hanl

My husband and I got back on Sunday from a 17 day trip to Singapore and Malaysia. While I'm still trying to gather my thoughts, edit pictures and get over the time difference, I thought it would be good to share a few of my thoughts and experiences on this board, as many posters here were a great help to us when we were planning this trip.

<b>Our itinerary</b>
Day 1: Arrive Singapore from Brussels (via Heathrow), 2 nights staying with a friend living in Singapore.
Day 3: Singapore to Melaka (express bus), overnight at Renaissance Melaka hotel
Day 4: Melaka to KL (express bus), 2 nights at Shangri-La
Day 6: KL to Cameron Highlands (express bus), 2 nights at Hillview Inn in Tanah Rata
Day 8: Cameron Highlands to Penang (express bus), 3 nights at E&amp;O hotel
Day 11: Penang to Johor Bahru (AirAsia flight), land/boat transfer to Sibu Island, 3 nights at Rimba Resort
Day 14: Sibu island to Singapore (land/boat transfer), 2 nights staying with our friend
Day 16: Singapore to Brussels (overnight flight, via Heathrow)

<b>First Impressions</b>
As a first-time traveller to Asia (I'm not counting the hour I spent having lunch on the Asian side of Istanbul), I had no idea what to expect, but the sights, sounds and smells came crowding in and left me thoroughly enchanted, if not a little overawed.

<b>A few snapshots of Malaysia - Scenes that have stuck in my mind</b>
- An old Chinese woman in a crumbling Penang shophouse, broad paintbrush in one hand, pot of fluorescent pink paint in the other, carefully painting giant Chinese characters onto sheets of cardboard.
- Rolling hills clad in corduroy green (the tea plantations of the Cameron highlands)
- Coconut-throwing monkeys on the steps of the Batu caves near KL
- Cartoon-esque clown fish darting in and out of improbably blue anemones in the coral reefs off Sibu island
- A girl and boy giggling, holding hands and tickling each other in KLCC shopping centre, he dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, she in the niqab, black-veiled from head to toe.
- The hustle, bustle and bright lights of the hawker centres, where we let ourselves be carried along on the currents of sights, smells and sounds.

<b> Memorable tastes and new flavours</b>
- The taste of our first hawker-bought satay, hot from the grill, peanut sauce dribbling down our chins.
- Searingly hot som tum (papaya salad) and tom yam soup at the Golden mile food centre in Singapore
- Finger-licking, claw-cracking black pepper/chilli crabs at the original Jumbo seafood restaurant in Singapore
- Stir-fried sambal asparagus from a Penang seafood restaurant
- Mee goreng from a Singapore hawker centre at 3 a.m, the perfect anecdote to all the beers we'd just drunk
- Afternoon daiquiris by the swimming pool at the E&amp;O hotel in Penang
- A seemingly neverending steamboat banquet in Tanah Rata
- Banana leaf meals so good and so cheap we could have eaten five a day


Malaysia is more diverse than I could ever have imagined. Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Christian; forward-thinking and modern, yet traditional and conservative; colonial buidlings and Chinese shophouses standing cheek-by-jowl with skyscrapers; trishaws weaving between SUVs.
And Singapore was even more of a mix - the veneer of order and cleanliness was much thinner than we had imagined. Scratching the surface, we found a place bubbling with life in all its scuffed reality...

<i>To be continued</i>
(Hopefully I'll have time to write up some more details of our trip in the next few days.)

Kathie

Great start! I look forward to more of your report. It sounds like you had a wonderful time.

rhkkmk

thanks for this...looking forward to more....

sharon1306

I loved your format, its very readable. Looking forward to more...

easywalker

Glad you enjoyed your first trip to SE Asia! Thanks for the commentary; please share more experiences with us.

cram

From Brussels? A compatriot then. Very interested in your impressions as I am planning a trip overlapping partly with what you did: KL, Melacca and SIN. In retrospect, how much time would you spend in these three places? The same of what you did?

hanl

Thanks for the encouragement
I'm still working on the details of our first few days, but will hopefully manage to post something later on tonight...

