9-19th December 2007: - Sorry to be so cheeky, but our last 10 days have been somewhat of a relax, so did not feel like writing the blog each day. However will now give you some insight of the last 10 days. We arrived after travelling for over 20 hours @ The Narima in the middle of a down pour. My immediate thought was great we have 9 days to chill & it is peeing it down! Anyway we were met by Napowan & she immediately put our minds @ rest, that we had indeed chosen a great place to stay. Acting as a mother, she showed us to our room & we were delighted with it. A nice & spacious room with @ that point in time plenty of light coming through the French doors from the setting sun. The Narima is lovely hotel with all that you could want in one place, spa, restaurant, beach, pool & a v friendly owner. Our beach is not exactly how you would picture that of a normal Thai beach. You have to navigate through some rocks before you get into the clear blue sea.
Our stay @ the Narima was lovely & relaxing with fantastic Thai food. Yes Jo you will be delighted to know that the Thai yellow chicken curry was fantastic. For me the best dish I have had so far in Thailand, a tad bit hot in flavor but is calmed down by the coconut milk added.
We were very lazy & did not do that much exploring of Koh Lanta, but it is definitely a place we would recommend to get away from everything. Getting to & from the Island of Koh Lanta takes about 3.5 hours from Krabi, but is worth the effort.
Our last night in Thailand was spent in a comfortable hotel located in Krabi town. We both are glad that we decided not to stay here as we had planned. Although to be far we did not stay long enough to get to know the area that well. Our flight from Krabi to Kuala Lumpur was short & sweet with no hassle @ all. Once in KL we got various forms of transport & ended up @ our next hostel Annung Guesthouse, a bit of a step down from The Narima. So far I can tell you that we have shared facilities (v clean) & walls are extremely thin. The Annung is located off of Julan Bukit Bintang which is the main shopping street with many malls. We had a little wonder & ended up @ a very American restaurant, which was not cheap, we have a feeling now that our living costs will increase dramatically. Hey beans on toast in the camper van touring aroundOz!
20th December 2007: - We rise early to try & get 2 of the free tickets available for the Petronas towers. Only to find out that we will have to come back tomorrow as today is a Public holiday. I must say it was not easy getting up after having to listen to our neighbours talking to the wee hours of the morning. Anyway we headed out to view many attractions today, only to find them closed for the holiday, better luck tomorrow. So we ended up @ Merdeka Square, which is the square of independence. Which this year they have celebrated 50 years of. Apparently the flag pole that stands in the Square is the tallest in the world. The green square also doubles up as a cricket field & yes just to one side there is a pavilion for tea. It was nice to take a stroll around the quiet square, although the humidity is getting to us, so we decided to head to the sanctuary of the monorail. KL is covered with 2 monorail lines & is very safe, easy & cheap to use.
Must say that rain stopped play today @ about 14.00 in the afternoon, just like you said it would Nanna. It was v welcomed & gave us an excuse to sit back & have an ice cream. Tried Malaysian food today, I have forgotten the name of the dish. But it was basically chicken & prawn veg noodle soup. It was really appetizing, although I was not as brave as Drew & stayed away from the dish with added Chili sauce. His lips were red after he had thoroughly enjoyed slurping up the last of the noodles. We finished the night by viewing the Iconic Petronas Towers by night. All lit up with insects buzzing around & bats swooping in for their evening meal. The towers are quite something & the different angles of the building are reinforced by the buildings bright lights against the dark sky of night.
21st December 2007: - We got up early again to view the Petronas towers , we were able to get 2 of the free 1200 tickets & went up on the 9.15 visit to the skybridge. The lift takes us up @ a speed of 5M a second, so we reach our destination in 40secs. Once on the bridge we had about 10 mins to take in our surroundings & snap a few photos of us & the view. Its well worth the wait as there are only a dozen people @ a time on the bridge so even though you have limited time you are not fighting against a crowd. Our views of KL are clear however the hills in the background are covered by early morning haze of smog? Feels slightly nervy being on a bridge that is held up in-between the two towers, with views below & above that make your legs turn to jelly.
22nd December 2007: - This would have been my granddads birthday today, so it felt apt to take a journey to a place where he & my Nanna were stationed with the British army in the 1950’s. A small town called Seremban, just south of KL. My task is to try & find the road in which they lived. We arrived @ a very humid Seremban train station just after 11.00 @ head for the Lake gardens, unfortunately they are renovating half of the gardens, but we walked through the half opened to the public. It was nice & quiet, with groups of people seated in wooden pagodas chatting. The state library is situated to the left & we though that this might have been a good place to start our search. However this too was being renovated, so no info found here. Although the building was of Colonial style & was built in 1912 so would have been here in the 1950’s. We decide to head to the Muzium Negeri to see if we could find out anything about the recent history. At this point it is too hot & we enlist the help of Rajan, a local taxi driver. He takes us to the small local museum, where we find a little info on colonial building, but nothing much else. A very helpful assistant informs us that all military history is located @ Port Dickson, which is about 50km away. A little too far for us to venture today. We get back into out waiting taxi & Rajan informs us that much of the army quarters have been demolished, however the army camp still remains. Rajan offers to take us for a little ride to show us the areas. A double lane highway now sits on the edge of where the quarters used to be& from the highway we got a glimpse of some old houses, but we were unable to get any closer. Next Rajan took us to the now Malaysian army camp. I was not able to take many pictures as there was a guard standing @ the gate with a gun & we really wanted to leave Seremban in one piece! Our visit here was really interesting with old buildings still standing from the 1920’s & our very knowledgeable taxi driver made it a fascinating experience that we will never forget.
23rd December 2007: - Today we checked out of our hostel & headed for KL airport. I think this must have been the shortest flight we have ever taken, a mere 55 mins, hilar. We land in Singapore @ 12.55 & reach our hotel @ 14.00 to quickly dump our bags & head out onto the v clean streets of Singapore. I’ve been told that a visit here is not complete without a visit to Raffles. We make our way there through heavy rain. We sit down in the raffles court yard & of course order 2 Singapore slings. Taking in the old architecture & feeling slightly under dressed we sit back & enjoy our refreshing cocktails.
24th December 2007: - Christmas eve & our mission today is to find a Christmas dinner & guess what we did. We found a trusty Irish pub called Muddy Murphys. A 2 course meal starting with soup then Turkey dinner topped off with Christmas pudding. It was fantastic, just what we were looking for, obviously not as good as back home. Now we feel very full we walk into the 30oC heat outside, that only exaggerates our tiredness from our excessive eating. We walk to the Botanical gardens where we find a seat in the shade where I promptly fall asleep. Could have stayed snoozing all afternoon, but we had a long walk back to the hotel.
