Malaysia Archives - Anna S. E. Lundberg

Melaka, Malaysia: A confusing mix of heritage and commercialism

14 January, 2015 By Anna S E Lundberg 2 Comments

My lack of planning, favouring spontaneity, had worked well up until this point. The existential crisis I now faced was my own fault, as my Lonely Planet had warned that you should book ahead for Melaka especially at weekends and, what do you know, I ended up with Melaka on my agenda exactly over the weekend. The hotels I had selected were available on Friday or Sunday but not Saturday, what a dilemma! After a whole lot of umming and ahhing I settled for the Friday night and then booked an extra two nights at a hotel in Singapore, where I was guaranteed to find something to keep me occupied. I faced similar problems when leaving Melaka, however, as the bus I had chosen, with a convenient pick-up directly at the hotel and arriving right in the city centre, was full – as were most of the others, and I desperately started researching trains and taxis to be able to continue my journey.

Anyway, enough with the boring logistics – part of the adventure, isn’t it? – and on to the historical city state of Melaka, or Malacca. Another UNESCO World Heritage Site, it’s crammed full of Dutch and Portuguese colonial shopfronts, antique shops and Chinese temples.

The Melaka River runs through the city and used to be an important trade route for the Sultanate in the 15th century; the capital fell to the Portuguese Empire in 1511. (To me, it looks not unlike the French town of Annecy…)

Windmill, Melaka — *He sang every morning, “How lucky I am,*
*Living in a windmill in old Amsterdam!”*
This odd sight stands next to Red Square where you’ll find the old Dutch *Stathuys*, a former administrative centre and possibly the oldest Dutch building in Asia, dating from the mid-17th century.

Rickshaws in Melaka — Another odd sight in Red Square can be found in these not-so-subtle rickshaws, with “Let it go” blaring from the speakers and various Frozen paraphernalia on sale.

Melaka River by night — The river banks light up at night and you can take a 45-minute boat cruise from one end of town to the other.

Jonker Street is the heart of Melaka tourism, known for its antique shops that can be found in houses from different periods of colonial rule: from the Portuguese (1511-1641) to the Dutch (1641-1798) to the British (1824-1946). “Jonker” comes from the Middle Dutch meaning “young lord”, and the street would have housed mainly traders and merchants.

Jonker Street at night — On Friday and Saturday nights, Jonker Street becomes pedestrian with stalls full of tat – mobile accessories, wallets and various other plastic trinkets, as well as Chinese delicacies – spilling out onto the road. I had over-estimated the amount of Malaysian ringgit I would need so now that I was heading into Singapore this gave me an excuse to spend the money on little gifts and souvenirs (NOT tat – there were also some nicer stalls and boutiques).

Herein Street, Melaka — Heeren Street, Gentlemen’s Street or even “Millionaire’s Row”, remains a place for the upper classes of Melaka and once again has architecture from the Dutch, from the British, and from the more recent Chinese influences.

Baba & Nyonya House Museum — The Baba & Nyonya House was home to four generations of the Chan family who came from southern China before it became a museum in 1985. ‘Baba’ (for men) and ‘Nyonya’ (for women) were terms initially used by Malays to differentiate these locally born Chinese from later immigrants. Early Chinese traders would often take Malay women of as wives or concubines and a fusion culture emerged.

Cheng Hoon Teng Temple is Malaysia’s oldest Chinese temple, from 1646, built by migrant builders and craftsmen from China’s southern provinces. Melaka also has the country’s oldest mosque, Masjid Kampung Hulu, built in 1728.

A fascinating mix of the old and the new, the antique and the modern, the authentic and the kitsch – but a day in the town of Melaka was plenty for me, and I was happy to move on to the last stop on this particular trip: Singapore.

The practical bit:

Flight Langkawi-Kuala Lumpur: I flew Malaysia Airlines for RM 150 including luggage, arriving in at KLIA. The airport is about an hour away from Kuala Lumpur city centre.