Cram, we live in Brussels although I am Scottish and my husband French. In response to your question, I think that yes, we did spend about the right amount of time in KL, Melaka and Singapore. I suppose we could have spent another couple of nights in KL and seen more of the city, but we were keen to get out of the big city environment and see more of the country so 2 nights was fine for us.

cram

So, that was about two effective visiting days in SIN and KL each, and one in Melacca?

cram

And how were those express buses? Did you work through an agency or did you book all yourselves?

hanl

In the end it worked out at about 1.5 visiting days in KL, 1 day in Melaka and about 3.5 in Singapore (we stayed two nights when we arrived and another two before we departed).
The express buses we just booked at the bus terminal a day or two before we wanted to travel (with the exception of Melaka to KL, where we walked up and got tickets on the next departing bus). We booked the &quot;super VIP&quot; coaches and paid around RM 20-25 (approx 5 euros) for each ticket, depending on the journey.

Anyway, here is the first proper instalment of our trip.

<b>Day 1</b>

My husband (W) and I travelled from Brussels to Singapore via Heathrow (BA/Qantas codeshare). Naturally, given the recent security issues I was concerned about carry-on luggage, connection times and the like, but everything went smoothly and our 1.30 hour transfer time in Heathrow proved ample - we even had time for a little light shopping before boarding.

The flight was comfortable, we were served killer G&amp;Ts before dinner, decent white wine with, and even a pretty good chicken curry.

Needless to say we slept pretty well and by the time we landed in Singapore at 8.30 the next morning, we were feeling surprisingly spritely.

On landing, we were struck by the clean, sleek organisation at the airport (our bags were on the carrousel before we got there) and the friendly and smiling immigration official who insisted we take a candy while she stamped our passports. Welcome to Singapore!

A short taxi ride and we were ringing the doorbell at my friend's condo (H, a friend of mine since high school, who now lives and works in Singapore). Within 30 minutes we were sitting at H's local food centre on Adam Road, sipping mugs of sweet Malaysian coffee (me and H) and frothy ginger tea (W) and trying to take in the sights and smells of stir frying noodles, curry, pastries and all manner of fruits, juices and drinks. (Oh, and wiping the sweat from our eyes as we adjusted to the heat and humidity.)

Fortified by the tea and coffee, although not quite ready to sample fish-head curry (much to H's disappointment), we set off for a walk into central Singapore, which took us through the beautifully landscaped botanical gardens, past ranks of neatly uniformed school children exercising on the lawns, strolling families and t'ai-chi-ing grannies, through our first Singapore shopping mall - where we stopped for chicken rice and fizzy drinks - and on to Orchard Road.

At this point things became a bit of a blur: we just followed blindly as H pointed out this hotel and that building, this bar and that shopping mall.

Before we'd had time to work out quite where we were, H had picked up on the fact that W was hoping to buy some electronic goods while in Singapore and had bundled us into a cab bound for Sim Lim square, where he assured us we'd be able to haggle for electrical goods to our hearts' content.

We were thinking about buying a video camera and H assured us that Sim Lim was the place to go to get the best prices. We picked a few stores at random and were quoted what sounded to us like good knock-down prices. Luckily we decided not to buy straight away - and when we checked the prices online later we discovered that they were no cheaper than if we'd bought our goods in Belgium.

After Sim Lim we were in need of sustenance, so H took us on a walk through Little India.

What a contrast! As we walked through the colourful arcades we picked our way past stalls selling all manner of fruit and vegetables - mangoes, papayas, snake beans, chilis, ginger, galangal, sheaves of coriander, cinnammon, curry leaves.... garlands of flowers and fluorescent effigies, sacks of rice. The air was thick with jangling Indian music and the smell of spices.

We rounded a corner and H took us into his favourite Indian restaurant, where for the princely sum of 8 Singapore dollars (4 euros) we ate onion and egg puri (fried flatbread), fish curry, rice and dahl off a banana leaf with our fingers. And washed it all down with a Tiger beer.

More Tiger beers followed in a nearby expat/backpacker bar called the Prince of Wales, and then we took a cab back to H's place where we cooled down with a swim in the pool before setting out again for dinner.

That evening, H was keen to take us to one of his favourite dinner venues - a Japanese buffet called Kuishin-Bo in the Suntec City mall. I was dubious: buffet meals in Europe are usually best avoided, as are restaurants located in shopping malls. Still, H was always pretty serious about his food so we would have to trust him.

