The South East Asian stint contrinued with 12 days in Malaysia. We had:

• A few days in the captial, Kuala Lumpur
• Then into the hills in Cameron Highlands
• Another towny endeavor on the island of Penang
• And lastly, Langkawi - another island that had a bit less hustle and bustle

Come listen to our stories!

Map, Journey and Costs

Note: prices are for 2 adults with baggage

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From	To	Mode	Duration	Cost
🇲🇾 Kuala Lumpur	🇲🇾 Cameron Highlands	Coach	04:30	£14.64
🇲🇾 Cameron Highlands	🇲🇾 Penang	Coach	04:45	£13.25
🇲🇾 Penang	🇲🇾 Alor Setar	Coach	02:00	£3.05
🇲🇾 Alor Setar	🇲🇾 Langkawi	Ferry	01:30	£13.16
🇲🇾 Langkawi	🇹🇭 Koh Lipe	Ferry	01:30	£62.35

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur after a fairly long coach trip, a bit jaded and had been forewarned that:

• You have to have your wits about you in Kuala Lumpur: you’re out of the Singapore safety bubble
• Cash is king - you can no longer expect to be able to pay in any other way

We found the first cautionary tale to be unfair - we felt safe the entire time in Malaysia. The second one though, oh boy was that on the mark.

It was absolutely impossible to do anything without cash, and unfortunately we rocked up empty handed. We were assured that a nearby shopping centre had an ATM, and after an undue amount of time struck Ringgit gold.

It really was an undue amount of time and felt like a fever dream - at one point we even walked through a junior’s cat walk competition. So we decided it best to immediately get some food in us before venturing any further.

In the Trafford Centre you can expect an over-priced and bland offering. Not so here. And it really set the tone for the food that Malaysia had to offer. MYR52.0 (£9.77) got us both a hearty Assam soup with 2 sides each and drinks 💥

Feeling chipper after a nice meal, we whack our destination into the Metro ticket machine - and after depositing some cash are presented with this:

You would be forgiven for thinking this is a token that’s good for another go on the dodgems. It did get us to our accomodation in good spririts though. In general the Metro in Kuala Lumpur was clean, fast and not too overcrowded 😄 It was also pretty cheap - MYR5 (94 pence) for a journey.

When we arrived, there was a mild situation in that we accidentally booked our room for a date 1 week later than we should have. After a mild panic and lots of Google Translate disaster was averted and luckily there was (just about) room at the inn.

The room did come equipt with some geckos. After some googling of whether it’s possible to swallow a gecko in your sleep we learnt to make peace and accept them as part of South East Asian life.

Our main event in Kuala Lumpur was a visit to the Batu Caves - accessible by train in around an hour. The cave is an important Hindu shrine, and attracts loads of visitors.

There were an exceptional amount of Monkeys in and around the caves, which was quite cool except:

• We were always quite weary of not wanting to get too close due to a scratch or bite from one being bad news
• They’re cheeky sods and despite worshippers and tourists making use of bins, there was trash all around as monkeys were raiding and scattering

Got some decent pictures though and may be able to flog some for the next 7Up or Magnum advert.

Kuala Lumpur was great to visit, but cities aren’t our bag so we were glad to get out into the hills.

The coach transfer to Cameron Highlands was interesting. The driver was wearing headphones, and shamelessly karaokeing along to whatever he was listening to with quite some welly, and variable skill.

He did get us there safe and sound though.

Our first hike on the trip, and hopefully one of many to come.

It was a challenging jungley hike with some quite intrepid and overgrown terrain that led on to a tea plantation. Unfortunately we weren’t rewarded with a view from the top as a really scary lightning storm hit as soon as we reached the summit.

We cut the walk a bit short, and attempted to hitchhike. Alas, nobody wanted to give some very damp and muddy hikers a free ride - but after a while a taxi driver was very happy to charge a fair few more 💵 than it should have cost to get us home!

The next day we visited a couple more tea plantations, and this time were able to sample some tea and cake. Both of which went down very well, and we enjoyed some great views of the plantation.

A short coach journey with a more reserved driver brought us to the food capital of Malaysia: George Town.

We thought this would be the perfect place to do a cooking class, and it didn’t disappoint.

Our teacher was Pearly Kee, who was very knowledgeable, friendly and good at noticing, correcting and explaining our mistakes!

We were really fortunate to be the only people who had booked the class that day, so effectively had a private class 💪

She met us outside a market, and gave us a tour of all the food we might not be familiar with.

As Chinese new year was around the corner, there were weird and wonderful pineapples (they symbolise wealth & good luck):

Other weird and wonderful veg:

A squash!

Lotus plant

Lettuce plant (we were rightly berated for wasting this at home)

Ginger!

Before heading to her cooking studio, she explained Century Eggs to us. Duck eggs preserved in horse urine for 100 days: the ammonia they’re exposed to turns what looks like a normal egg from the outside into something you wouldn’t expect.

She challenged us to eat it, we were very brave and obliged 😱 A quick Wikipedia check after revealed that the horse wee thing is a myth 🐴 😄

In the class we made:

• Beef Rendang
  • A Malaysian dish with slow cooked beef in a rich coconut stew
• Assam Hae (Tamarind Prawns)
  • Fried prawns that were marinated in spices. Cooked in their shells, which was a bit of a challenge to prepare properly!
• Arabian Chicken Curry
  • A thick and rich chicken curry

We were really proud of the outcome, and had a feast at the end of the class. We both picked up many cooking tips, hope we can remember them in a year!

We found it really cool how multi cultural and integrated Penang was. Within 1 minute walk of each other there was a: Mosque, a Hindu temple, a Buddhist Temple and an Anglican church. All were up for visitors so we had a wander, lit some jossticks and asked a few questions about the new year celebrations!

Penang is sprinkled with street art. A lot of which are by Lithuanian artist Ernest Zacharevic.

They’re quite interactive and some are designed to help with awareness of the need to find homes for stray animals.

The food was excellent and very cheap. Most main meals were under a tenner for both of us, with drinks. Malaysian, Thai and Indian dishes were abundant. Some notable ones:

Roti Canai, a really tasty Indian inspired breakfast (sets you back about £1 for 2, with a couple of coffees):

And Cendol: a Malaysian dessert containing green rice flour jelly worms, kidney beans and coconut milk. It’s as weird as it sounds and a bit gross:

Our last few days were spent on Langkawi. We spent a lot of time chilling. Our hotel had a pool, which was very handy for cooling off (it was consistenly over 30 degrees and quite humid). There was no duty on booze on the island, so Martin enjoyed a few pints that cost less than a Latte 🍺

There was an incident where we thought our hotel room was only equipt with a Bum Gun 💩 🔫 So we had to bravely learn the usage. It turned out to be unecessary, as the next morning Martin discovered some TP behind the kettle (?!). But at least we’re thoroughly prepared in the art now 😱

Next stop is Koh Lipe in Thailand, accessible from Langkawi via. a short ferry journey