Bus Kuala Lumpur-Melaka: I had researched a bus that would take me from Melaka directly from the airport, KLIA (instead of going into town first, which takes an hour, and taking a bus from there). I was pointed in the direction of a red company that left at 2pm but online I had seen that there was a bus leaving at 1pm. When I insisted, I was reluctantly taken over to the Transnacional bus, which left as planned just a few minutes later. The bus ticket was RM 25 and it stopped first at KLIA2 (15 minutes away), the budget airline terminal before continuing on to Melaka Sentral. From there, I took a taxi (voucher from the taxi counter) to my hotel for RM 20.

Casa del Rio hotel: On arriving, I was ushered into a lounge area by the pool and received a welcome drink, a lime sorbet, with a lovely little “Welcome home Ms Lundberg” message. I also received a spa voucher for RM 50 but watch out: (a) it was full when I arrived, so book ahead during busy periods and (b) it doesn’t apply to the cheaper/shorter treatments.

Bus Melaka Sentral-Singapore: After a brief delay where I wondered if the bus would turn up or not, we departed at 2.45pm; I eventually got off the bus in Singapore at 8.30pm. As we approached the border, the bus stopped first at Malaysian immigration where we got off leaving our bags on the bus. We went up to get our passports checked, through customs “nothing to declare” and then down an escalator to find our bus. Top tip: keep your eye out for distinctive-looking people from your bus and you can follow them (though this didn’t work for me, as I almost followed what turned out to be the wrong person onto the wrong bus). We spent quite some time in a traffic jam on the bridge and then reached Singapore immigration. This time we took our luggage off the bus, filled out a card, had our passports checked, bags x-rayed (“Liquor? Cigarettes? Okay.), and found the bus again. Finally we were dropped in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere… I crossed the road to the Kampung V shopping mall, exchanged my leftover ringgit, and waited in line for a taxi to my hotel.

Crazy Cat Lady and All The Things I Didn’t Do on the Island of Langkawi, Malaysia

9 January, 2015 By Anna S E Lundberg Leave a Comment

I had big plans for Langkawi. I was going to go kayaking in the mangroves, ride a jet ski (on my bucket list), take the SkyCab cable car for a panorama of the area, visit the waterfalls, take a boat trip… I did none of these things.

Langkawi is known as the Jewel of Kedah, Kedah being the state at the north end of Malaysia, bordering Thailand. It’s an archipelago but only two islands are inhabited, Pulau Tuba and the main island that I visited, Pulau Langkawi. I did a lot of research when choosing which of the beaches I would stay at: Pantai Cenang (gorgeous beach but busy and the most developed), Pantai Tengah (upscale, smaller beach), Pantai Kok (beautiful bay, but overdeveloped), Teluk Datai (beautiful and secluded but very expensive resorts), Tanjung Rhu (wide beach, upscale resorts).

After all this research, I settled for Bon Ton Resort, named by my Lonely Planet as one of “our favourite places on Langkawi, if not in the region” with Trip Advisor also identifying it as one of the top resorts of the island. It’s luxury and rustic at the same time, with eight individual villas dotted about a green area by a lake; we had planes flying over us as we were right by the airport, and what I think were buffalos wandering past the restaurant every evening. Breakfast is put into your fridge the night before so that you can eat breakfast at your leisure – I kept the cake for an afternoon snack, yum. You also get a complimentary cocktail every day. Lovely.

Another feature of the Bon Ton Resort was of a feline nature: the hotel is also a cat sanctuary. Now I’ve developed strong allergies to cats since having two fatties living with me for three years a while back, but the reviews on TripAdvisor assured me that people with allergies had no problems staying there. On arrival, as the friendly manager was telling me about the resort, I sat stroking one of the lovely little kitties, and then made my way to my cabin. Within hours, my hand was covered in big white welts, my eyes were welling up and I was sneezing non-stop. Suddenly the little monsters were everywhere. On the floor next to me, on the chair opposite me, on the sofa behind me, on the balcony, by the pool… it was like Hitchcock’s Birds but with cats instead. One of the staff kindly went to the pharmacy and got me tablets and eye drops, which I promptly over-dosed on. They also offered to move me into their sister resort, Temple Tree, where the cats were less prolific; after the first night, though, I was feeling much better so I stayed on at Bon Ton.

