Destination – Malaysia – Penang, Melaka, Kuala Lumpur – ok, not our most exciting destination but still very nice and cool.
PENANG - After a taxi, ferry, bus, van, and another van ride, we arrive on Penang Island, Malaysia. The last van takes us all the way to Chulia Street, the backpacker’s district, nice, no taxi required. We are so tired we don’t quite make it to the hotel we have booked; stumbling instead into another one along the way, the Hotel Mingood (you bad!) in George Town and throw ourselves at their receptionist’s feet begging for a double room. Good enough as these two travelers are running dangerously low on energy today. Our day began at 5.30am and it’s now 8.30pm. We still find the strength to go out to eat at a nearby food court. The beer is cold but the food is appalling, really inedible. By now, we can deal with almost anything but bad food, even worse, bad food in Southeast Asia. The tackiest band ever (2 girls and a guy wearing very skimpy white clothes, dancing and singing really badly) is performing. And it’s loud, very loud and distorted, plain bad. Somehow, people seemed to be enjoying it, go figure. Time to retreat, shower and crash, tomorrow is another day.
We’ve been to Penang before about 8 years ago, just for the beach and we left the following day. That’s right, we know the beach is not great. This time we are here to see George Town, the heritage listed historical town we heard so much about. And guess what? Not impressed either! There are quite a few historical buildings, some of the Chinese architecture and the colonial buildings are nice but very new, not really making it a great tourist destination. And it’s nice but a bit boring. The food on the other hand, is just amazing. We quickly find a very good Indian and one of the best Chinese restaurants ever, Tek Sen. Of course we have to stay for a few days while going over every item on their respective menus. We are also in killing time mode again as we have decided to go to the Philippines next (instead of Bali) and need to organize a few things before we get there. We stay for a week and then it’s time to move to Malacca/Melaka, in the south, another historical town. Always the optimist…
Do you know where the “Pink Panther spends his holidays”? Penang, Penang, Penang… Flying which airline? Pan Am, Pam Am, Pan Am… Yeah, that’s how bored we were!
MALACCA (MELAKA) - So, after a very long but comfortable bus ride, we arrive in Malacca. The Fenix Inn is really nice and very well located. We’ve wanted to come here for a while and are very excited about visiting this famous historical town. Well, again, it’s nice but really not very exciting. The historical sites are all very new and there are an awful lot of shopping centres compared to the very few historical sites. Ok, I love my shopping centres as much as the next woman but if I wanted only to go shopping, Singapore is only a stone’s throw away and so is KL. It’s nice and pleasant and really, really tourist friendly but we manage to finish all the sightseeing in one morning. In the evening we go back for some more of the same and decide it’s time to go to Kuala Lumpur.
KUALA LUMPUR - After a very comfortable 2 hour bus ride we arrive in KL. The bus station connects to the monorail train and we got off really nearby our hotel and again don’t need a taxi. As I said before, Malaysia is a very tourist and people-friendly country. They also have a very good PR firm working for them as there are ads for Malaysia everywhere and they look amazing. The problem is, when you get here, at least for us, for some reason, it lacks a bit of personality. But I digress… We arrive at the Leisure Inn, a nice business type hotel in a good location. We go out to Chinatown and have a great cheap meal and go back to the room concentrating on planning our “escape to the Philippines”. KL is nice, we go out sightseeing, catch “The Adventures of Tin Tin in 3D (amazing!!!!)” at the movies, visit all the good shopping centres around and eat some of the best Chinese food, definitely better than we had in China. We go out to pumping Butik Bintag on a Saturday night and it’s just great. Ok, we got it, not very exciting but it is very, very nice. After 3 weeks in Malaysia, it’s time for the Philippines.
