Malaysia, Singapore and the start of New Zealand

When I finally left Thailand and went to Malaysia, my first port of entry was the city of Georgetown on the island of Penang. Malaysia itself is a Muslim country and Penang is a really interesting mix of Chinese, Indians and Malay people. I got the impression that Penang is a strange sort of place. Maybe I owed my first impression to the bizarre hostel I stayed at, with the oddest mix of people I think I have ever come across. Bizarre is how I ultimately felt about the whole island, but hey, maybe I didn't give it much of a chance. I also discovered that Malaysia is not too easy to navigate on your own when it isn't tourist season. I made it straight across to the Perhentian Islands on the east coast near the Thai border after some difficulty. The Prehentian Islands were amazing- I think they were up to par if not better than the islands of Thailand. Actually, they were better. I took a speed boat from the mainland to the islands and we were going so fast over choppy water that we were actually airborne at times and completely drenched when we reached the shore 45 minutes later. Upon reaching the shore of the small island, I fell out of the speed boat (literally, first I fell backwards on my tailbone bruising it badly, then I stood up, regained some composer and then lost it and my dignity as I fell forward into the ocean). Luckily the restaurant directly on the beach where the boat dropped us was only half full... Everyone sitting there had a great view of my acrobatics and a guy named Laine from Toronto (I travelled with him in Vietnam/Cambodia), recognising my gracefulness, came running over from the restaurant to say hello and pick me out of the water. It was really good to see him and catch up on the last couple months. I went diving the next day with him and a couple others and my dive master, Alisha was great. We hit it off and I came back the next day to do a shipwreck dive. We went down about 23 meters and she showed us so many things- blue-spotted rays, giant barracuda (can't really miss those though... yikes!), puffer fish and many other things. I spotted a moray eel for which I was quite proud:) I hung out at the dive hut the next day too, played with their pet monkey Babu and did some snorkeling. The Coral Bay side of the Island is where I did the diving and snorkeling but I was staying on Long Beach, which is on the other side. There was a path that connected the two beaches that takes you through the jungle. Other than the giant mosquitoes that you needed an entire bottle of repellent if you wanted to get out with half a pint of blood left in you, you also had the ever so friendly monitor lizards that are about 2 meters long... nice walk though... really...

After the Perhentians, I went Taman Negara National Park in the middle of the country. A couple key phrases to tell you all I need to know about that trip:
110% humidity
Beautiful rain forest Good trekking
Lots of rodents/reptiles
Wobbly canopy walk 45 meters up (very scary)
Floating restaurants on the river
Hot
Humid
Hot and Humid, left after 2 days...

The trip out of Taman Negara to Kuala Lumpur was nearly impossible. I refused to pay the amount that travel agencies were charging tourists to get there and decided to do it myself. Well, this is kind of how things went:
- Took Bus A to Destination A
- At Destination A, bus was sold out to Destination B
- Commence Plan B: took Bus B to Destination C
- Bus from Destination C to Destination D, sold out...
- Commence Plan C: took bus from Destination C to Destination E
- Bus from Destination E to Final Destination (KL), sold out...
- Insert curse words here.
- Commence Plan D: get into taxi with three Muslim girls and head to KL.
- Arrive KL some hours later, dropped far, far away from where I wanted to go, get on the LRT (above ground train) and get to Chinatown.

KL was a cool city, but there wasn't too much to do there, or maybe the heat and 6+ months of travelling was beginning to catch up to me. I think Chinatown was where the most action/tourists are. I have seen a lot of different street food/vendors on my trip through southeast Asia, but nothing, NOTHING like KL. There was more variety than anything I have ever seen. Lots of Chinese, Malay and Indian food of every sort. I took the LRT to the Petronas Towers at night which were impressive. There are 5 levels to the towers, representing the 5 levels of Islam. When you stand at the bottom, you can't see the top.

From Kuala Lumpur, I went to Singapore to stay with Agustin and Alexandra, his wife. Agustin is my brother Jim's friend from high school and it was great to see him and Alex. A few years back, I was backpacking through eastern and central Europe and was in Krakow, Poland at the right time and went to their wedding. I hadn't seen them since then and I had a fantastic time with them in Singapore. I explored the city in one day, going to Little India and the financial district. It pored buckets but still was a nice and CLEAN city. I had heard before I went that it was incredibly clean, so I was on a mission to find at least one piece of trash on the street. I never saw any. None. They also don't sell gum in Singapore because people throw it on sideways, etc. It is a very organized, expensive and clean city.

After saying goodbye to Alex and Agustin, I went to the airport and headed out to New Zealand. Well, sort of... I went from Singapore to Darwin, Darwin to Cairns, Cairns to Sydney, Sydney to Christchurch. It was a long couple days. I was in Christchurch for the first few days and now am in Timaru, south of Christchurch by about 3 or 4 hours. I met a German girl here named Yana and she has a car! We are leaving tomorrow to travel down south for the next couple weeks. I am really excited. The people here are incredibly friendly. Last night at the hostel I am staying at, the owner served up fresh abalone he caught in the ocean. It was amazing. I had never had it before and it is normally incredibly expensive, but as he says, the ocean is his grocery store. Tonight, we are having green-bone fish another guy speared yesterday. I love this country already!