I blame the quadruple dose of anti-histamine for my sleeping late and spending most of my time at the pool. It was great to have some relaxing down time instead of my usual sightseeing – in fact, on future trips I plan to schedule a few more beachy stops, also to make sure that I’m topping up my tan! My other big activity was a pedicure at the Satkara Spa attached to the Casa del Mar Hotel, much needed after all that walking in flip flops.

The practical bit:

Bon Ton Resort: Bon Ton is about ten minutes from the airport, you can buy the voucher at arrivals and then the taxis are out in front. It’s a good half-hour walk from Pantai Cenang, the town and the beach itself, and it’s hot and a little with no pavement part of the way (I also got a few whistles as I walked alone, even during the daytime) – but you can rent a bike or a scooter to take you there and beyond. Bring earplugs if you’re a light sleeper or you’ll be struggling what with the dogs, the planes and various other neighbourly noises. Breakfast is bread with jam/honey, yoghurt, cake, juice – so if you’re allergic to gluten or on a low-carb diet you’ll need to tell them or buy your own. And, if you have cat allergies like me, I’m afraid I strongly advise you to choose a different resort….

Yellow Orchid cabin, Bon Ton Resort — I stayed in the Yellow Orchard cabin, one of the smaller ones. The cabins have an outdoor bathroom where you’ll find little lizards and various insects (my neighbour also found a dead bat inside her cabin – hit by the ceiling fan, the manager speculated). They give you a mosquito guerrilla kit (spray for you and for the room, two repellent plugs, and some balm in case you do get bitten) – I did get quite a few bites but I got even more in the big city of Singapore!

Swimming pool at Bon Ton Resort — I selflessly offered to help two girls who were trying to take a selfie of their backs in the pool. “Instagram” they explained. Ah the common language of social media…

Pantai Cenang, Langkawi — I did venture out one day to walk into town and down by the beach. The beach didn’t feel too busy or noisy at all – but there were banana boats and jet skis and so on dotted all around so I can imagine that high season might transform the area into something less appealing.

Malaysia Airlines plane — Since I had by now reached the northernmost part of Malaysia, it was time to double back and go south again (my flight home would be leaving from Singapore). Rather than taking the bus back the same way that I had come up, I booked a flight down to Kuala Lumpur and then continued on to Melaka by bus. Domestic flights are very cheap in Malaysia and allow you to save time too.

Two Days in Penang, Malaysia: Anyone for a curry?

6 January, 2015 By Anna S E Lundberg 1 Comment

I arrived into Butterworth by bus from the Cameron Highlands and took the ferry across to George Town on the island of Penang, the ‘Pearl of the Orient’.

Penang, I had read, is famed for its food. Naturally, I assumed therefore that Penang curry must come from there and I was a bit surprised by my failure to find anyone serving this curry during my stay. It is only now that a little bit of research tells me that Penang (or Panang) curry actually comes from Thailand. Oops.

Foody mix-ups aside, the highlight of my visit was the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion, where I did a tour with a very amusing UNESCO Heritage specialist. (In fact, all of George Town is a heritage site.) Cheong Fatt Tze, she told us, was ‘the Rockefeller of the east’, richer than all of China. Ambitious from the start, he wanted to be a businessman from the age of 12 and left home at 15. Soon he left China for Indonesia, where he became a water carrier for a rich family – and married the daughter! (As an aside: Cheong Fatt Tze came from a poor Hakka family, and the women of this Han Chinese people were known as ‘the big-footed women of China’ since they refused to continue the tradition of binding their daughters’ feet.)