Boy were we glad we did! We feasted on fresher than fresh sashimi, sushi, king crab claws, teppen-yaki, tempura and a host of other dishes that I can't even remember. The atmosphere was a little &quot;shopping-mall-y&quot; but the food was delicious and the place was packed. I think we paid around 45 Singapore dollars each (we opted for the higher priced option which included free-flow beer and soft drinks).

Naturally, our eyes were far bigger than our stomachs; as the restaurant had a &quot;pay for waste&quot; policy we were obliged to eat pretty much everything we'd greedily piled on our plates. After about two hours we rolled out of the restaurant and lumbered out into the steamy Singapore night.

H wanted to take us to a famous bar at the top of a tower (I can't remember the name) but the queues were too long so we ended up taking a stroll along the pier, and then wandering through the Raffles hotel complex to another expat bar called the Lock Stock and Barrel. By this time it was midnight and I was absolutely exhausted - not only had we eaten and drunk too much, but we were beginning to feel the effects of jetlag and travel fatigue. H and W eventually took pity on me (when I actually fell fast asleep at the table in the middle of a joke that H was telling me) and we took a cab back to H's place, where we slept like babies.

hanl

<b>Day 2: Thai food, Arab Street, Chinatown and Durian</b>

We woke up feeling surprisingly refreshed and by 11 o'clock we were in a taxi headed for the Golden Mile complex. H reckoned this would be the best place for us to get bus tickets to Melaka, plus it was where many of Singapore's Thai food places and stores were located. H being a big Thai food fan, he decided it would be a perfect place for us to indulge in a late breakfast, and for him to introduce us to some of his favourite Thai dishes that we wouldn't find in Europe.

First the bus tickets. The Golden Mile complex is flanked by a row of tour company offices offering all manner of bus tickets and tours throughout Malaysia and beyond. Every company had an express bus going to Melaka, but to our dismay they all departed at 8.30 in the morning. We were not keen on the idea of making such an early start the next day, so after much quizzing and questioning, we learned that the bus companies operating out of the Lavender St bus terminal offered a greater range of departure times, so we decided to head there.

But before that, it was time for breakfast. H led us to his favourite Thai food place and we let him order for us all. I have to say that what we ate was probably the best Thai food I've ever had. Spicy tom yam soup, full of aromatic lemongrass, chilli, prawns and fish balls. Green papaya salad (som tam) which was refreshing and tasty, with a vicious chilli kick that almost left us gasping, but strangely moreish all the same. Rich spicy pad thai with egg and pork, and a delicious glass noodle salad.

Feeling refreshed and revitalised, we headed off to find Lavender Street bus terminal. The taxi driver dropped us at Lavender MRT station, but it took us a lot of walking before we eventually found the bus terminal, as it's not as close to the MRT station as you'd imagine. We bought tickets for the Delima VIP bus leaving the next day at 10.30 (S$16 each); although there was a cheaper, more frequent service (called the Melaka Express or some such), we saw the bus and it looked a bit old and uncomfortable, so we opted for the slightly more expensive service.

Glad to have accomplished our one &quot;must-do&quot; task for the day, we were ready for some more sightseeing. H decided it was time we saw another side of Singapore and hailed a taxi to take us to Arab Street. We emerged onto a street bursting with colour, its arcades housing a mix of fabric and carpet shops, pavements stacked high with rolls of rainbow coloured sari silks and piles of rugs. We stopped at an Egyptian caf&eacute; for (rather insipid) mint tea before wandering back up the street, past more fabric shops, wending our way through more rolls of cloth, bicycles, mopeds and store displays (including one shop selling a impressive range of plastic fruit, vegetables, biscuits and cakes). We stopped to admire the Sultan Mosque, and then followed H as he led us through a maze of streets and onto the MRT bound for Chinatown.

I have a silly ongoing competition with a colleague to bring back the tackiest, most tasteless gifts we can find when travelling abroad. Chinatown, therefore, seemed like a good bet – and to my great joy we found a host of gift shops offering all sorts of tat – glitter-snow domes with laughing buddhas, chinese fans, hats, statuettes, plush toys and figurines galore. We struck gold with a garishly coloured plastic figure of a dragon and Chinese man with a fan which, at the flick of a switch, emitted an excrutiating screeching noise while the man lurched back and forth, and the dragon danced and flashed multicoloured lights on its head. (Needless to say, my colleague was gobsmacked when I presented her with her gift!)

