Mingling In Malaysia

George Town

Christoph and I arrived in George Town (Northern Western mainland Malaysia) in the early morning and left at 4am the next morning haha. This was not because we hated George Town. On the contrary, I loved this tri-cultural boiling pot of activity and beliefs. George town seemed to be split three ways when it came to its people and religion. It was comprised of 1/3 Malay, 1/3 Indian, and 1/3 Arab. Just walking around the city and especially the backpacking district this three way split was extremely apparent! It was so cool to see such contrasting religions coexisting with each other. There was a certain peace about George Town that was very comforting to me. The city always seemed very safe and content for some reason. The blaring of Muslim prays coming from the tall towers of the mosque combined with the hustle and bustle of the markets made for an extremely new and enjoyable ambiance. I really liked George Town.

Hostels

When Christoph and I got to Love Lane (WE’RE JUST FRIENDS!!!), which is where all the backpacker hostels are, we tried to grab beds in “Old Penang Guesthouse” but they only had one bed left. So Christoph took it and I went just next door to the Red Inn and grabbed their last bed. Both hostels WERE AWESOME!

Food

We right away dropped our bags and headed for Little India! We decided we wanted to get down to the fabled PERHENTIAN ISLANDS as quick as possible so we booked tickets to leave the very next morning. So we knew we had to get all the benefits of $1 Indian meals in one afternoon. SOOOOOOOOOOOO… we embarked on a RESTAURANT CRAWL!!!! We truly embodied what it means to be gluttonous that night! We started at an Indian chain we were told we had to try called “Capitans,” which was pretty solid. We then made our way through some street stalls buying the classic fruit shakes in a bag and 25 cent samosas!!! We then made it to Little Indian’s heart, which is populated by about 50 stalls selling THE BEST AND THE CHEAPEST INDIAN FOOD EVER! Christoph and I went on eating frenzy and took down two or three meals. During this time I had my first masala tea!!!! If you have never had this particular beverage I would highly suggest you give it a go! It’s Indian Christmas in a cup!!! We hung around the area for a while just looking at the different groups of people eating and enjoying the cool evening and we started to make our way back to our hostel. On our way home a super nice guy convinced us to have one more meal because he made “the best tandoori chicken in George Town.” Well… it wasn’t haha but tandoori chicken is tandoori chicken and you all know I would never pass an opportunity like that up!

We left George Town super early in the morning and then had a super long van ride to the Perhentian Islands.

The Perhentian Islands!   

I almost skipped Malaysia because I really wanted to get down to Indo and party, surf, and explore, BUT no matter where I traveled to I kept hearing such amazing whispers of two huge and AMAZING islands just off the east coast of mainland Malaysia. So at the last second I decided I would do Malaysia so I could check these rumors of grandeur out for myself. Let me just say that these rumors are 100% accurate! My good friends Dan MacKinnon and Rob Kingsford said that these islands were their favourite place in South East Asia and I can totally see why!

There are two main islands: Perhentian Besar (the big island) and Perhentian Kecil (the small island). All backpackers hit the small island because it is much more affordable. There are VERY expensive resorts on the big island so unless you’re bawlin out of control and would like to be surrounded by families and an older crowd I would highly suggest the small island.

One thing you have to realize is the importance of getting a good place to stay while on Kecil! Most accommodations aren’t that nice and are a bit expensive.  I met tons of people that had really shit accommodations and it kind of ruined their experience for them, SOOOOOOOOOO do everything in your power to get a dorm bed at Shari-La Resort!

The main beach is called long beach and it is on the east side of Kecil. There are some good places to stay here but they are few and far between and everything is always full. I would HIGHLY suggest making the ten minute walk every day and staying at the more chilled out Coral Bay Beach which is on the west side of the island. This is where Shari-La is! Shari-La is a really nice resort that has extremely expensive rooms for rent BUT they also have two dorm rooms (with 8 beds in each room) for $5 a night. This is not only the cheapest dorm room price you will find on the WHOLE island but these rooms are also some of the nicest dorms you will find! You also get the benefits of staying in a resort! This gives you free orange juice, a private beach, and the ability to partake in the amazing $5 breakfast and dinner buffets!!!!!! Shari-La is heaven, so do yourself a favour and stay there! The dorm beds are NOT advertised and you have to specifically ask the staff for one or they will not tell you about them. I would suggest getting there as early in the morning as you can so you can secure beds for yourself! 