The house itself was built in 1890-98, though the style is that of 300 years prior. The architecture is a merging of East and West, with Chinese symbols like that for ‘happiness’ placed at the main entrance but European-style iron grills, art nouveau stained glass and fake marble (the latter costing more, given the need to bring over European artists, than real marble would have cost). It is built according to basic feng shui principles, with water in front, a mountain at the back, and the house itself built on a slope (artificially constructed as there was no slope!). A clever copper pipe system on the roof and through the walls, with a drain in the main courtyard, means that the house has never had any problems despite flooding in the rest of the town. With 220 windows, a huge staff was required just to open and close the windows at night and when it rained.

Cheong Fatt Tze was aged 74 when he had his last son, his wife (his seventh, and his favourite) 24. In his will he stipulated that the house could not be sold until this last son died, which he did in 1979. When the house was sold at auction in 1990, it was full of members of the Cheong family as well as 34 squatter families. There was a thick layer of dust on all the surfaces – according to our guide, no one felt obliged to do any cleaning since they didn’t own the house – and this preserved a lot of the materials over the years. Today, the house is ‘unofficially’ a hotel – they don’t yet have a permit because of the wooden floors, which would need to be reinforced with concrete!

The Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion is also knowns as the Blue Mansion. Can you guess why?

Rickshaws in George Town — The weather in George Town was predictably unpredictable: each day, the skies would turn from clear blue to dark grey within minutes, and I learned to pack my umbrella as well as the fan that I bought at the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion.

George Town ocean view — The following day, I started out on the Lonely Planet walking tour, passing the Supreme Court, the City Hall and the Town Hall. It was at this point that I became the subject of a photo series by an Indonesian family, who insisted on each getting photos standing next to me. Hmm.

Protestant Cemetery, Penang — I continued my film tourism by visiting sites that feature in Anna and the King and, as a result, went round singing Getting to know you everywhere I went (wrong film: the musical version was The King and I with Yul Brenner; details, details)… The Protestant Cemetery is where the REAL Thomas Leonowens (Anna’s husband) is buried. Unfortunately it was closed off due to construction work so I couldn’t go in and find the actual grave.

The Grand Ballroom of the Town Hall became the Royal Court Room in Anna and the King.

Swettenham Pier became Bangkok Harbour in the film. I had intended to travel on the next morning to the island of Langkawi by ferry, and even bought the ticket. I was dissuaded, however, by my contact at my next hotel who said it was an ‘experience’ and the reviews on TripAdvisor which were mixed but overwhelmingly negative. I wasn’t so much worried about getting seasick as the fact that you had to stay indoors for the whole three-hour journey. Instead I bought an AirAsia ticket for a short flight of 25 minutes.

We’ve had the Blue Mansion, let’s call this… the Green Mansion? (Also known as the Pinang Peranakan Mansion.)

Armenian Street was the setting of the Bangkok street scenes in Anna and the King, thanks to its already-very-convincing 19th century merchant houses.

Street art, George Town — Armenian Street today also draws a crowd thanks to its street art created by Lithuanian-born Ernest Zacharevic.

Khoo Kongsi clan temple — The area around Armenian Street houses many of the town’s clan houses, built to honour the ancestral spirits. The Khoo Kongsi clan complex was like a little village for the Khoo family, who were wealthy Straits traders. This is the temple, built in 1906; in the film Anna and the King, it is where Tuptim was captured by the Palace Guards.

I did, of course have some curry, albeit of the non-Penang kind. The atmosphere at the Red Garden Food Court was – unusual…

Next up Langkawi, the Jewel of Kedah…

The practical bit:

Ferry from Butterworth (mainland) to George Town: From the bus terminal (having arrived, in my case, from the Cameron Highlands/Ipoh), you walk up and over the pedestrian bridge to the ferry terminal. The ferry costs RM 1.20 but you need to exchange your ringgit for what I took to be old currency as the machines, I guess, haven’t been updated! It runs every 15-20 minutes. (I could also have continued by bus across the bridge but it would have meant a longer taxi journey.)

Hotel in Penang: I had contacted the Muntri Mews Boutique Hotel for a single room but it was full so they gave me a family suite at the newer Muntri Mews Residence for the same price. Very nice, with great service including shutters being opened and closed and fans and air con being turned on and off in the mornings and evenings, and with breakfast served at the café across the road.