Having achieved our goal, we spent another half hour meandering through the busy streets, past t-shirt vendors, noodle stalls and fruit sellers, until H, with a gleam in his eye, led us around a corner. There, under an arcade, was a vendor surrounded by baskets of spiky green fruit, and all around him people sat at plastic tables sucking and slurping on the yellow flesh.

From the smell, we realised that this must be durian. Always ready to try something new, we bought one and the vendor split it open with a sharp knife. The smell that emanated was reminiscent of some of the more pungent French cheeses, but I must admit that I was expecting it to be a lot worse. We gingerly tried a piece of the flesh and found that the taste was somewhere between custard, cheese and hand soap – not altogether unpleasant but not particularly delicious either. In fact, I was a little disappointed by the whole experience, having imagined that the durian would smell worse but taste better. Still, we were glad we'd sampled it.

H was not a fan of durian and insisted we stop off at a nearby bar for a Tiger beer to take the taste away. Well, who were we to argue! For the next two hours, we sat and drank beers, ate peanuts and watched two Indian women drawing an orchid in chalk on the pavement in front of a Hindu temple.

The evening's plans to eat dinner on the East Coast were scuppered when the weather started to look like rain, so we ended up eating pizza and drinking Belgian beer in a neighbourhood bar near H's place.

rhkkmk

thanks for the great report....keep it coming

tanuki

I am enjoying this very much...you have a wonderfully evocative style of writing!

Kathie

Great report - reminds me of many things I love about Singapore!

hanl

Thanks! I'm trying hard to keep it interesting (without making things up, that is )

hanl

<b> Days 3 and 4: Singapore – Melaka</b>

Although the jetlag had decided to put in an appearance, we somehow managed to drag ourselves out of bed and into a taxi in time for our bus to Melaka.

The journey was unremarkable, fairly comfortable (we'd been warned about extreme air conditioning so had brought sweaters!) and took around 4 and a half hours, including the border formalities coming out of Singapore.

I'd been carefully reading up on Melaka – my Lonely Planet guide implied that the bus station was relatively close to our hotel (Renaissance) - so, as we hadn't got any Malaysian currency yet, we figured we'd be able to walk there. But when we pulled into the bus terminal it didn't seem to be anywhere near the address indicated on the LP map so we ended up finding an ATM and then wandering aimlessly around the confusing bus terminal-cum-shopping-centre until we happened upon a taxi stand.

10 minutes and 15 ringitts later we were pulling up at the hotel. I didn't much care for the area (it seemed a bit characterless) and the building was a bit of an eyesore (though some might find its curving shape pleasing to the eye). But once inside it was very swish and comfortable. The receptionist tried to sell us an upgrade to a room on the Club floor, and we initially agreed, until she admitted that no Club rooms were actually available but for the same upgrade rate we could have access to the Club floor facilities. Seemed like a big rip-off to us so we refused, and indeed we were perfectly happy with our room.

We were ravenously hungry by now, having eaten nothing all day, so our first priority was to head out and find somewhere to eat. We'd checked in our LP guide and in W's French &quot;Routard&quot;' guidebook and agreed that we should head down to Chinatown and get a bite to eat at Jonkers Melaka Restoran, which was well reviewed.

We set off and soon discovered that being a pedestrian in Malaysia was something of a challenge. In the fifteen-minute walk from the hotel to Chinatown, we'd clambered up steps, over drains, through arcades, around parked cars and scooters and across roundabouts with no pedestrian crossings and streams of enthusiastic drivers who had no intention of stopping for anything or anybody.

Still, on the way, we'd also peered into Indian grocery stores packed to the gills with foodstuffs, plastic-tabled caf&eacute;s in which a few noodle-slurping souls were taking refuge from the afternoon heat, what looked like an old bicycle repair shop, and a snoring old man taking a nap stretched out on the pavement…

We eventually found our way to Chinatown and set off looking for the restaurant using the map in our guidebook. Ha! The teensy little dot showing the restaurant's location on the map was in the wrong place, and so we spent a good fifteen minutes wandering up and down the wrong street. Eventually we found the place but by the time we'd got there, it was shut.

So back we went to another eatery listed in our book (I forget the name), but it looked very empty and we wanted somewhere with a bit of atmosphere. So after a few cross words (me) and a compromise solution (W), we made our way to Geographer caf&eacute; (www.geographer.com.my) on a corner of Jalan Hang Jebat (formerly Jonker Street), where we spent a very pleasant hour cooling off under the ceiling fans and enjoying spring rolls, dumplings and satay.