Here are some pics of Shirila!

Coral Bay is the sunset beach and at night the whole island flocks over to eat dinner at one of the many beach side restaurants in order to gorge themselves on amazingly cheap seafood and watch the sunset.

Around 7pm a young local brings a big old cooler out right beside Maya or Amelea’s Restaurant (can't quite remember what it's called... he is in-between two of the restaurants on Coral Beach). You will see him just sitting there with no shirt and chillin. This fine entrepreneur is selling MONKEY JUICE!!! This is a home made, mind bending, taste buds blowing whiskey that is dirt cheap and will make each of your nights on the Perhentians a lot oh fun! 

After obtaining some of this fine beverage head back over to Long Beach and you will notice the beach has transformed! Little mats and candle lit tables line the beach and it is a great place to meet new friends and party. Make sure to stay late enough for the Black Tip Bar to kickoff! I had some grand old times there!

If you’re looking for a solid lunch spot I would suggest Ewan Café! It is on the path that leads you from Coral Beach to Long Beach. It has Wifi and some solid dishes!

One thing you have to do before leaving the Perhentian Islands is the Winder Turbine Hike! You start by following the jungle path that starts behind Bubu resort on the northern part of Long Beach. Follow this jungle path for about fifteen minutes until you reach the wind turbines. This will lead you to a path and a bunch of stairs that leads down to a broken down dock. Head on down to the dock and huck some gainers off there for a while; it’s a great place to cool down and swim around. Then head back up the stairs and start heading down the path away from the turbines. On the right hand side there will be a path into the jungle and this will lead you to either D’Lagoon, Adam and Eve Beach, Turtle Beach, or a resort that is on that side of the island. These beaches are usually deserted and they are all really beautiful! 

Here are some pics from our hike

The Scuba diving around the Perhentians is supposed to be AMAZING! I thought it was just average myself but I went when the visibility wasn’t too good. I went with Turtle Bay Diving and they were AWESOME!

Make sure you do a snorkeling tour while on the Perhentians! The best spot on the tour is Turtle Bay or beach! This spot is on a really popular beach on the big island with a big resort stretching along most of the beach. Gaint sea turtles come here every day to eat so you have a VERY high chance of being able to swim and snorkel with them!

STORY TIME!!!

Christoph and I and a few friends met at the dorms of Shiril and hired a boat to drop us off at Turtle Bay (or Beach, I don’t remember which. Just make sure there is a resort right in front of the beach and then you will know your at the right one). We really wanted to spend the day at this beautiful beach and swim with the turtles some more. We unfortunately made the mistake of bringing a guy named Brad with us.

Here is a pic of all of us

This is an exciting time for me and for you because I get to tell you about my new friend BRAD! … Now Brad (or B-Rad as I liked to call him) is about twenty-eight I believe and he is from North Caaaaaaaaaaaronlina and he is… a bit different. I can confidently say he was one of the weirdest characters I have ever met in my life. For starters, B-Rad always use to tell me about the dangers of “Sun Poisoning”! Thus, B-Rad would always wear his blue and black SPF protected onesie to avoid such poisoning (as you can see in the photo above) haha. He also has extreme night terrors and yells in his sleep haha. Every couple of nights the bed beside B-Rad would open up (I wonder why) so a new unsuspecting backpacker would take it and then be rudely awoken by B-Rad’s night terrors, which more often than not involved him whispering sentences along the lines of “Give me the knife, I’ll kill them all!” haha. I am not kidding at all! Once B-Rad moved into Shirila it became quite an entertaining pastime to wake each other up at night once B-Rad started into his night terror fits and see just how scared the new addition to our little family became haha.

B-Rad also told me about the great sport of “Flounder-Gigging.”  For Flounder-Gigging you will need the following things: a boat, a lake full of fish, a big old flash light (or “torch”), and a pitchfork. B-Rad told me all about how his friend “Bird Dog” (yes… Bird Dog) and him would head out to the middle of the lake around 2am and shine their flashlight down into the water. Apparently, fish are attracted to the light and so they come up to the boat and then you’re suppose to take the pitch fork and STAB THEM!!!

