Sukhothai, 18-20 March

From Ayutthaya we travelled north to Sukhothai, another former capital of Thailand, built in the 13^th century. The old city of Sukhothai is around 12km from the new city, and is full of an impressive number of ruins wats and monuments, which are more intact than those in Ayutthaya. We rented bikes to get around the old city and enjoyed biking around from wat to wat - we managed to see quite a bit. Wat Mahathat is one of the most famous ones, as it is the largest, and quite beautiful. There were also wats on little islands, some of which you had to reach by footbridge. We also visited Wat Si Chum which contains a massive seated Buddha – at a guess around 10m high, it’s impressive and a little intimidating.  

 

Ayutthaya 16-18th March

Ayutthaya

After our 19 hour train ride into Bangkok from Malaysia we had a quick lunch at Bangkok railway station and jumped on the first commuter train north to the old capital of Thailand, Ayutthaya.
We arrived at a nice little budget hotel called Grandparents place, and headed off to the night markets for some dinner hunting. The night markets are situated next to a stream, in fact Ayutthaya is surrounded by a river which makes for a lot of mosquitos, and the hundreds of fluorescent lights lighting up the stalls seemed to attract every single mozzy in a 10 km radius.

After fighting out way through the mosquitos we collected a few take away dishes and headed home.
The next day we took advantage of the rental bicycles at our hotel and headed out on a cycle mission around the ruins that once were a thriving capital. The ruins are spread out across the city but all within biking distance as long as the roaming dogs don’t decide to take out your tyres.
After seeing a few wats (temples) we finished up looking at Wat Mahathat which boasts the famous Buddha head being lifted up in the tree roots. A lot of these ruins were poorly maintained, with many having been damaged by attacks from the Burmese. 

Later that night we headed down to the big muay thai tournament that was in town. With big crowds cheering and jeering and dozens of little food stalls dotted around we decided that this was the place to spend the evening.

There’s not a lot else to Ayutthaya except for these wats so the next day headed out to the bus station and headed for Sukothai  another  former capital of Thailand.

Langkawi 12-15th March

From Penang, we took a ferry across to Langkawi for some quality beach time. The ferry was positively Antarctic. I’ve never understood why sometimes the air-conditioning is so cold, it has everyone reaching for extra layers and shivering throughout the trip – surely this is a sure sign it’s a little too cold?

Once we arrived in Langkawi, however, the temperature was nice and toasty. We stayed at Zackry’s Guest House in Pantai Tengah – a great little place, comfortable, with a really good atmosphere. Langkawi is duty free so alcohol is significantly cheaper than on the mainland. Our hostel had a bar and a can of beer was a mere 3 Ringgit (approx. NZ$1.20). So we spent a bit of time chatting to other fellow travellers, sharing stories and advice over beers. With lots of resorts in the area, it was probably the first time we’ve seen quite so many upmarket tourists in our travels.

We spent a bit of time relaxing on the beach just down the road, although had to wait until late afternoon, when it wasn’t quite so scorching.

interesting contrast...

One day we rented a little scooter for an amazing 30 Ringgit and had great fun zooming around the place – once we’d got the hang of things. We went to the langkawi cable car, which was great. Not super cheap, at 30 Ringgit each, but it goes up surprisingly high, with a stop halfway up and then several viewing platforms including a hanging bridge right at the top. Fantastic view across the island.

All in all we had a great few days relaxing and working on our tans a little bit. Even I’m starting to look a little less transparent! 

Penang 7 - 12 March

Our next stop was Penang, a large island off the west coast of the Malaysian peninsular. We stayed at really nice backpackers, Cocoa Mews. Located in Little India, it was handy, comfortable and the staff were helpful with recommendations of places to go and things to see. Penang is also quite easy to get around, with a good bus system and a free shuttle service around the core heritage zone.

Staying in Little India was a great experience in itself, filled with lots of yummy restaurants serving naan and chicken straight from the tandoor, as well as biryani. Walking through Little India, you pass stops blaring out the latest Bollywood hits, saree shops, hindu temples, as well as mosques, and street vendors selling the best samosas, for only 20 cents NZ apiece.

