if I stay 5 nights. We go right away to an internet café to look at their website, very nice... Let's hope for the best!

Sibu

We take a taxi to Tanjong Leman, an hour's drive from Mersing and facing Sibu Island. We go to the island with the Rimba's speed boat that takes us to the Resort's private beach. There are 20 African-style bungalows, among the palm trees. The beach isn't as beautiful as on the northern islands, the sand being darker. The bar and restaurant are big open-air huts. But we don't like our hut very much and we switch to another one that's better positioned, on a lawn among the palm trees, with a view of the sea. No doors or closed windows, just canvas flaps. There's a nice little terrace with chairs and a small table. Inside, it's very spartan: a bed with a mosquito net, a sort of antechamber with bamboo cabinets and an almost open-air bathroom, very simple.

We're a bit perplexed at first, since it doesn't really match what we saw on the website and also because of the very high cost (170 RM per person per day!) The meals are good though, and very nicely presented. The beach on the other hand isn't much to write home about, at low tide you can't swim because there are rocks.

Sibu

We set off on a trek to reach the other side of the island. It's a very narrow path (much more so than in Taman Negara!) and after 20 minutes we arrive at another beach, much longer and exposed to the wind, so with waves. There are two groups of bungalows. We head toward the ones that look cheaper: the Cabanas. It costs less and the beach is nicer so we decide to come here the next day. The guy (Sharif) offers to take us to the Rimba by boat (for free!), we gladly accept given how little we feel like doing the trek again! We spend the rest of the day on the beach at the Rimba. In the evening I tell the guy that we're leaving the next day.

Sibu

Today it's raining... We pay (they don't even give us the slightest discount and so I rub it in by saying that the resort is overpriced for what it offers! He doesn't like that very much...), then at 12 they take us by boat to the Cabanas, charging us dearly for our "betrayal" (20 RM for 5 minutes, while the trip from the coast to the island had cost us 24 RM). At the Cabanas, on the other hand, they welcome us with a welcome cocktail! It keeps raining almost all day, stopping only at the end of the afternoon. For dinner, an abundant and good barbecue.

Sibu

We stay on the beach all day. In the evening a fairly big spider invades our bathroom!... We try to send it away with mosquito coils and Autan sprayed all around the door!!! It must have worked because after dinner it's gone... Instead we find tiny ants in the bed... which we eliminate thanks to the precious Autan!

Sibu

We go to explore the island via a path that runs along its length. We see a group of little houses inhabited by fishermen, then the Twin Beach Resort, a beautiful spot between two beaches, one of which is gorgeous, with very nice bungalows, a lovely lawn, a little restaurant on the sand, but deserted! It almost seems abandoned, though it isn't falling into ruin. There's only one Malaysian family, a monkey tied to a post that seemed to be going crazy, and monitor lizards more than a meter long! We then cross an area covered with coconut palms with nuts scattered everywhere on the ground. And we arrive at the island's village, with houses, a school, a soccer field, fishermen's boats... There we meet three Italians looking for a place to stay, there are 11 of them.

They'd also like to change money but maybe they haven't realized there's nothing on the island! We recommend our resort because there's nothing else, so they offer us a ride on their rented slow boat and we lead them to a pier on the other side of the Cabanas (because at the Cabanas it's hard for big boats to stop and let passengers off, the wooden pier is a bit rickety). After a 10-minute easy trek we cross the island (them with their luggage!) and I lead them to the Cabanas. Sharif is overjoyed to see 11 new customers arrive! He offers us drinks! Afternoon on the beach and dinner with them.

Journey to Singapore

Last swim and let's pack our bags. Sharif takes us all the way to Tanjong Leman for free! There we take a taxi to Kota Tinggi. We buy two tickets for Johor Bahru, and before leaving I buy two nasi goreng to eat. The bus takes about an hour, after which we take another bus to Singapore. This one makes two stops, at the Malaysian and Singaporean customs, and each time we have to drag our backpacks and bags along to go through customs and catch the next bus! What a mess! We finally arrive in the city at the bus station. We walk to the first hotel we find to change the leftover ringgit we have. Then we take the metro to the stop closest to the hotel I had booked online from Italy: the Concorde.

Since the road is a bit long, we resign ourselves to spending our first Singapore dollars and take a taxi to the hotel! It's beautiful, super tall and very luxurious, especially after the standard we've been used to on this vacation (except at the Berjaya on Redang, which was very nice).

To wrap up the day we relax at the pool, on the sixth floor. The hotel has 27 floors, is circular in shape, with transparent tubular elevators inside, all lit up! Beautiful! I could ride up and down all day!!!

Dinner at Boat Quay, a super crowded place full of bars and restaurants, along the river and under the skyscrapers of Singapore. We eat at Kinara, an Indian restaurant.

Singapore

We take the metro to City Hall and go to the underground mall of Suntec City to have breakfast at Délifrance, so good! Then we buy two tickets for the Hop-On, a tour bus that takes you on a tour of the city with hop-on hop-off stops. We get off almost right away near the port where I take the classic photo of the Merlion, the symbol of the city. Then we continue to Raffles Place, where I take an equally classic photo of the very white statue of Raffles among the skyscrapers. We then get back on the Hop-On which passes through Chinatown, Little India, the Botanic Garden, and we get off at Orchard Road, the famous street of shopping malls. We have lunch at a food stall under a mall where they serve cheap Asian food.

We wander through the malls, which have blasting air conditioning! Then we get back on the Hop-On to go to Raffles, the legendary hotel, one of the most expensive in the world! We go into the lobby, very elegant... but we leave right after!

Dinner at Clarke Quay (which is the continuation of Boat Quay) at a food stall: satay, fried noodles, murtabak ayam, lime juice... It's also very lively there. In a shop, we buy some beautiful tea sets, colorful and original (even more weight in the bags!!!)

Singapore

We go to Clifford Pier and take a trip on a junk around the port of Singapore and the islands. There's a stop on Suzu island, where there's a Taoist temple. The tour continues among the islands, under a crazy sun! You can't breathe... we pass near Sentosa, the island of amusement parks and golf. The tour doesn't satisfy us much, we don't think it's really worth it. So we go to Orchard Road to shop for CDs, which cost much less than at home. Aperitif at Boat Quay in an English pub. Dinner at Boat Quay at Sukhothai, a Thai restaurant.

Return to Italy

We pack our bags and check out of the room at 12. We go to Suntec City to eat at Délifrance. We spend the whole afternoon in the shopping malls (to avoid sweating too much before catching the plane) and we mostly buy CDs. Aperitif with a beer at the English pub in Boat Quay. Quick dinner at Clarke Quay with fried noodles and murtabak ayam, we couldn't leave without eating these delicious specialties one more time! We rush to the hotel in a taxi and after changing and retrieving our bags we go to Changi airport, beautiful! Carpet, waterfalls, palm trees, orchids... pure luxury!

Our plane is at 10:30 PM. We leave on time and therefore make the usual stop in Bangkok where once again almost everyone gets off and just as many get on, and we leave again for Istanbul, where we arrive at 7 local time. Obviously I didn't sleep at all, or almost! At 9:30 a flight to Milan, delayed because they couldn't find some bags! We arrive at Malpensa at 11, after about 20 hours of travel... we're exhausted!... but satisfied!