Feeling a lot less grumpy, we wandered back down Jonker street and enjoyed looking at the antique shops and snapping pictures. We walked across the bridge to Town Square, where there was a congregation of tourists, brightly decorated trishaws (flags, bunting, tinsel, flowers, you name it, it was stuck to the trishaws!), and souvenir stalls selling fans and umbrellas.

We climbed the steps of the old colonial Stadhuys and then walked up the hill to the ruins of St Paul's church, enjoying the vistas of the city, harbour and old ship in the distance (actually a replica, housing the Maritime musuem, and based on the Flor de la Mar, an old Portuguese trading vessel that sank in the straits with a priceless cargo of treasure looted from the city) that made an otherwise unremarkable view quite picturesque.

We walked back down to what's left of the old Portuguese fort A Famosa (answer: not much) and then meandered back to our hotel.

That evening we decided, again based on guidebook recommendations, to eat at Harper's restaurant in Chinatown. The place was pretty empty (a few tourists here and there) but we had a pleasant meal of Nyonya fare (chicken rendang for W, fish tempra for me, and a rather incongruous dessert of blueberry cheesecake), sitting at an outside table overlooking the river.

By the time we'd finished eating I was really tired, and didn't fancy navigating the obstacle course back to the hotel in the dark, so we decided to ask the restaurant to call a taxi for us, and it arrived fifteen minutes later. W was our designated taxi-haggler so before we got in, he started talking to the driver, asking him to agree on a fare. The poor man looked more and more confused until I realised that W was offering him &quot;10 rendangs&quot; to take us back to our hotel, rather than 10 ringitts. Fortunately the driver seemed not to realise that we'd been trying to pay him in curry. I, on the other hand, was helpless with laughter as poor W offered first &quot;rendangs&quot;, then &quot;ringdings&quot;, then eventually ringitts.

The next morning we went for a quick swim in the hotel pool, which was pretty big, and totally empty. We quickly cancelled out the exercise by indulging in an enormous breakfast. W is a a big fan of hotel buffet breakfasts, and he was keen to try all the eastern and western specialties on offer. I believe he ate eggs, sausages, tomatoes, croissants, pastries, bread rolls, dim sum, rice, noodles and goodness knows what else. I was much more conservative and stuck to eggs, bread and cheese. Still, it was all rather fun, apart from the dodgy Richard Clayderman (who is, incidentally, France's biggest selling recording artist by a mile) cover of &quot;A little prayer&quot; that was playing over and over on a loop (surely, one shouldn't have to listen to that cover version more than once in a lifetime).

We checked out and stored our bags with the concierge, and then set off for a last walk around town, and a visit to the Baba Nyonya heritage museum (50-51 Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock, formerly Heeren Street), which was enjoyable, although it would have been nice to have more information about the different exhibits. It took us about 40 minutes to wander round slowly.

We then strolled to Cheng Hoon Teng temple (http://www.chenghoonteng.org.my/) on Jalan Tokong (Temple Street), the oldest Chinese temple in Malaysia. It really is a beautiful place, and I was fascinated by the patterns of smoke from candles and incense swirling against the black, red and gold of the temple, and the intricate ceramic bowl decoration on the roof.

From here we wandered back to our hotel just as it began to rain.

We took a taxi to the bus terminal (about 15 ringitts) and, on the recommendation of the hotel concierge, we bought a ticket from the KKL counter for the next departing express bus. (This was the only time that we didn't buy our bus tickets in advance, but there were so many services from Melaka to KL that we had no problem).

Kathie

I loved your story about trying to negotiate with the taxi driver in &quot;rendangs&quot; ! Ah, the joys of jet lag!

Would you recommend longer in Melaka?

hanl

Oh the rendang story is already becoming a bit of a chestnut! my poor husband will never live it down

I'm not sure that I'd recommend more than 1 night (or perhaps a weekend) in Melaka, insofar as we managed to get a good overview of the city in the time that we were there, and felt that we'd seen what we wanted to see.

Kathie

Thanks.

hanl

I haven't managed to write up any more of my trip report, but in the meantime here are a few photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/3334845...57594294667666

I haven't edited any of them, so some are a bit dark, but at least it's a start!