We visited the Blue Mansion – the former house of prominent Penang businessman Chong Fat Tzee. Painted a stunning blue colour on the outside, it was an impressive place full of stories – and as with the Baba Nyonya house in Melaka, all the different designs and patterns in the wood and steel work all have a specific meaning (i.e. fish for prosperity etcetera). Even the layout and location of certain elements of the house have a certain significance; the house must be centered around the point of most Qi, and the water in the shallow pool in the central courtyard must not be still but must flow in a certain direction. It was fascinating to learn these sorts of things. The blue mansion has also been used in several films, such as Indochine, where it was passed off as Vietnamese. We also visited the Penang Peranakan Heritage House – another beautiful example of the Peranakan/Baba-Nyonya culture and heritage.

The Kek Lok Si temple just out of Penang, is the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia, and houses a massive statue of Buddha and a pagoda decorated with an astounding number of Buddha images. We arrived early in the morning, before it got too hot, and discovered you can in fact take a cable car up the hill to the site of the temple.

Recommended by the locals, we also bussed out to Batu Ferringhi, a beach resort area and a nice place to spend a few hours with a beer. 

Cameron Highlands

We boarded our bus in Melaka and headed for KL, where we would catch another bus to Cameron Highlands some 4 hours away. Now this was our 2^nd bus experience in Malaysia and like the 1^st one it didn’t disappoint. Seats so wide they only put 3 in a row and powerful AC to escape the outside heat.

Upon arrival in Brinchang, Cameron highlands we were accosted by young men asking us about tours and where we were staying. The first such occurrence in Malaysia and our last, which makes Malaysia such an easy place to visit.
Cameron highlands has a much cooler climate and much lower humidity which makes it a favourite holiday destination for Malaysians and tourists alike. And because of the fertile soil and more favourable climate the area explodes with vegetation most famously Black tea and strawberries.
The high altitude also meant it rained daily in the afternoon and by rain I mean a downpour.
So we had dinner and contemplated our plans for the next day. Many tour operators offered the same packages, so we settled on one and called them to book the half day tour for the next morning, knowing that being caught out in the rain in the afternoon would not be pleasant.
For 25 ringgit ($10 NZD) they would pick you up in the morning and drive you to 6 must see’s. We thought 6 places in 4 hours might be a bit rushed. It turned out it was just enough to see what you needed to see without getting bored. For example how much time do you need to see a strawberry farm?  
So we headed to the strawberry farm and saw how they planted them and found out they can produce strawberries all year round, and that fresh strawberry milkshakes are a lot better than the strawberry syrup ones we are used to. At the farm we visited, they grow the strawberries in raised beds, plastic holding together the coconut husks they’re planted in (which just looks like mulch after a while).

We also saw the rose gardens which has nice views and acres of vegetables and flowers, not really all that exciting but a nice view all the same. The tea plantation was interesting hectares of tea plants as far as the eye could see. A local processing plant where they fermented and dried the tea, and a great café located at the top of a hill with amazing views of the plantation, where you can try the local and imported tea’s that BOH offered. 

On our way back to the van we popped into the shop and Hannah got a chance to pick up some peppermint tea. After that everything else was a bit mundane including the bee farm, the butterfly farm which also had some interesting insects, arachnids, and reptiles. And the last stop was a Buddhist temple which was quite extravagant. 

We got back around 1pm and found somewhere for lunch and as we sat down the heavens opened, and the downpour began.
After our tour we didn’t do a lot as there wasn’t a lot more to do apart from trekking, and with the weather the way it was that wasn’t an option. So we lay about our room for the rest of the day, ventured out for a local coffee and dinner and the next day made our way to Penang.

Melaka

We spent around four days in Melaka, eating our way around the city, interrupted by museum visits. Melaka is a nice little city – the central area is easy to walk around and it’s nice to go for a stroll alongside the river to cool down a bit.
Melaka has a really interesting history, having been ruled by the Dutch, the British and the Portuguese at one time or another. The remnants of these cultures can be seen in the many museums as well as in the surviving relics of churches, forts or bastions. In fact, the area with these ruins and many of the museums is a UNESCO world heritage city and is therefore quite full of tourists (both from within Malaysia and further afield).

Melaka is also a centre for Baba Nyonya (or Peranakan) culture – this being the descendants of early Chinese settlers who married Malay women. So while there we visited the Baba Nyonya museum – actually the houses of a wealthy Baba Nyonya family (three houses interconnected). The houses were quite impressive – a mix of European, local and Chinese furnishings, decorations and traditions.

Food in Melaka was really good as well. The owner of our hostel was really helpful and had a map prepared of all the best places to try different types of food in the city. We made the most of this over the next few days.

