Manic Malaysia

Luckily I'd decided to go travelling with Lynsey, who - let's face it - is equally as clueless as I am. Despite this, and never knowing what we are actually doing, it's worked out pretty well so far. It's quite nice to have a buddy to speak to on long 12 hour bus journeys, someone to help me search the room a thousand times when we leave it in fear that something will be left behind and then to calm me down when I worry about it after and she's by my side all the way to share the experiences with.

People go travelling on their own all the time, I personally don't think I would have coped as well. That's just me. I don't doubt that I'm confident or friendly enough. I just think I'd probably end up on the wrong continent.

It's not just the two of us all the time anyway. We've made so many friends along the way. When we went to Koh Samui and Koh Pha Ngan we met Emilie and Tom and then the McHairy boys from Liverpool and also our Aussie friend Quinn. Then we bumped into Kristian in Bangkok and spent time with him in Chiang Mai and Laos. We also had the bus crew in Vietnam and Cambodia. So going back to the southern islands in Thailand, we found we didn't really make any friends to hang out with. We didn't go out as much and spent most of the time just the two of us. It was lovely and chilled. Even though it was just the two of us, we were looking forward to meeting more people!

In Kuala Lumpur, where my auntie lives, I knew I'd be visiting her and her family and that was something to look forward to. I was looking forward to going to Malaysia.

So when Stacey, our friend from home, told us she was going to come meet us for a holiday there, we were thrilled!

When she arrived we'd made her a big banner and she in return gave us some things our parents had given her to bring. It was like Christmas. I have never been so excited about receiving dresses, magazines, sun lotion, tax forms and a sim card! All necessities that will make the rest of our backpacking a lot easier!

In the ten days that she was with us we ended up trying to cram in as much as possible in Malaysia.

Here's where we went.....

KUALA LUMPUR

The capital.

We visited the Twin Towers. I'm not going to pretend that I went up to the Petronas Bridge, that would be a miracle for a vertigo sufferer, but I had a very nice view of the towers at night time, when they were all lit up like Christmas trees.

The Nightlife we saw was The Golden Triangle. It's not really geared for backpackers, mainly locals. We ended up in one club that was playing The Cheeky Girls songs all night. I still had fun though prancing about taking the micky out of myself. A lot of places offer women free entrance and free drinks (how it hurts to be the female of the species...). The only trouble with this area is the number of hookers there are walking the streets.

PENANG

Five hours north of Kuala Lumpur, Penang is a beautiful island off the west coast. The beach is beautiful. The night market is very long and interesting. We had bracelets with Chinese sayings made here for cheap.

Tours - We hired a taxi for the day to take us around and see what the place had to offer. We started off at a spice farm, which was different and interesting. Then we went to see a waterfall, a fishing village that stank, and afterwards a Malaysian village, which we didn't even leave the car to see as it looked quite built up. On the way back we stopped off to try some tea, coffee, chocolate and honey tasting. Coconut coffee tastes so good!

There was no night life whatsoever in Penang. I'd recommend couples and adults/ families to go here, as it is picturesque.



LANGKAWI

This, like Penang, is beautiful, but when we went there were not many backpackers and also no nightlife.

We did a tour called the Island Hopper. We went to see different islands - such as the Pregnant Maiden Island. We also visited a lake and saw some monkeys - not cute, scary. We were warned they may have rabies and to not touch or feed them. Somehow, out of the whole tour gang, a monkey decided to attack me, well my bag. I ended up throwing the thing at it and running off. Some kind gentleman managed to retrieve my bag for me, but I was pretty shaken up.
After this we were taken 'eagle feeding'. We were under the impression the eagles would land on our arms to be fed or near the boat at least. We went in boats near some mangroves and the tour guides sprinkled bird food onto the river. Here the eagles came down to eat and we took pictures, trouble was the birds were so far away, as the boats moved back from where the food was. Luckily Stacey had her long lens camera.




PERHENTIAN ISLANDS

After an overnight bus ride here we were shattered when we arrived in paradise. Taking a small boat to outside the island, and after being told in the middle of the sea we needed to pay for a taxi boat to the actual island (there was no choice; take that, or swim with the backpack on), we finally reached Long Beach. Beach shacks were stretched along the beach, a few restaurants and dive centres. We managed to find the only place on the island that has 24 hour electricity (we're girls and we're flash).
Stacey and I went scuba diving, which was really cool. We took an underwater camera with us, so we spent most of the time taking silly pictures under the waves.
We found a slither of nightlife and drank buckets of Monkey Juice - no one knows what is in this stuff - all kinds of alcohol I reckon. On our first real night out on the whole holiday, it managed to belt down with rain, so we all looked like drowned rats, but we had a nice night anyway at Pandora.
Restaurants were really nice here, steak at Pandora was delicious. We had a not so nice meal at another restaurant behind this place. The lasagne came out cold.

We took a little jungle trek to the other side of the island, Coral Bay. Here it is more remote.

I imagine this place is what Phi Phi was like before tourists flocked to it. It is very untouched and a bit more like The Beach, the film.



All in all Malaysia was exhausting, but I really felt we did as much as the country had to offer and it's great that Stacey managed to experience some backpacking with us.

It was really nice to see someone from home.

It was sad knowing that she was going, but I was also looking forward to Lynsey and I cracking on with the rest of our trip around Asia.