Day 2: boat, Langkawi - Georgetown, Island Penang
Day 3: 98km, Georgetown - Taiping
Day 4: 90km and two boats, Taiping - Island Pangkor
Day 5: 80km, Pangkor - Teluk Intan
Day 6: 104km, Teluk Intan - Kuala Selangor
Day 7: 75km, Kuala Selangor - Kuala Lumpur
Some time ago we had just arrived in Malaysia. We had got there by taking a ferry from Satun in Thailand to the Malaysian island of Langkawi, which was a bit of a shock because it was pretty developed (as was the rest of Malaysia we visited) but nice all the same. We had a day and a half on the beach staying with a friendly japanese father and son team who own a guesthouse. We luckily ended up there because everything was booked out so they took pity on us and took us in treating us like flatmates in their own house.
traditional 'drink' to be enjoyed with a malaysian nasi kampur buffet
We only had 10 days before we wanted to be in Singapore so we took another ferry to Penang, where we spent two nights in Georgetown, in retrospect our favourite city. Penang (like Langkawi) looked like it might have been fun to explore by bike, but due to a shortage of time we stayed in the city, which turned out a good choice as it has a dense mix of cultures, buildings, histories and cuisines. Tasting our way through the layers of culture was a worthwhile experience consisting of Chinese, Indian and traditional Baba Nyonya dishes. We began to wonder how we ever managed without our roti breakfast and spiced chai.
arriving at our hotel in an ancient building in Chinatown
our room with heavy metal folding doors
old blue chipping walls
the cyclo taxis really make an effort here with fresh flowers and music
chinese koongsi house
for shoppers with diverse interests
dining on dim sum
have you ever seen such big incent sticks?
inside the chinese temple
the contrast of old and new
Little India
roti breakfast
streetlife
We left Penang by taking a commuter ferry to the mainland (the favourite past times being sleeping with your head on the dashboard or reading the metro) and had our first proper taste of malaysian highways. Cycling wasn't really much fun but we did not have enough time to find any quiet roads (if there where any). We managed to stay in a very grotty damp hotel in Taiping but at least there was a charismatic little indian restaurant for our roti breakfast.
As we were getting increasingly aware that we would be arriving in New Zealand's autumn in a couple of weeks we took our last opportunity to lie on a beach under the tropical sun on the Island of Pangkor. It was very pretty with a lot of empty resorts and guesthouses, and beach. We were the only people on the long beach apart from three young tripling dogs that we could not shake off no matter how often we changed our location.
cyberkiki battling with the evil planet zog in Teluk Intan
The following day we continued on to Kuala Selangor. Apparently you can go and see some glow worms there but luckily it was raining in the evening so we did not feel obliged to. Instead we found a superb bakery where Kiki should have gotten a prize for being the best customer of the day.
We would not recommend cycling into Kuala Lumpur (just in case you were planning to). The road was very busy and although it was not officially classed as motorway, the 8 lanes without hard shoulder felt like it. Unfortunately that was our last experience of cycling in South East Asia as we took the train the rest of the way to Singapore.
asking directions
makind our way in the maze of one way streets
Having arrived in humid hot busy KL dirty and tired after the tortures of motorway and manic drivers we splashed out for an air conditioned hotel room with big panoramic windows from which KL could be enjoyed much more coolly. Stepping outside was a stark contrast as you found yourself in a busy tourist pedestrian zone where you could not make a single step without being offered fake watches, handbags, sunglasses and whatever else you did not need.
view from our hotel room
We got up early and went up (halfway) the Petronas Twin Towers, which were the tallest buildings in the world at some point.
elevator panel inside the Petronas Tower, what is on floor 7 and 39?
view from the Petronas Bridge
The rest of the time we walked around in China Town and Little India sa well as making a trip to the station, where we paid a visit to the station master's headoffice after a long discussion with the guy at the information who was not sure if we could take our bikes on the train. We would have liked to have a few more days in Kuala Lumpur but we wanted to leave enough time in Singapore to get our bikes packed up and get prepared (mentally) for New Zealand, so we took the overnight train the next day.
truckload of saris in Little India
kiki thinks this monk was 'faking it'
streetfood, didn't like the shark dim sum, but the crystal one was tasty!
conductor charging us for the bikes - as they always do
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