Perhentian Islands and the first month review

The Perhential Islands are a backpacking magnet for those who venture to the East coast of Malaysia. The islands(two of them, one small and one a little bigger) are situated about 40 nautical miles for the mainland in  the Northeast.



We spent three days there after we left the Taman Negara jungle Friday morning last. And if I’m honest, the most exciting part of the islands were the speed boat journies to and from the islands. That’s not to say we didn’t enjoy it there, it just it wasn’t what we had expected. Maybe because we only had Gili Trawangan as our yardstick in which to compare it to.
To be fair, the Perhential islands are stunning and very quiet. A real picture book chill out heaven. When we landed there we went looking for accommodation and found ourselves a nice little beach hut on stilts about twenty meters from the beach itself which worked out at around twelve euro each per night!!

We spent our days walking along the beach and sampling lovely local food in the various beach front restaurants that peppered every nook and cranny. The weather wasn’t exactly excellent apart from a few golden hours here and there, so we didn’t build too many sand castles in the three days.


Planning….
Since we had no ambitions to do more snorkelling or boat trips here, it gave up plenty of time to plan what our next moves were going to be regarding the trip.

Initially, the plan was to travel into Thailand via overland crossing(since its only 60km to the Thai boarder from the mainland), but we found out that Southern Thailand can be somewhat dangerous and travellers were advised not to cross into Thailand via this route.
So with that in mind and also due to the fact that you only get a fifteen day tourist visa when you cross overland into Thailand compared to the 30 day when you arrive by air, we decided that it would be best to return to Kuala Lumpur and get a cheap AirAsia flight into Phuket.
So thats what we are going to do. The full moon party in Ko Phangan is on July 17th and we shall be there in full force complete with UV body paint and buckets of whiskey and red bull!


One month review…
Time certainly travels fast when your emmm…..travelling! Really can’t believe how quickly the past four weeks have gone. In saying that we’ve already touched base in four of the eight in total countries that we will visit on this trip.
Before I visit a new country or go travelling, I always have preconceptions formed as to how I think the culture will be, what the food will be like and will I end up liking the adventure or not. So far so good concerning Asia. For me its ticked all the boxes so far for the impressions I had already conceived in my mind.
Its cheap, the people are very friendly, the food is delicious, the weather is fantastic and the scenery is stunning. That’s the only way I can describe to those of you that haven’t visited Asia before. In saying that I can only speak of the countries I’ve visited so far in Asia. We still have to hit Thailand(only spent to days outside of Bangkok), Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.

To give you an idea of how cheap it is here to eat out in a local restaurant, today we had three main courses, two deserts and five drinks….all for the equivalent of thirteen euros! Taxis are scarily cheap and when you consider the extortion at home it would really make you stop and think. The bus and train transport system is so cheap its almost free!


The next blog update will be from Kota Bharu where will be staying for a few days after the Perhentian islands.


I’ll leave ye with a short photo video that I managed to put together using Picasa. I’m limited with what I can do as I don’t have my software with me on the mini laptop for making decent slideshows and the internet connections usually take a long time to upload videos like these.

Asia 2011: Month 1

Kuala Lumpur and the Malaysian Jungle of Taman Negara!

A Plane, train, boat, bus and car was how we made our way from Gili Trawangan in Indonesia to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. It was a trip that last just over 24 hours by the time we eventually got to our hostel in the Bukit Bintang area of KL.

We landed in KL just after 1am on Sunday night last. The airport is approx 75km outside of the city itself and we missed the last train from the airport so instead of forking out 50 euro for a private taxi we decided to wait and kip in the airport for a few hours and then get the bus into the city at 7am, which is what we did. But sleeping in the airport was a little more difficult than we planned. So we got bugger all sleep.

Our hostel(Paradiso) was situated in the middle of the tourist area known as Bukit Bintang. We had easy access to all attractions via a very efficient and easy to use monorail system. Kuala Lumpur is a very modern city much like Singapore with your typical skyscraper view point.
KL also has a very vibrant night life in certain parts of the city. Since Malaysia is mostly Muslim, alcohol cannot be purchased in alot of shops and never in any Muslim owned premises.

One of the main attractions associated with KL are the Pedronas tower, aka the twin towers. The towers, which are an engineering masterpiece were constructed in 1998 and trump above any other buliding in KL. On Tuesday we made our way to the towers to get our tickets that would allow us to head to the observation deck at the top for a 360 degree view of the city. Unfortunately, by the time we got there around lunch time ll the daily allocated tickets were sold out. Seemingly, you have to get there around 7am and queue up in order to be able to venture up to the top. We didn’t mind as we got the few photos of the building itself and getting to the top wasn’t a priority of ours.