We tried different Baba Nyonya dishes including Popiah (like a big spring roll and really yummy), and top hats – like popiah but in a different shape, nyonya pickle (green chilli stuffed with papaya), traditional cooked vegetables, and chicken candlenut. Of course we also had to try the laksa from this area – Baba Laksa – quite nice (from Jonker 88).

One morning we had dim sum (yum cha in NZ) with the biggest pork buns I have ever seen! It was quite warm and we were walking around a lot so had to get a few things to cool us off every now and again, such as Ice Kacang, ABC Cendol, Ice Floss – all surprisingly tasty, although in some cases (ABC Cendol), the ingredients aren’t quite what we’re used to in a dessert – corn, beans, green noodles made from pea flour. We tried some nice coffee in Melaka too. The Calinthe Art Café has different types of coffee from all of the Malaysian states – the ones we tried were pretty strong and tasty.

Another Melaka specialty is Satay Celup. It’s like fondue or steamboat in a way but is done with delicious satay sauce. We went to Capitol Satay – apparently the recipe for the satay is three generations old, and you can tell from the queue that this one must be better than the others advertising the same thing right next door. You have a big pot of the sauce cooking in the middle of your table and then go up and pick what you want to cook in it – a vast array of meat, seafood, vegetables, tofu (some of which I’m still not sure what it was) – and cook until done!

The weekend market was great as well – on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, a few streets around Jonker Street in Chinatown are closed off to traffic and packed full of food, drink, and other stalls (from cleaning products, to jewellery, clothes, toys), along with the locals partaking in karaoke and line dancing in a building off the street. The surrounding streets and riverside are also lit with beautiful red lanterns, giving the area a really enchanting atmosphere.

Kuala Lumpur

We had just two days in Malaysia’s capital KL. During this time we checked out Jalan Alor – a street packed full of food stalls and restaurants – we had some good satay and some drunken chicken (the latter being not very exciting actually).

 We got our obligatory shot of the Petronas twin towers, and had a look around the mall in the bottom (Suria KLCC). We also visited Merdeka Square (a big open square where Malaysian independence was declared in 1957) and Masjid Jamek (an impressive mosque built in 1907).

Mount Kinabalu Climb 22/2/2012

We arrived in Kota Kinabalu the day before our climb was due to begin and had a quick wander around the streets, and got some dinner before heading back to the hostel for an early night.

The next morning we had a quick breakfast at the hostel and headed downstairs to catch the van to Kinabalu National Park. The rest of the people in our climbing group had already been picked up and we headed out of town towards the mountains. Along the way we met our fellow climbers, Damian & Julia, Catherine & Emilie who were all from the UK. On the way up we traded horror stories we had read from various blogs about the climb and what we were about to experience.
Within two hours we were at the National Park and we met our guide Freddy a small Malaysian man in his cold weather jacket and pants – it must have been around 20-25 degrees and the humidity was much more manageable much to our relief. We were handed our park passes and packed lunches and wandered over to Timphon gate (altitude 1800m) and we had our obligatory group shot.

The climb started at a good pace. The forest around us and the sound of waterfalls reminded me of walking in the bush at home, along the way we saw people coming down path looking surprisingly refreshed. Our target for the day was Laban Rata; the rest houses situated at an altitude of 3200m and 6km in distance from the entry gate. As the day drew on we started to separate as a group as Emilie and Catherine shot ahead while the rest of us tried to keep to our steady pace but the effects the altitude and our weary legs meant we took advantage of the huts at along the way and slowed near the end. Along the way we had met a chap that had made it to Laban Rata but the effects of altitude were too much for him with a pounding headache that he tried to sleep off but couldn’t shake and had no choice but to turn back. By around 3pm we had finally made it to Laban Rata where the girls had already found themselves a table and were recovering as they had gotten there before us they had managed to get a room with the main building while Freddy our guide pointed maybe a few hundred metres up the hill and said “yours is up there, rest and eat here, sleep there.”
Oh great more climbing to get to bed we thought; we retreated into the main building and got a hot cuppa as at 3200m it was very cold, but much to our surprise a cup of tea was 12 ringit ($5 NZD).
Now in NZ this might be alright, but in the rest of Malaysia we were used to paying around 40 cents NZ for a tea. Of course the inflated prices are due to the fact the dozens of porters have to make the 6km hike up the hill every day to bring up the supplies (an impressive sight).
As part of our tour package dinner was included and by 4.30 pm we were lining up for the buffet; the food was very good, but then again after that climb anything would be good, so we filled our plates knowing we needed the energy to recover for the next day, and cups of tea was free with dinner! So if you ever think of doing the climb and want to save some money, wait until dinner for a hot drink.
After a filling dinner we had a bit of desert to treat ourselves, fresh fruit, banana cake rolled up into balls and deep fried and some sago with coconut.
By this time the sun was going down (and what a sunset it was with everyone out on the deck taking shots), we noticed the staff down on flat clearing playing football! After the climb today and the thin air they were zipping around kicking a soccer ball; I would hate to think what would happen if you lobbed it over the edge.

