Our peninsular Malaysia journey started with a flight to the capital, Kuala Lumpur, from Kota Bharu. Kuala Lumpur (“KL”) is a fabulous, fabulous city. Although the streets seem haphazardly organized and it is both a difficult city to drive around (due to traffic and one-ways) and, at times, be a pedestrian due to lack of sidewalks, everything is extremely well-marked, the city center is easily navigable on foot, the metro system (we didn’t have to use a taxi even once!) can get you anywhere you want (including to town from the airport, which is about 70 km away!), and the food.... well, we'll get to that.
We stayed at a very comfortable hotel right in the heart of Chinatown and, among a few activities we did while we were there, enjoyed spectacular (almost exclusively street) food.
Funny Chinatown sign
Mangosteen (perhaps my favorite fruit ever! I don't think I'd had one since we'd lived in Thailand, but oh, how I wish I could bring some back to the states-- its milky, tart flesh is amazing!)
Rambutans (much like lychee if you've tried that; they come in red, yellow, and "short-haired" versions!)
Laksa (fish based soup)—often prepared curried (with the sprite-like drink "100 plus")
Satay food stand (to be steamed by you at your table!)
Nasi lemak (coconut rice) with beef rendang (curried beef)
One day, we took a day trip to the Batu Caves, which houses a Hindu Shrine and the world’s largest Muruga statue. It was a mere 272 steps to get to the top!
We then headed east through some exceptionally green highlands to the Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary where they house some elephants to prepare for relocation to safer habitats, such as Taman Negara National Park (which we would have loved to visit if we'd had more time). We enjoyed some elephant-related activities—including feeding them (to their trunk, and also directly into their mouths—their tongues are HUGE!), riding them, and (optionally) bathing with them (we passed on that one… and were especially glad after we saw some floating.. uh… elephant droppings as soon as some of the other [braver] tourists entered the water).
Another day, we waited in line early in the morning to attempt to get tickets to the 450-m tall Petronas Towers, to see city views from the skybridge, Unfortunately, they sold out (I think the gunners were there to get in line at 6 a.m., which we were unwilling to do on our vacation!); however, that left us free to explore more of the city.
We wandered around the sleepy neighborhood of Kampung Baru, the oldest section of KL (most things were closed as it is Ramadhan [Malaysia is predominantly a Muslim country!]) and then visited the beautiful Lake Gardens in town, including the orchid garden, deer garden, with time to relax lakeside.
Our next and last Malaysian stop was Melaka (or Malacca), an important sea trading post that changed hands many times, and is now a veritable melting pot of Chinese, Malay, Portuguese, and Indian cultures. It was a delightful town to explore on foot as well as via tri-shaw (a type of cycle-rickshaw), with architecture reminiscent of European town squares (there is also a Portuguese town square, residential area and "Little Lisbon"), as well as an extremely high-end Chinatown which had a really fun night bazaar. We saw the largest Chinese cemetary outside China (Bukit Cina) and several temples (Hindu, Muslim, Chinese) on "Harmony Row."
Town square
Decorated Tri-shaws
(This was posed. Kelvin most definitely did not tote me around)
Our hotel prohibited dogs and durians (awful-smelling fruit)!
Some other delights we tried in Melaka included the Nonya fusion (Malay/Portuguese) foods of popiah (spring rolls), pai tee (cone top hats), otak (fish paste in banana leaves), beef pancakes, and pineapple tarts.
Streetside soybean milk
(and other very colorful drinks...)
We took a half-day bike tour around the surrounding countryside, which was a wonderful way to see and experience some of Malaysia’s natural beauty. With our guide (Mr. Alias), we cycled past traditional wooden Malay houses, through palm oil plantations (Malaysia and Indonesia produce 90% of the world’s palm oil, used for cooking, cosmetics, and even fuel), among rubber trees, and past type of fruit tree/bush you could imagine (durian [ugh!], banana, mango, mangosteen [perhaps the best tropical fruit ever!], guava, ke dong dong [we don’t know what its name is in English], breadfruit, starfruit, jackfruit, rambutan [red, yellow, and “shaved!”], papaya, longan, pineapple, kalamansi, dragonfruit, and even some watermelon patches…). It was so tempting to snatch fruit off the trees (we had tried all of the fruit already, except the breadfruit)!. Although I have been referred to as “Mrs. Fruit” in my day, Kelvin may be one person who might even like fruit more than I do! If you ever visit Melaka, this tour is highly recommended!
On country roads...
Mr. Alias with palm-oil eyes
Rubber tree
Traditional Malay wooden house (built on stilts to keep it safe from flooding/animals!)
