Malaysia

Now we have seen Malaysia and it's all good. We had a really wonderful time and Malaysia is my favourite country in Asia at the moment and in the top 3 of all the countries that I have visited. Our visit started by going to Melaka which is located southeast. Melaka is a beautiful city with a lot of history. It was an important port of trade already hundreds of years ago (can't remember dates by heart). After Melaka we went to the capital, Kuala Lumpur, and spent there a couple of days as well. In Kuala Lumpur the most important sights were the colonial district, chinatown, little India and of course Petronas Towers.

From Kuala Lumpur we wanted to go to the worlds oldest rainforest - Taman Negara. Due to ramadan some busses were not running so we could only go as far as Jerantut on the first day. After one night in Jerantut we continued by bus and boat to Taman Negara. We were there for two days and walked around in the jungle a lot. We did also walk on the worlds longest hanging bridge. The animals that we saw were monkeys, pigs, water buffalos, insects and a snake.

After Taman Negara we took the Jungle train to Kota Bahru. The train was the hottest ever, since the air conditioning was not working and we were travelling in the middle of the jungle. From Kota Bahru we were not sure if we should go direct to Thailand or visit the Perhentian Islands first. Luckily we decided to go to the Perhentian Islands, where we enjoyed beautiful beaches with clear blue water. The ride by boat to the islands was exciting as we almost flew over the water and I just tried to glue my bum to the seat. When we came to mainland the boat suddenly stopped and the skipper told us to but our lifevests on. No they were not worried about our safety but the fact that the police was in the harbour...

What I love about Malaysia is that you can see jungle, cities and paradise beaches in one country. The Malays are a mixture of many races, religions and cultures which gives the country its own flavor. The people in Malaysia have also been the friendliest that I have ever met while travelling. The country is also quite well developed so it is easy and safe to travel from one place to another. By the way I have posted all my pictures in facebook. If you are using it please look for me there. You can find my e-mail address on the top of this page. Until next time then. Take care.

Singapore sling

Hello there. Our travel plans changed a bit since we did not want to work more and decided to leave Australia a week earlier than planned. That means that we have now been two days in Singapore and have had a great time. We were very lucky on our last days in Australia since we had some things to sell like car, tv and playstation and we managed to do that without any effort. Well to be honest David did. Still we had a lot of luggage and after packing our stuff we took one bag of clothes to the Red Cross and left one still in a storage in Darwin. My Irish friend Sarah took us to the airport and we came with Tiger Airways to Singapore on Thursday morning.

On Thursday we were quite tired but still we did a tour on our own in Little India where our hostel is. In the afternoon we went to the CBD and spent four hours in the Asian Civilisations Museum. We could have spent there easily more time but they closed.. We had a lot of fun there as we stayed a long time in the childrens department and learned calligraphy and how to play Arabic drums :)

Friday was still my favourite day as we spent all day at the Zoo and evening in the Night Safari. The zoo is definitively the best one that I've ever visited. The place itself is like a jungle and the animals have a lot of space. They have a lot of monkeys and the orang utan was definitively my favourite. It was so cute when a orang utan mother teached her baby to climb around. We also saw a polar bear that was eating watermelon :) The only major disappointment was that the white tiger "cage" was under construction and we didn't see the white tigers.

In the night safari we saw a lot of animals as well. The most fascinating were hyenas, leopards and elephants. We also saw a very good show about the animals. They had teached otters to recycle (sponsored by Nokia). If otters can recycle you could think that people should be able to learn that too. After the Night Safari we took a walk in Chinatown where they start with the mid-autumn lantern festival today. We think that we have seen enough of Singapore today and will be leaving to Malaysia soon, since Singapore is quite expensive compared to other Asian countries. Anyway I must say that I like Singapore and do recommend it to other travellers.