Travelling from Penang (George Town) to Langkawi:
Flights are operated by AirAsia and Firefly, the latter a subsidiary of Malaysia Airlines. My single ticket including luggage and seat reservation with AirAsia was RM 189 (without the extras it would have been RM 111).
If you want to brave the ferry, you should get the ticket in advance from one of the kiosks outside Swettenham Pier for RM 66.50.

Strawberries and tea, darling, in the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia

30 December, 2014 By Anna S E Lundberg 5 Comments

[As I write this, my thoughts are with the families and friends of the passengers on the AirAsia flight that went missing in the Java Sea. I flew domestically with both Air Asia and Malaysia Airlines just weeks ago.]

From Kuala Lumpur, I chose to travel up into the Cameron Highlands for a complete change of scenery from skyscrapers to lush vegetation. The promise of tea, strawberries, and a cooler climate lured me up into the hills for a break from the oppressive heat of the big city.

The main town is called Tanah Rata, followed by Brinchang just north. After hours of looking for somewhere to stay, I eventually went with the recommendation from the concierge in Kuala Lumpur, the Cameron Highlands Resort. It was a gorgeous colonial-style building with atmospheric Christmas lights and a tree in the lounge area. Having arrived late afternoon, I had a nice few hours of reading before going for dinner in one of the hotel’s two restaurants.

Steamboat dinner — The Asian restaurant in the hotel served a steamboat dinner, a fondue chinoise, with a delicious range of spices and sauces, vegetables and noodles, and fish and meat to choose from.

To see the main attractions of the area, I was advised to get a taxi that would drive me from place to place and wait outside as I explored each one. My driver was a third-generation Indian, his grandfather having come to Malaysia to work on the Boh Tea Plantation for 8 cents a kilogram. The Boh Tea Plantation was established by the son of a British government printer, J. A. Russell (who was also behind the construction of Kuala Lumpur Railway Station), in 1929, and became one of Malaysia’s first brand names – using the character Mr Boh in the early days of TV advertising. This was the first stop.

Boh Tea Plantation — The high altitude, well-drained soil, and a climate that sees plenty of rain but no frost all makes for favourable conditions for growing tea.

Tea pickers — As new shoots grow, the workers pluck the tea bushes – about every three weeks. The leaves then go through five processing stages: withering, rolling, fermentation, drying, and sorting.

Tea plantation houses — Nowadays, my driver told me, the workers come mainly from Nepal, Indonesia and Bangladesh; they now earn 22 cents a kilogram. Housing is free, including water, but electricity is extra.

Lavender garden — Having done the little factory tour and bought some tea for my dad, I returned to the car and we moved on to the next stop: the Lavender Garden. Here there were some lovely flowers, surrounded by shops and fairground games as Lady Gaga’s Edge of Glory came blaring out of the speakers.

Rose garden — Rose Valley houses 450 varieties of roses as well as other flowers like lilies and honeysuckle and also cactuses.

I also visited the Bee Farm but didn’t venture in to the farm itself – I saw enough bees from afar to know that I wouldn’t enjoy walking through the maze of beehives! Again there was a huge shop attached to the farm; I bought a little tube of honey to try, a group of boys laughing at me as I tried to retrieve the scissors from a bee-infested tray in order to cut it open. Then I moved on to a less angry insect species…

Butterfly garden — The Butterfly Farm was probably my favourite, although I had to dodge a photographer who wanted to take a picture of me which he would then, of course, charge me money for.

Bullfrogs — Where the bullfrogs leap from bank to bank… The Butterfly Farm also housed other less beautiful creatures including various reptiles and creepy crawlies.

Lettuces — The Strawberry Farm had pick-your-own strawberries as well as lots of lettuce. My energy flagging at this point, I bought a strawberry muffin and strawberry coffee. The coffee was surprisingly drinkable, very sweet.

