Hello there blavel!
Nick and I are having an awesome time in Malaysia. It's our last day today, and we leave this afternoon for a nasty 24 hours of commuting to Sydney for a friend's wedding... so before we go, let me tell you a little about our trip:
The trip was a surprise destination which I managed to keep for months. Nick was sufficiently shocked when we got to the airport and tried without luck to guess which flight we were going on before I made the reveal.
We had an amazing time in Kuala Lumpur. I wrote a huge entry about it before having it eaten by the Mac (ok, ok, so I may have forgotten that Mac's don't have a control button and thus accidentally deleted all of my writing in an attempt at copying it before I hit save to ensure I wouldn't lose it... grr!), but essentially we ADORED KL. It's a beautiful city and very modern; it wasn't at all what I was expecting, to be honest. I expected something like Hong Kong, but instead it felt like I was somewhere closer to Tokyo. English everywhere, in a city full of beautiful new buildings, shopping centre after shopping centre, and so much to see and do. We visited Batu Caves (mandatory tourist destination), hung out at Chinatown quite a lot, spent some time shopping, and every evening returned faithfully to the carpark down from our hotel which transforms to a collection of hawker stalls each night for fantastic satay chicken sticks, awesome indian snacks, chinese steamed buns and a collection of both indian, chinese and malay noodle and rice stalls.
Our accommodation in KL, the Dorsett hotel, was right near the 'golden triangle', an area full of shopping centres... and oh, the shops! They have so many cute clothing stores here! Our hotel in Penang, Traders Inn, is right behind Komtar, a big shopping centre with a similar array of fantastic clothing shops to that of KL, although minus some of the authentic brand name stores which are located at Gurney Drive. We spent half of yesterday shopping in Komtar (although when I say that, we only spent about $200AUD on shopping- but the Malysian Ringgit is slightly under 3 times the AUD, so the dollar value felt bigger than it was; that, and everything is somewhat cheaper here). I got roped into having an impromptu haircut by an overly enthusiastic lady from the 'salloon', however the outcome was a slightly shorter and cuter version of what I had before so I was happy despite the craziness! We've been lucky with accommodation; at KL, the Dorsett in KL upgraded our room free of charge to a suite (which was more like a small house) as there was a mix up with the booking of a hotel transit upon our arrival- it was no big drama to us in the slightest as we just grabbed a cab to the hotel, but they insisted on making it up to us, which was sweet. The hotel we're in at Penang is beautiful; I didn't realise when I booked it quite how upper-class it would be. We've got free-wifi here as well, which is rather handy although we're spending so much time exploring (mostly with our tastebuds!) that I haven't had a chance to do much internet browsing in any case.
Malaysia is such a food lover's dream. Slightly horrified to find a scale in my room- who needs to weigh themselves on a food-driven holiday?!- but I'm not really concerned as for the most part what we're eating is quite well-balanced and healthy... just perhaps a little too much of it in our exploration efforts! Some of the highlights include beef rendang for breakfast in KL, the abovementioned satay sticks, indian savoury and sweet snacks, fresh roti canai for breakfast, and chinese steamed buns. There's lots of variety here and so, so much to try.
Anyway! We're about to head out to have our last Malaysian breakfast before checking out one of the clan temples here and checking out. Our flight for KL departs at 4, and then from KL we fly to Gold Coast, and from GC to Sydney (and from Sydney, a further 1.5 hours commute to Newport beach, ouch). We leave our hotel at 2:45pm today and should arrive at Newport by around 3 or 4 tomorrow afternoon. Dear travel God, please let there be a vacant three seats next to us on the overnight trip from KL to GC so that we can sleep... !
Off to continue eating my way around Malaysia! Will update with pictures later on.
