Malaysia, Singapore and an earth quake!; Sarah and James’ Travel Blog

Just for the avoidance of doubt we are not in New Zealand yet and nowhere near the quake, but we are currently sitting at the airport waiting for our flight to NZ.

Since Sarah last blogged we have done quite a bit of travelling, and been to two more countries, but before I get to that I need to tell you about the rest of our stay in Au Nang (Krabi). As Sarah mentioned we did the 4 islands tour, and were treated to a day out in the “fastest speedboat in Krabi” which was powered by 5 225BHP engines, and I can safely say it was the fastest boat I have ever been on. It was well worth doing just for the ride in that boat, never mind the islands! But the islands were very pretty, and were catered for completely with a generous portion of spicy Masaman Curry for lunch before we relaxed in the sun on one of the beaches, and we got to go snorkelling, and Sarah was loving it, I struggled a bit with the mask that they had given me, so spent more time trying to sort

myself out than seeing any fish, but Sarah assures me there were lots down there! That evening we realised that we had been in Thailand for a month but had not sampled the famous Thai massages, so we headed to one of the many massage spas in the town after dinner. I had a back and shoulder massage, while Sarah had a foot massage, It was certainly a better experience than the massage I had in India and thankfully very relaxing, I think I actually fell asleep at one point. The following day we left Au Nang after a fantastic stay at Supsangdao Resort.

We caught the plane from Krabi Airport to KL, not really knowing what to expect of the city. The Lonely Planet proved as useful (and useless) as ever but was perfectly right about one thing; while the city has a good verity of options in its transport network repertoire, the various lines and modes are extremely poorly integrated. It could be a fantastic system, to rival the best in the world, but it just doesn’t. Once we had got used to this it was bearable, just. KL reminded us very much of other cities we have stayed in (as they say over here, Same Same, but different) such as Bangkok and HK, however it is by no means as developed as HK. Our hotel, as it seemed to be with a lot of the big hotels, was attached to a huge shopping mall, ours being ‘Megamall’ in Mid Valley, which is certainly worth a visit. Sarah and I both made use of this, Sarah found a Topshop, much to her delight and was able to replace some of the clothes that she has been wearing for the last 3 months. She also picked up some really nice Levis at a good discount to what we would pay in the UK. And for me it was inevitable, one look at the prices in the Apple shop and I am now the proud new owner of a MacBook Air fully equipped with ‘Aperture 3′ for my photography. Our hotel was great though, very cheap and had a fabulous view of the city.

On Wednesday morning we headed to the Petronas Towers and queued for our tickets to visit the Skybridge and capture the view of the city from 44 stories up. Although we were there early to get our tickets, we still had to wait until 1.40 in the afternoon to actually go up. We killed the time having breakfast and visiting the ‘Petrosains’ museum, which is similar to the Science museum, but focussed on oil and petrol production, and, much to my delight motor sport. When we eventually got up the towers and onto the Skybridge, it was quite impressive, and I really enjoyed taking photos, with the assistance of Sarah who was pointing out some good shots. The next day we headed to KL’s other main attraction which is another tower called the Menara KL, which provides a fantastic 360 degree view of the city. Just as we got to the top and entered the viewing deck at 276m above the city, the heavens opened and a huge thunder storm rolled in. This was brilliant as we got to see the lighting striking all around us as if we were in the clouds ourselves. Once the storm rolled away, we were left with the most fantastic orange hue from the setting sun. The Menara KL gave us a fantastic viewpoint of the Petronas Towers.

The next day we set out early to KL Central Station to catch the train from KL down to Singapore, part of the route of the famous Orient Express. Although we had 1st class tickets, I can safely say that it was nothing like the Orient Express!! It was quite a nice journey through Malaysia, which is a very green country, and finally after 9 hours we made it to Singapore.

We were really excited about Singapore for two reasons; not only had we heard that it is a fantastic city, but it also means that it is our last stop before we leave Asia and head to New Zealand. Our plans for Singapore involved a bit of shopping, a bit of sightseeing, and eating lots of nice food, but we have also managed to fit in a Night Safari, which was very interesting, and a little scaryfor Sarah.

We have met up with another old school friend, Charlie Porter is in Singapore working for HP and seems to be enjoying the very nice lifestyle over here. We had a few drinks down by the water at Boat Quay which is a very cool area of the city, which it seems comes to life at night. We have also had dinner at Raffles, don’t you know, and we’re heading back there this afternoon for a Singapore Sling in the Long Bar before we catch our flight. Dinner in the Long Bar Steakhouse at Raffles was a little extravagant compared to what we are used to, but it was a nice little treat for Valentines Day as we were actually travelling from Thailand on Valentines Day so didn’t get chance to do anything special.

Last night we went to the Night Safari, which was something I had never heard of, but basically is a night zoo! Well what can you see at night? Under the dim lights we got to see a whole host of nocturnal animals from all over the world, and it was well worth going to. The scary bit for Sarah came when we reached the bat enclosure. I went in alone, and saw the biggest bats I have ever seen, easily the size of cats, and they were flying about all around me. After this we had some food and watched the live fire show, which was pretty amazing, with lots of fire breathers and fire juggling.

Today we have a late flight and will ultimately end up in Aukland NZ after a short transfer in Brisbane! Yey! We are really looking forward to New Zealand, however we have woken up this morning to news that Christchuch has been hit by a series of earthquakes, and there is quite a lot of damage, and a few people have been killed. We are not going to Christchurch for a few weeks so hopefully things will have settled down a bit by the time we get there. We may even head down there and help out if there is anything to do.

We are expecting that the internet won’t be that easy to access in NZ, especially as we are going to be bimbling about in our camper van for 2 weeks, but I’m sure we will be able to find a Starbucks, or equivalent to log on at.

Hope everyone’s well.

Love James (and Sarah)