I hope these little anecdotes paint a bit of the horribly hilarious picture that is B-Rad. He was one of the most ignorant American I have ever met but I loved him haha. ANYWAYS I digress, back to my story about Turtle Beach. B-Rad and I went out with our snorkeling gear and split up so we could find a giant sea turtle. After swimming around for about five minutes I found a big one! So I called B-Rad over. He heard me and started swimming his little heart out to meet me so he could see this giant sea turtle. As B-Rad was getting closer this turtle started to surface to get some air. Once B-Rad got close and saw the turtle surfacing he started to BEELINE it right for this poor creature. As soon as the turtle hit the surface B-Rad got to the turtle. Without a second of hesitation B-Rad grabbed the turtle by it’s shell and mounted it! After a few seconds of shock and trying to comprehend what this idiot was doing, I swam as fast as I could to him and grabbed him and ripped him off the turtle's back haha. The turtle didn’t look too pleased and then swam away and B-Rad looked just as pissed off. He turned to me and said “WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!?!?!” I said “WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING?!?!?” and he looked at me with a calm puzzled look and said “I was just trying to ride the bastard” …. Hahaha. I went on to explain how inappropriate it is to try and ride giant sea turtles or even touch sea life and that contrary to what B-Rad believed sea turtles could easily bite off a hand or a few fingers if they wanted to haha. He had a hard to believing any of my “nonsense” haha.

Here is a picture of B-Rad mounting the turtle and then another he took of me after the mounting incident with another giant sea turtle. 

There are many more B-Rad stories where that came from!

In total Christoph and I spent just over two weeks on the Perhentians and I loved every single day. Tons of beach volleyball, chillin on the beautiful beaches, and hiking around the island! On our last night at our dorm all our new friends gave us a very memorable goodbye haha. So much so that we missed our 8am boat off the island and had to catch the 1pm boat, which in turn made us miss our bus to Taman Negara! So we had to stay at the port city Kuala Besut for a day which was quite boring haha.

Taman Negara

Taman Negara boasts one of the oldest jungles in the WORLD!!! Everything you read about this place makes it sound REALLY cool but my suggestion is to keep your expectations low so you don’t get upset. Taman Negara is a tourist trap. Maybe fifteen years ago it was the authentic jumping off point into a world of lost, dense and untouched jungle, but now the nearby resorts have made the whole experience a bit cheezy.

I did, however, have a really cool authentic experience I will remember for the rest of my life. The first night we got to Taman Negara the 2012 Olympic finals for badminton were airing live. I was walking around the little town looking for more options for guides to hire when I wandered into a JAMPACKED little restaurant full of locals. They were all glued to the little television. It was Malaysian vs China for the Olympic championship in Badminton. I soon came to realize that smaller, less developed countries like Malaysia aren’t able to send huge teams to the Olympics. They have a few athletes participating in a handful of sports. For Malaysia they had two stars: a badminton player and a velodrome cyclist. It was a really cool experience seeing this packed room of local Malaysians cheering on their one of two hopes for an Olympic medal. Unfortunately the Chinese contender came back with three straight points in the end of the match to clinch the victory. This ruined the evening for most of the locals and within ten minutes of the match being over the town was once again dead and all that could be heard was the deep dark jungle.

The only thing to really do in Taman Negara is hike, but most of the tours are WAY over priced. We were told by some fellow backpackers that we had to do the two day one night hike which involved hiking all day to a big bat cave and then sleeping in this cave over night then hiking all the way back in the morning. When we got to Taman Negara and asked about this hike the tour guide at the tourist information center was quite rude and he blatantly told us that they knew the price was way too high but they didn’t care. So in the end we didn’t organize a set tour or hire a guide. We got a free map off our hostel and embarked on a nine-hour journey through this amazing jungle ourselves. The suspension bridge there sucks and isn’t worth the money, and we didn’t see any animals while hiking. It was a really strenuous hike because we hit one big mountain and we were hiking straight for about nine hours. So all in all it was a great time!

Getting to Taman Negara and Leaving

Making your way to Taman Negara isn’t that expensive but leaving IS!!! There is only one bus company providing transport out of Taman Negara so whatever you paid to get to Taman Negara, expect to pay double to leave! It was very upsetting and a huge rip off.

If this is your only opportunity to do jungle trekking then I could see it being worth it to pay a little extra to stay in Taman Negara. If this isn’t your only opportunity to do some jungle trekking then I would suggest just passing on Taman Negara all together.

Here are some pictures of good old TN 

 Key word here is "should"

Attempting an underwater handstand

These guys had the most ghetto satellite set up ever!!! 

hahaha YES!