The sun had set and we all headed for bed; it was around 7pm and we had to meet Freddy for supper at 2am to start the summit climb by 2.30am so we set the alarm for 1.30am climbed into bed hoping to catch as much sleep as we could. Unfortunately this didn’t happen; between the wooden floor boards and the super thin walls I don’t think any of us got more than an hours sleep, in hindsight the numerous cups of tea probably was a bad idea.

1.30am. Great…We get dressed and wander down the hill towards the canteen and have some supper; we look around and everyone looks as jaded as we feel. I don’t think anyone got a good night sleep, of course except for the monstrous snorers which kept everyone else up.
Everyone was rugged up with polyprops, jackets, and beanies, and so they should, it was freezing.

The climb to the top was around another 800m up and was done over around 2km, well compared to yesterday’s climb this should be fine we have around 4 hours to do it in, simple, right? Wrong.
The track soon ended and the rocks began. Mount Kinabalu used to be a volcano and after it blew its top hundreds of years ago all that was left was hard rock to climb. Much of the trail had ropes anchored into the rocks to pull yourself up with. It was easy to see why they didn’t do this part of the climb in the event of rain. By this point the air was very thin and it seemed like you had to stop every 20-30 paces just to catch your breath. I really struggled the last half of the morning climb as we got higher up. Keeping my shortness of breath and the nausea away meant frequent stops but just as the edge of the sky started to show some light we had made it to the summit. We had made it, the sense of achievement was overwhelming. I can say this is the most challenging thing I’ve done and we made it! The view behind us was amazing – the lights of the villages and the glow of the city in the distance, along with a train of torch lights below us of people still making their way up.

Our entire group had made it to the top. We gathered around the summit sign for our picture as proof. And we enjoyed the sunrise, while freezing; the temperature must have been between 0 and 5 degrees and after the 30-35 degrees we have been enjoying this trip it was an unpleasant change. Once the sun was up we started our descent back to Laban Rata to warm up but the sun had come out and we were warming up already. Along the way back down there were still a few people making their way up, looking disappointed they had missed the sunrise; I assured them the view was still amazing that they didn’t have to far to go.

It turned out the climb down was just as hard as the climb up, going down the ropes and navigating the rocks was taking its toll on our quads but at least we could see now. By the time we got back to Laban Rata for breakfast our legs were jelly and we had been climbing/descending for around 6 hours. After breakfast and a break we started the climb down to the entrance gate. Freddy our guide told us we should aim for within 5 hours, Freddy who does this entire climb 2-3 times a week, part- man, part-mountain goat. I don’t think I saw him out of breath the entire trip. The climb the day before which took us 4-5 hours, Freddy boasted that it took him around 45 minutes.

The last part of the trip, the climb back down from Laban Rata, proved to be just has difficult as the rest, the last 3km our legs had turned into jelly, our knees were bouncing around as we went down the giant steps and we resorted to going down them sideways, backwards whatever kept our legs from giving in. We encountered many climbers coming up the hill and shared our tips without scaring them too much. We finally got to the bottom and were taken to lunch near the gate. I think most of us were too exhausted to eat much so we made our way back to the van and headed back to town. After two days of climbing with about a hours sleep the van ride back down was very quiet compared to the ride up. We exchanged email addresses and facebook details and went our separate ways, myself and Hannah had 4 nights left in Kota Kinabalu, most of which we did barely anything as we found it difficult to walk for days afterwards – a shame because KK boasts many islands with white sandy beaches but for us it was hard enough stepping down curbs and stairs so we relaxed in our hostel, ventured out for some great food and did some less adventurous sights.