The following day(Wednesday), we had a two day trip to the Taman Negara Jungle planned with meant our short stay in KL was only for two days, and to be honest none of us were too upset to be leaving the city, not that we disliked KL or anything.
So Wednesday morning at 8am we left our hostel and were shuttled in a bus for four hours to a connecting point where we were to travel by boat for another three hours into the thick of the jungle itself!
The journey on these traditional boats was really something else(see photos). The scenery was spectacular as we meandered our way along the timblering river, before we came to our little jungle town in the heart of Taman Negara.



The Taman Negara rainforest/jungle is situated roughly in the centre of Malaysia. Its a vast, humongous rainforest which is not only older than the Amazon rainforest, but also the oldest rainforest in the world. It consists of 432 sq miles. Its history spans 250 million years and is host to many forms of wildlife including tigers, elephants and King Cobras!

The area we were staying consisted on a small village which was separated by the Timblering river and which could only be crossed via the local water taxi boats!. The three of us had a dorm room all to ourselves which was part of the tour package.

After we arrived at our accommodation we grabbed a much needed cold shower as we were filthy after our eight hour journey, and then got a water taxi over to “MamaChop’s” floating restaurant for the all inclusive buffet dinner of rice and a small piece of grilled chicken! Still thougjh, was better than a slap in the eye!

The activity planned that night was a jungle trek so armed with flashlights and a guide we headed into the jungle on a trail, during which time we saw some really cool insects and jungle freaks like scorpions, monkeys and other creatures! (see photos)

		NIGHT JUNGLE TREK! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The humidity in the rainforest as you can guess was something serious. I’ve been in humid tropical climates before but this just took the biscuit. The only way I could describe it is, if you were to take your dry hand and wave it in front of you, then by the time you had it down by your side again it would be soaked wet!
We hit the sack that night exhausted after the long day of travel combined with the humidity. The following day there was two activities planned.
The morning consisted of a canopy walk which is longest in the world through a section of the jungle. This part had me a little freaked out as I’m not good with naked heights. And we were told that anyone who starts the walk won’t be able to turn back until the end as everyone would be held up, so don’t do it if you think you’ll have any problems. I did have a problem and that was the amount of sweat dripping into my eyes for the whole duration of the canopy walk! I got over the feeling of been so hight up but the humidity and constant sweating on my behalf made sure my vision was slightly impaired to say the least. But I really enjoyed it at the end.

		JUNGLE CANOPY WALK! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

After the canopy walk we had a trek up to a viewing point in the jungle which was a steep incline walk for about a mile. The view was very disappointing to say the least and the only thing we got out of it was a dame good sweating!

		VIEWING POINT WALK! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

When we reached the bottom again it was back to the floating restaurant for some more rice and chicken. The afternoon activity was a boat trip along the river with a water fight against the other boats which was a laugh, and then a stop at a local tribe for an hour to see how the tribe’s people lived.
The tribe consisted of about 8 families were were told and they are nomads, which basically means they move location frequently and never stay in the one spot for more than a year or so. And if someone dies in the tribe then they will move after the burial, in which they place the dead member in a tree hut as they reckon the earth is full of demons.



The chief of the tribe met us as we got off the boat and gave permission for us to take as many photos as we liked. He then went on to give us a few demonstrations of life in the tribe, which included showing us how to make a blow pipe(for hunting), and how to make fire!

		MAKING FIRE AND BLOW PIPE DEMO! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Our guide explained to us that the tribe believe that smoke is very good and for that reason we were not to be alarmed if we saw the small children walking around smoking, as it was normal practice! Equally as alarming, we were told that if you see a child running towards you with a machete or knife, that we were not be be scared as it was just local custom! Thankfully no one ran at us with a knife but we did see a small 2/3 year old boy hammering a bit of wood with a butcher type knife!

We then were giving a blow pipe demo and shown how accurate is was. The local hit the target both times from a distance of about 30 feet.

I stepped up to see if my mouth could cash the checks it was writing, and tried to hit the target but alas there must have been something wrong with the blow pipe as the aim wasn’t working properly

The girls opted out of having a go themselves which was a pity as it was pretty cool.
On the way back to base we stopped by an area of the river when you could get out and swim and swing off a rope into the river which I did many, many times and loved it. I could have played there for the day I could!


We got back to our accommodation after another feed of rice and chicken and had a good wash up before watching a few episodes of “celebrity rehab with Dr.Drew”! Funny reality show by the way!
So that concluded our two day stay in the jungle. We have our next destination planned and its a nine hour journey from here to the East coast where we will catch a speed boat to the luscious Perhentian islands. We have no idea how long we’ll end up staying there but the next blog update will be from there providing theres a decent connection!
Now I’m off to mentally prepare for a nine hour minibus journey!
Ciao!!