The Sam Poh Temple was our final stop: the fourth largest Buddhist temple in the country. It was a bit odd to have the cars parked in and around the building…

The whole tour lasted three hours. I enjoyed the range of sights though it was quite tiring to do so many stops! And it was all incredibly commercialised, despite our avoiding the worst spots with market stalls overrun by Chinese tourists. In fact, they weren’t as busy as usual this year – it seems a lot of tourists had been put off by reports of landslides a few weeks earlier. I had read about it but then forgot! In any case, this particular area wasn’t affected.

Afternoon tea — In line with the South American Backpacker Diet, I skipped lunch and had afternoon tea instead; with tea from the Cameron Highlands, of course.

After such a strenuous excursion, I ended my stay in the Highlands with a traditional Malay massage in the Spa Village. It began with a complimentary tea bath – but of course! I foolishly asserted that I was happy being naked in the bath (rather than wearing a sarong), not realising that this meant undressing in front of the masseuse and then lying in the bathtub with my breasts bared like I imagine Cleopatra might have done. As I lay in the hot tea, with flowers and petals thrown in for good measure, I was given a tray of condiments: sugar and lime (for my elbows), tea leaves (for my face), and water with lemon and honey (to drink – best not to get confused!). After 15 minutes of relaxation with plinky plonky music through a set of headphones (along with a slight worry about possible electrocution) and screensavers on the TV in front of me, the masseuse returned with another tray, this time with tea bags for my eyes. After half an hour of stewing I got to lie on a bed with heated pillows for my neck and stomach, after which we finally got to the massage itself.

A traditional Malay massage involves long strokes using an oil that in this case consisted of onion, garlic, and lemongrass. “It’s okay?” she asked as she held out the oil for me to smell. “Err… sure?” Lying on a heated mattress, smothered in garlic and onion, I felt like I was being prepared for some cannibalistic banquet. At the end of the treatment, though, I was VERY relaxed. I ignored the instruction that I was not to wash the oil off for an hour and hopped straight in the shower (though too late to save my clothes from taking on that lovely foody smell).

Speaking of food, the next day I continued on to Penang…

The practical bit:

Cameron Highlands Resort: Cameron Highlands Resort is in Tanah Rata, 5-10 minutes from the bus terminal and a similar distance away from the start of all the plantations and farms. Even if you don’t stay there, I strongly recommend the afternoon tea for RM 45 – about £9!

Taxi around the area: The hotel organised the taxi for me at RM 30 per hour for a minimum of three hours – this was plenty of time to explore the area. Boh Tea Plantation: free. Cameron Lavender: RM 5. Rose Valley: RM 4. Bee farm: RM 5. Butterfly Farm: RM 5. Strawberry Farm: free. Temple: free but donations welcome.

Bus: The taxi from the bus terminal to the hotel cost RM 10, then RM 15 for the return on the Sunday morning. I bought a ticket for the Untiti Express at 8am to Butterworth (on the mainland) and Georgetown (on the island of Penang) via Ipoh, for RM 32.

Malaysia: Monkeys and museums in Kuala Lumpur

26 December, 2014 By Anna S E Lundberg 1 Comment

I booked Malaysia a little bit on a whim: I needed a new country that was ‘on the way’ back from New Zealand and Australia, and I looked for the cheapest flight combination. I’ll also admit that as the time drew nearer, I started to feel a little reluctant to leave behind the comfort and familiarity of those countries, where I had also been with friends, to fly on my own to Asia where as far as I could see on my weather app there was a tropical storm brewing. Silly billy. I had a fabulous time during my ten days in Malaysia, and I’m so glad I went there.

First up, the capital city, Kuala Lumpur.

My first day, I’m embarrassed to say, I didn’t do much at all. I arrived in the morning after my night-time flight from Melbourne and after checking in I lay down on my bed for a moment; I didn’t move until several hours later. At that time, I made the long and strenuous journey to the hotel restaurant to have something to eat and then all the way up to the spa where I had a very relaxing treatment involving a foot bath, an aromatherapy massage, and a facial. It’s a tough life, this travelling malarky…

Petronas Towers — Not a bad view from my room at the Traders Hotel…

I did eventually venture out of the hotel, however, and my first excursion was to take the train out to the Batu Caves in Selangor. Coincidentally I ended up in what turned out to be the Ladies’ Coach, intended to off women some privacy – I was surprised to see a man there but, indeed, a guard soon appeared and told him to leave.

