Malaysian Travels By Andy Horsman

Looking through the Travel Blog to look for content for my MyBeautiful Malaysia Blog, I found this very interesting Travel Journals by Andy Horsman on his journey in Peninsular Malaysia. His journal covers Kota Bharu, Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Cameron Highlands and Melaka (Malacca). Once I found this very interesting article, immediately I emailed Andrew to ask his permission to republish his travel journal and he replied "Thanks for your email requesting permission to republish my blog. That's fine - but please credit my writing and photographs (if you use them) in your blog. I'd also be interested to see your blog as I love Malaysia - so let me know when it's done, please". So, Happy Reading and for Andrew, thank you very very much.

Malaysian Travels By Andy Horsman - Andrew Horsman

Well this is it - almost a year on, I'm finally writing a blog from Blighty! It's been an amazing trip but to be honest, my feet haven't really touched the ground since arriving back home. I've spent the time since, visiting friends and relatives (still more to go!) and have just got back from a cool camping trip in Dorset with friends from Hampshire. So it doesn't really feel like I've returned to any sort of normality yet - we've even fitted in a weekend trip to Ireland visiting Danielle's family, and we're soon to return in a couple of days! So in the time since my last entry, way back when we arrived into Australia by boat, we've helicoptered and dived the Great Barrier Reef, been to a footie game in Sydney, travelled the Aussie Outback for a month in my little tent with some great Aussie friends and arrived back home via a few days in Auckland.

In my last blog, I skipped the Malaysia and Singapore entry to get the Singapore to Brisbane boat covered, so it's back to Malaysia, one of the most diverse and interesting countries on the trip, where I'll start now.

Danielle and I had walked across the border from Thailand and after having been fined $6 each for overstaying our Thai visas, we found a group of blokes hanging around in the darkness, all of them ready to drive us to the nearest town of Kota Bharu. We jumped in a cab and off we went, into the night and the bright lights of Malaysia. After settling into the journey, my gaze settled on the front passenger seat where I spied some large, oblong shapes that scuttled off when we hit a pot hole.

They soon returned and I realised we were sharing the car with some huge cockroaches. Now then, should I have told Danielle about our fellow passengers, or not? Well, I decided not to, and I reckoned it was safer to pretend I hadn't seen them (ever the brave sort!). After all, we were now stuck in this dingy car for another hour and there wasn't a lot we could do about the long-term residents. Instead, I jiggled my legs up and down to scare them away from the back of the car. The thought of them running up my bare legs and beyond didn't appeal, but it wasn't long before Danielle said she thought something kept tickling her legs. Nonchalantly, I replied that everyone knows it's best to keep moving to wave away the mossies and that's what I was doing... .

The next day we wandered into town, having checked into Zeck's Traveller's Inn not far from the centre to have a think about our plan to head to the Perhentian Islands. These are reckoned to be amongst the most scenic in south-east Asia as they are apparently largely unspoilt. I say "apparently" because we never got to see them - it was only the start of the season for the islands and they had been deluged the day before by a tropical downpour and our feeling of "let's give it a miss" reached critical mass when we reconciled with the fact that we'd spent the last month or so on beaches and had had our fill of sand. Ahh, the hard-life, eh?!

Kota Bharu proved to be a great introduction into Malaysian life. In southern Thailand we'd seen more Islamic-dressed women but here it was the norm rather than the exception and there seemed to be a different air on the streets.It felt far more relaxed than anything we'd felt in a long time - it wasn't something tangible, but rather an air of friendliness, with people smiling as we passed and giggles and little calls of "hello" from school kids. As we negotiated our way through the streets, 2 college girls with clipboards came up to us and asked if they could chat. We found somewhere quiet to sit and they told us about life in Kota Bharu - they were doing a project on foreign visitors to the city and were keen to know what we thought of it, especially as it was Visit Malaysia Year. Whilst we chatted, we told them about our trip through Asia and after swapping email address we headed back into the melee.

We spent two or three days here before heading west to Penang. It being Chinese New Year, nearly every bus was full and it wasn't until a stranger was recruited by a bus worker to take us to an alternative bus station that we eventually found a couple of spare tickets leaving the next day. Amiable Zeck from the guest house drove us to the station where we had a spicy meat and egg brekkie before departing on the 8 hour bus trip across country. The bus took us over the central mountains and eventually to the western coast where we crossed the bridge at Butterworth and into Georgetown, the main town on the island of Penang.