Ok, so we snuck a few rambutans...
From Melaka, we crossed the border in a ~4 hour bus ride to Singapore (I have never been in such comfortable seats on a bus!). Thanks to K’s friend Mai, we pretty much already had an itinerary of must-do (mainly eats and drinks) to fill our first day! I had been to Singapore with my family when I was a child, but I don't remember much of anything. It (the "New York of Asia" is a wonderful city to visit, very clean, modern, innovative, and tolerant. We were constantly impressed by the efficiency of the trains (never had to wait more than 5 minutes for a metro train!), signs, directions, ease of travel, friendliness and helpfulness of the people, and how law-abiding everyone is (we were hesitant to jaywalk even when we saw a few citizens do it!).
We started out with a trip to Chinatown, where we ate at the Maxwell food center, a famous center of tons of hawker stalls. We ate nonya dumplings, as well as Char kway teo (similar to Thai pad see ew, K’s favorite) and sipped sour plum and sugar cane juice.
As in KL, we rode the metro (clean, clear, easy, air-conditioned) everywhere, and enjoyed these signs:
Singapore is known as the "land of fines" (but we wondered, why no exact fine on durians?)
We visited the Chinese Heritage Museum and learned about the early settlers in Singapore.
We ambled around Orchard Road, which is the 5th Ave of Singapore, but (despite the promise of A/C--Singapore is HOT year-round) were not lured into the high-end shops (we prefer street bazaars for our shopping!)
Nearby grassy area
We then headed to Clarke Quay, which was a delightful place to sit, eat, drink, and people-watch on the water. We enjoyed a dragonfruit-lobster-caviar salad (delicious!) and Singapore’s famous chili crab (THE BEST CRAB I HAVE EVER EATEN) at Jumbo’s seafood restaurant, and then tried Singapore’s signature drink, the Singapore Sling, developed in the early part of the 1900s by a bartender at the Raffles hotel. It was a tasty mix with hints of gin, pineapple, cherry, and more. I also tried a Singapore sling chocolate (kind of like a Cadbury egg with the sling filling inside, and dusted with powdered sugar, making it much like one of my mom’s rumballs), which was THE BEST CHOCOLATE I HAVE EVER EATEN. I was sad I couldn't find them in a store to take home.
Tasty dragonfruit-lobster-caviar salad...
CHILI CRAB!!!!
With a "Merlion" (mermaid/lion-- Singapore's mascot) wooden holder
And with so many interesting bars with character to choose from (including a Burger King bar!), in my first bar-hopping experience ever (believe it or not), we then stopped at one more place called “The Clinic” (only fitting for two doctors, right?) where you can sit in either a wheelchair or hospital bed and sip a drink out of an IV bag or drink from syringes (entitled the “Doctor’s Orders”), which was our choice.
At the Clinic...
On day 2, we visited the Singapore Zoo…, which was (sorry for all the Singapore superlatives) probably the best zoo I have ever been to. The exhibits were remarkable because of their size, apparent "humane-ness," true rainforest feel, with even free-ranging monkeys (I still do not know how the zoo can ensure they can't escape from the park), and the largest free-range orangutan exhibit in the world (due to the devastating impacts of deforestation, orangutans are confined to the islands of Borneo and Sumatra). We saw tons of monkeys, African cats, snakes including the Asian King Cobra and reticulated python, white tigers, white rhinos, giraffes (a personal favorite of mine), flying foxes, and more... I think Kelvin took a photo of every animal we saw and (despite Singapore's and Hong Kong's fabulous airport wifi) I obviously I couldn't upload them all, but here are some highlights from the day:
Proboscis monkey (the males have an even longer, bulbous nose!)
Free-ranging cotton-top tamarin (tiny cute monkeys)
Rare white tigers!
Orangutans! (So smart that they are provided puzzles in order to keep them happy and stimulated in their environment!)
Baboons! (always entertaining to watch)
Pygmy hippo
Flying foxes (largest bats)-- we were like 3 feet away!
Komodo dragon! (world's largest, and scariest lizard)-- confined to 3 Indonesian islands
Cute zebras
Giraffes-- soooo graceful. Love these!
Viper
White rhino
And then,after the zoo, and before heading to the airport, was our last meal... pig stomach and duck soup with coconut juice... mmm
We had a FABULOUS honeymoon! We were a bit concerned that, after Bali, we might be disappointed by the rest of our trip; however, this was definitely not the case. Malaysia and Singapore are soooo worth visiting, and we hope to go back (our stomachs aren't full yet!). We hope the blogs have given some suggestions should you ever decide to travel there!
