[Barts trip of a lifetime!] Marvelous Malaysia!

[Bart]

Followers, stalkers, friends and fans,

A fresh and exciting story you are about to read again. Composed and written in Perth, Western Australia. That's right, I have been living in the land Down Under for a good 3 weeks now, but oy, that's an whole other story which will be presented to you very soon!

What can I tell about Malaysia? Well, it is just an awesome, beautiful and amazing country, which lots and lots of interesting places. If I have to recommend an Asian country for people to visit on their 3 week holiday, it would be either Thailand for the partylovers or Malaysia for the culture- scenery- and nature lovers!I like both and, lucky as I am, I had the time to visit both countries :-D

So, that's why I flew from Bangkok in Thailand to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. The capital of the country which is like any other city in Asia. Big, crowded, packed with traffic, and lots of noise. But it is a nice city as well, it's very well developed with of course - as the highlight of the city - The Petronas Twin Towers. Even when the WTC in New York was still the pride of the USA, the Petronas Twin Towers are with their 452 meters and 72 elevators the tallest TWIN skyscrapers in the world! Pretty impressive to see, whether you go there during daytime or nighttime.

I spent 2 weeks in Malaysia, together with Jeffrey. An awesome Dutch fellow whom I met in Cambodia 1,5 months ealier in Cambodia. We decided to meet up again here, since he had to get a flight back home and I needed to be in KL to get a flight to Australia. We met at the airport and it was like we only had seen eachother yesterday. It's so weird but cool how well you get along with people whom you've only met briefly months earlier in some stage of your travel. It's one of the beautiful things of traveling I guess.

Of course, when arrived at KL airport, neither me or Jef had a plan. As usual we were backpackers without a plan! We got dropped of at our hostel which turned out to be one of the best hostels in town  and even had 'award winning' certificates (not kidding) on the wall stating that it had been voted as the 'cleanest hostel in KL' with 'the cleanest mattresses'! And it sure was! Although the room Jef and me shared was freakin' small (prison cell) everything was extremely nice and clean! On top of that we had free wi-fi and hot coffee 24/7!! We liked KL already :D

The following day we decided to go for a little walk through the city. Since we still hadn't any idea of what to do we just wandered around the city in the direction of the twin towers. On our way there we passed a HERTZ car rental agency. I brought up the idea that it could be fun to rent a car. Jeffrey suggested to go inside for some information. And so we did. 30 minutes later we came outside with a free coffee in one hand and a rental lease of our very own "HYUNDAI something" in our other hand. Within 2 days we would be roadtripping for the next week. SWEEET. I love it when 'a plan comes together'. We spent the rest of the day at the Petronas Towers and made some nice pictures. In the evening we bought a ticket for the 'KL Tower' which is a massive radio tower opposite the twin towers which offers great scenic views from the observation deck at a height of 270 meters. The view was awesome. Have a look at the pics.

People back home know me as an 'very artistic, spiritual and cultural' person (hahaha) so Jef and me went to the National Museum in KL the following day. While pretending to be totally impressed by some stupid stones, rocks and trash, we eventually found something FAR more exciting at the exit of the museum. SEGWAY tours were offered around a nice and green park of KL. For anyone who don't know what a SEGWAY is, have a look at the pics. Having done the most awesome things during my trip, something simple as driving a SEGWAY (which was another 'first experience' for me) turned out to be absolute fun. They say it's fairly impossible to lose control on a SEGWAY.  But being stupid and clumsy as only I can be, I tried to do some tricks, which probably made me the only person ever to get a SEGWAY slipping, leaving a skidmark on the road and a wound on my leg! LOL!

And with the madness on the SEGWAY behind us we left KL the following morning in our rented car. Driving in the morning traffic. In one of the world's busiest cities. On the left side of the road. With the steering wheel at the right side of the car. With no knowledge of the road rules. And neither Jef or me had been driving a car for the past 5 months. And I (me, the clumsy one) drove us out of the city! Actually while I'm writing this I can't believe we're still alive! But I guess we knew we were destined to do this and within moments I was driving the city like I was a local and Jef was yelling 'WATCH OUT, GO LEFT, LEFT LEEEEEEEFT, BRAKEEEE!' like a professional rally co-pilot! What a rush and what a fun!

And off we went to discover Malaysia. Or at least a part of it. We went to old and scenic 'Georgetown' where we visited some old cultural VOC heritage sites, including Dutch war equipment and VOC canons. Very nice to see and we were happy we had our fair share of some 'cultural' sightseeing as well. After Georgetown we went to Langkawi. An island only accesable by ferry. The problem was that we were not able to bring our car on the ferry. So once arrived at the island, we rented a chopper to explore the island and do some nice things! While Jef was sitting on the back of our rented motorbike as my 'bitch' :P, we drove past a small harbour. The sight of the harbour brought us the crazy idea of renting a speedboat for some good old fashioned sea exploring. We parked our motorbike at a small bar and asked the very friendly (Canadian) owner if he knew a place where we could rent a boat. He told us it was impossible on Langkawi, but he offered his own private litte speedboat instead as long as we didn't made it sink and paid a small amount of money. We agreed ofcourse and after 10 minutes of meeting the good man, we were sitting in his little speedboat with nothing but a 2 minute walkthrough on how to operate that thing.

We had the greatest fun just navigating around on the open sea and not long after that we saw a big sail yaught which had dropped anchor some km's off shore. When we were in sight the owner of the boat yelled if we would like to come on board for a brief tour. And so we entered an massive woorden sail yaught, on the open sea and sat down on the deck with a bunch of strangers, for a beer and some good stories and amazing views of the Langkawi coastline. Another cool experience with has been brought to us by random luck.

Last but not least we traveled all the way to the Cameron Highlands. A 'must see' for everyone who will go to Malaysia. You can compare it to the idyllic sceneries of Switzerland or Austria, bu instead of having snow, it has big green tea plantations and rice terraces. Very beautiful to see, and after 5 months of Asia it was finally a landscape I hadn't seen before. (sorry if I sound spoiled here :P).

Malaysia turned out to be amazing and extremely fun and I couldn't think of a better way to end my 5 months touring South East Asia than this. I concider myself a lucky person and with that in mind I said goodbye to Jef as he left for Holland. Two days later I was at the airport, ready for my next adventure, in the Land Down Under.
click here for the pics

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Geplaatst door Bart op Barts trip of a lifetime! op 2/28/2011 03:53:00 PM