We are in our final days of being abroad and it feels like the time has flown by. As we look back and edit and review the previous blog posts we find it hard to believe we have done all of those things over the last few months.
Our time in Malaysia has been filled with small adventures from touring the Petronas Towers, visiting the shopping centers, watching a traditional Malay dance at the cultural center, taking a seat in a plastic chair on a street filled with hawker food stations and trying the stinky durian fruit with a plastic glove, taking a four day trip to Langkawi Island for beaches and hiking, to sitting in our hotel room the whole day as monsoon rain and wind whipped outside. Malaysia is rich with culture, as it is quite mixed with Chinese, Indian and Malaysian people, clothing, food and manerisms. We’ve really enjoyed exploring and trying different things while we are here. Like the other southeast Asian counties we have visited, most things (food, transportation and lodging) are pretty affordable. We have found that the best food is found at the hawker food stalls rather than at restaurants. The food is also quite good here, but we both agree that Vietnam was our favorite food destination so far.
We also discovered Andrzej isn’t allergic to the sun or the ocean any more, so that is good news. Langkawi Island had beautiful beaches and was generally cleaner than Bali, however, they still had traces of poorly managed waste and when you walked further along the beaches past the tourist areas there were scatterings of trash rimmed shores. However, we both enjoyed swimming and splashing in the warm cleanish water and “washing” our Bali ocean experience away.
On the sky bridge between the two Petronas Towers during our tour. We are 150 meters above ground.
Looking down from the skybridge.
This is the mall that is connected to the Petronas Towers. We discovered that Kuala Lumpur is rated #6 in the world for cities to shop in according to the sky magazine I read on the flight there.
Our first night on Langkawi Island made us happy to find a beautiful clean beach with soft white sand and water that is just slightly cooler than the air. This beach is called Cenang Beach.
A view of Oriental Village in Langkawi. This is part of the geopark where we rode a cable car up to the top of the mountain to walk along the skybridge.
The Langkawi Skybridge.
Us on the Skybridge. You can see the glass floor to our right.
Sybil walking into a wall painting at the 3D art museum inside the Geopark
Anj catching a big wave. So pitted!!!
Sybil enjoying the snowy scene.
Anj’s super powers called to action.
We found a nice technical hike across from where the cable car brought us the day before.
The view from the top of the mountain we just climbed in Langkawi.
Another Scarborough!
A nice rest stop during our scooter ride to Tanjung Rhu beach.
Sybil trying durian fruit for the first time. Many hawker fruit and food stands supply tables and plastic chairs nearby to sit and snack at. This food stand filled street in KL is called Jalan Alor.
Did I mention that durian fruit is very stinky? This was a common sign in hotels.
This captures the amount of people and food stands in this “street”. Believe it or not people do drive through this street! Not many, but still!
Back in Kuala Lumpur (KL) we went to the Aviary, which is the “largest free fly aviary in the world” although after doing a little research South Africa also boasts having this. Basically there are thousands of birds walking and flying around you under a large netting that covers the park. There were beautiful peacocks, parrots, pelicans, and other tropical birds.
Some of the exotic birds we saw at the aviary park in KL.
They even had an owl area. Most of them were sleeping during the daytime hours we visited.
We squeezed in a last minute day trip to Melaka. It’s a small historical fishing village that was listed as a UNESCO world heritage site in 2008 (Wikipedia). It is also rich with the history of Portugese, Dutch and Chinese control. This is seen in the architecture and artwork throughout the city.
Our last night in KL we decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner and fancy cocktails.
This was delicious btw.