Batu Caves steps — It’s 272 steps all the way up to the Temple Cave. I must have looked exhausted as a woman who was on her way down gave me the tip that it was easier if you held on to the railing…

Monkey at Batu Caves — I’d been warned about the macaque monkeys and told not to bring any food. I was feeling pretty confident having just taken this lovely photo of one of them munching peacefully on a piece of coconut, when suddenly I became aware of one of his friends who had attached himself to my bag. As he bared his teeth at me, all I could think of was the fact that I had neglected to get my rabies vaccination top-up before my trip. I’m still embarrassed to admit that I hit the poor guy with my Nikon D5100 to get him off me. I avoided eye contact with the people around me as I made my way back down to the bottom of the staircase; I’m pretty sure that hitting a monkey on the steps of a Hindu palace is bad for my karma.

Islamic Art Museum — I retreated to some culture that was not overrun by macaque monkeys, visiting the Islamic Arts Museum where displays included religious scrolls, architecture, and jewellery as well as a temporary exhibition of modern art from Turkey. The building itself was quite impressive too.

Jalan Petaling, Petaling Street, is the heart of Chinatown. Here you can buy all sorts of fake designer gear and other tat.

I heart KL sign — The “I love KL” sign at Merdeka Square is a fabulous photo opportunity, according to the tourist information office…

Traders Sky Bar — The main point of Traders Hotel, apart from the views of the Petronas Towers, is its famous Sky Bar by the pool on the top floor. I indulged in a lychee rose cocktail followed by a kiwitini while enjoying those views.

After two nights in Kuala Lumpur, I decided to journey on into the Cameron Highlands where I was promised cooler temperatures and both tea and strawberry plantations. The bus system was similar to the one I had experienced in South America, with different companies operating out of the terminal and a very flexible system where you can just turn up and be on your way ten minutes later. The bus was comfortable, with seat belts and air conditioning, and I got a seat right at the front (in fact, there was a man with a huge neck wound sitting in my seat but I decided not to force the issue). A sign reassuringly declared, “Plastic bag is for vomit purpose only, not for rubbish.” Wonderful.

The practical bit:

Getting into town: The city centre is a good hour away from the airport. Once you’ve picked up your luggage, there’s a taxi counter where you can buy a coupon that you give to the official taxis that are waiting out in front. Taxi touts are illegal and the coupon system ensures that you get a safe driver and a fair price. It cost me 75 ringgit.

Traders Hotel: While I didn’t particularly enjoy the business feel of the hotel itself, my view of the Petronas Towers was impressive and the bar on the top floor wasn’t too shabby either. There was a buggy driving back and forth between the hotel and the KLCC in case you couldn’t walk those few metres in the heat, and the concierge was incredibly friendly and informative. Tip for the Sky Bar: arrive early and you’ll get a great table – as I was leaving, all the other tables were full or reserved.

Batu Caves: I took the Kelana Jaya (red) line from KLCC to KL Sentral for 1.60 ringgit and then changed to the KTM Commuter train from there on to the Batu Caves at 4 ringgit for a return ticket.

Bus to Cameron Highlands: The bus left from Puduraya bus station; the taxi from Traders Hotel cost 14 ringgit. One adult ticket was 35 ringgit. Ignore all the touts on your way up to the third floor where you will find the ticket counters for the various bus companies.

Melaka, Malaysia: A confusing mix of heritage and commercialism

Crazy Cat Lady and All The Things I Didn’t Do on the Island of Langkawi, Malaysia

Two Days in Penang, Malaysia: Anyone for a curry?

Strawberries and tea, darling, in the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia

Malaysia: Monkeys and museums in Kuala Lumpur

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