I had visited Penang 15 years ago on my first big backpacking trip so it was good to get back to a place that I really enjoyed the first time - and I was pleased to see that it hadn't changed toodrastically. The same, quaint old streets are still there, with Chinese clan houses and shopssquashed together in a hotch-potch jumble that adds to the welcoming feel to the town. There are a fair few western tourists here and some definite long-termers who you seem to bump into in every easy-going Asian town, as cycle-rickshaws took around older couples as well as groups of backpackers along the twisting streets.

We visited the old Chinese clan house of Khoo Kongsi, still a home to members of the same Chinese family for the past couple of hundred years or so. Whilst a major tourist destination in Georgetown, it's still possible to avoid the odd group by hanging around long enough to take in the ornate gold decoration and smell the incense swirling around the lanterns, then watch Buddhist visitors paying their respects. One room has a number of plaques detailing past clan members - a memorial to the past and a link for current members to their forefathers.

After a day exploring, it was time to do our second favourite activity - eating. Penang spoils for choice with a mixture of Malay/Indian/Chinese/Baba-Nonya food and the covered food court just off the main drag means you can graze at your leisure. When we were there, the sound of clinking cutlery and food being ordered was drowned out by deafening fire crackers, lit in long strings and signalling the entrance of the dancing, gyrating pair of Chinese dragons. Chinese New Year was here and signs proclaiming Gong Xi Fa Cai were everywhere, from shop windows to stickers in cycle rickshaws. Everything that could be was coloured red - a lucky colour in Chinese tradition. Even the abundance of cultures in Malaysia did little to dampen the Chinese spirit - signs were up in traditional Malay and Indian shops and homes. The government took the opportunity of congratulating its nation of encompassing so many cultures as one nation, with posters on billboards and messages in newspapers.

Whilst dragons danced and people cheered, we soldiered on and tucked into various servings of nasi lemak and barbecued fish. The stalls served pretty much any food you could imagine and as we wandered with our plates, a couple of locals waved us over to join them at their table where we chatted into the evening about the New Year celebrations.

The next day we caught a bus over to see the Kek Lok Si Temple, a tall pagoda that dominates the surrounding skyline a little way out of Georgetown. The bus dropped us off a short way away and we followed the crowds of mainly locals to the entrance. The pagoda is situated on the top of a hill and as you start to climb, you’re enveloped by a plethora of hawker stalls selling everything from mantelpiece models of the Petronas Towers, Visit Malaysia t-shirts and fake English football jerseys (which Danielle joyfully took advantage of!) and little wooden Buddhas. Voices beckon you in offering big discounts and prices seem to drop as you step past, whilst their neighbours take over as you make your way, slowly but steadily up the steps and out of the claustrophobic clamouring. The path opens up to a pool filled to the brim with turtles and fish in some rather murky looking water. As a sideline, more hawkers sell what looks like cabbage to feed to the turtles and fish, and the hungry residents clamber over each other in a slow motion feeding frenzy, munching on the green leaves until they slide over the slippery shells and disappear into the depths.

Beggars line the path up to the entrance, some with families of young children, some alone - old women and men sitting with plastic cups of change, until you finally appear at the top. A large group of people is waiting at the top and as we made our way through it, we notice a man painting names and messages onto yellow, clay tiles. For a small donation, you can give them your name and they’ll paint it onto the tile, ready to be placed on the roof of the temple. I visited here about 15 years ago and did the same - but strangely couldn’t find any tiles in situ this time! Needless to say, it didn’t stop us getting our names immortalised.

As we wandered amongst the temples, Chinese lanterns swung in the breeze - coloured yellow, orange and bright red. Thousands of Buddhas line the paths adorned with reverse swastikas, their peaceful gaze looking out over the faithful as they make their way to pray, mingling with us

camera-toting tourists. Something undeniably relaxing about Buddhism makes it presence felt yet again - despite the large numbers of people watching or simply standing, where there should be noise, people would pray and appear oblivious to what was around them.

After sitting for a while and taking in the view of the city from the pagoda, we slipped past the hawkers and out to jump on another local bus to take us back into Georgetown. Near our guesthouse on Love Lane (it became clear how this road got it's name, whilst walking through it at night) was the Penang National Museum which gave a useful insight into the history of the island - from the first settlers to the rule of the British and onto the decline of the influence of the island on international commerce. It also explained the different ethnic groups that make up Penang - the Malay, Chinese, Baba-Nonya (Chinese/Malay) and Indian.

Texts and photos in this posting are copyright of Andy Horsman - Andrew Horsman. Click this link for more adventures of Andy Horsman.