The Cameron Highlands

I loved this place! There aren’t too many places in South East Asia where you can experience a climate similar to that of BC Canada. Due to the high elevation of the Cameron Highlands the muggy and sweat-inducing humidity does not exist! This beautiful mountain town feels like a mix of Asian cultures settled into a little part of Switzerland. It was quite bizarre but a lot of fun! The Cameron Highlands are known for their strawberries, tea, hiking, and AMAZING INDIAN FOOD!!!! But we will get to that soon enough.

It was here where Courtney and I were supposed to reunite and join back up and travel together so to put it lightly I was PRETTY DAMN EXCITED!!! We had planned to meet on Mick Mack’s birthday so Courtney and I decided we were going to surprise Mick Mack!!! Our plan was for Court to tell Michela that Christoph and I were held up in the Perhentians and that we weren’t going to be there for a few more days yet. But really Christoph and I arrived early in the morning and we had two hours before the girls were supposed to arrive at the hostel we had agreed upon (Daniel’s Lodge or Kang Travellers Lodge). So when Christoph and I arrived we dropped our bags and RAN into town. We bought a poster board to write Mick Mack a welcome sign and birthday card, we bought beers, ice (not the cube kind), a cake, and all her favourite snacks. We came back to the hostel and rented one single room and decorated it and got it all ready. The front of the hostel was a big common room and it was full of people so we told them all the situation and then went on to plan a flashmob happy birthday singing group to belt it all out when Mick Mack and Court arrived. This all sounds quite awesome doesn’t it? Well unfortunately Court and Mick Mack were five hours late haha. So Christoph and I were sitting in this room just waiting for four hours haha. We drank all the beer and became quite morose and eventually gave up. We walked down the street to grab some food and on our way back a car drove by and who was in it but Mick Mack and Court. Mick yelled “DEREK!!!” from the car, so there goes part of the surprise haha. Christoph ran into our room and started lighting the candles and I brought the girls to the room and we were still able to surprise the old gal a bit. We iced her and got her to blow out her candles. I got most of it on video so go onto my facebook page and you will find it under videos. We spent the night drinking and eating more Indian food and finished off the night by breaking into the closed hostel bar and starting a fire at the fire pit and just chatting. It was a great end to a bit of a crazy day.

We spent three more days here mainly eating Indian food and hiking around the town. Make sure to do “Trail 1” while you are here. It’s a really fun little hike and on your walk back to town you can visit some tea and strawberry farms. 

Here are some pics

Food

My good friends Thomas and Kesley who we met in Phi Phi told Christoph and I we HAD to go to a specific Indian Restuarnt in the Cameron Highlands and order the Bombay Naan. So the first day we were here we all went and found Sri Brinchang (there are two restaurants right beside each other... I believe it’s the one closer to the Starbucks) and we never looked back. One of the days we came here THREE TIMES!! Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner! It is soooo good and so cheap! I love this place. Do yourself a favour and check it out!

http://www.tripadvisor.com.my/Restaurant_Review-g1497917-d1876087-Reviews-Sri_Brinchang-Tanah_Rata_Cameron_Highlands_Pahang.html

Kuala Lumpur

We booked a bus from our hostel right to KL and got there in the early morning. We were going to stay at the fabled Reggae Mansion, which is supposed to be one of the best hostels in SEA but it was soooo expensive that we decided to stay at a cheaper option. We ended up stay at “Fern Loft” and loved it. It’s in Chinatown along with all the other hostels and it’s a block away from the Chinatown Market. I think it was around $8 a night and had a great common room and free PB and J for breaky which we may or may not have taken advantage of by making ourselves to-go sandwhiches for lunch.

I enjoyed KL a lot more than I thought I would. The city has so much charater and there is so much to do and see. I am really glad I didn’t skip it. We explored Chinatown fully, we saw the Petronas Towers, visited the amazingly huge malls, saw a movie or two, and went to the Batu Caves. It was a great little visit.

The first night we got to the Fern Loft we instantly made some Scottish friends and they told us about the best way to drink in KL. There is a little liquor store about two blocks away from the hostel that serves 14% beer haha. It’s as cheap of an option as your going to get in this Muslim based city so we bought a bunch of them and proceeded to get blind drunk off of some of the worst tasting beer and definitely the strongest beer I will ever experience in my life. I don’t remember leaving the hostel, ripping up the D-Floor at a nearby club, or paying a visit to a local McDonalds but the girls assure me that I did haha. It was a crazy night in KL, that is for sure.