I’m writing this while sitting at the airport in Hong Kong, waiting for the flight that will take me back to Canada after almost 6 months in Asia. There are no more routes to plan, hotels to find, or new currencies wrap my head around. Instead there is only time to sit back, relax, and reflect on the journey, and what a journey it’s been!
Almost a year ago I made the decision to quit my job, pack my life up, and embark on this trip. During that time I’ve seen some incredible places (being the only one around for miles on the Dempster Highway and seeing the arctic circle) and things (Sunrise at Angkor Wat and Adam’s Peak) and met some wonderful people.
It’s not always been positive, as a traveller in some places you’re often seen as a walking bank and harassed to check out my shop (who knew I had so many friends) , that you can’t walk anywhere and need a tuk tuk (despite my rebuffs of the other 12 tuktuks right beside you), or the blatant scams (it’s why I F*@king hated Colombo). I also missed my family and friends and being around for the good and bad. But all and all was it worth it? Absolutely!!!! Would I do it again? In a heartbeat! Am I a better person for taking this trip? I think so.
I feel that this trip thrust me out of my comfort zone, and by doing so it honed a lot of the characteristics I like about myself and that my time in Edmonton had dulled. I embraced my sense of adventure and learned to scuba dive, I ate bugs (more than once), or I got up at god awful times of day to hike. I realized I’m more sociable and better at making friends than I thought (otherwise this would have been a lonely trip) and that I’m much more resourceful and resilient than I thought. I think this trip gave me the time to get perspective on my life and it made me aware of who I am and what I want out of life. It let me grow again and in doing so made me feel like I can be more than what I was.
And so I’m coming back to Canada but I’m not going back to the life I had. I’ve got a new job lined up in a new city. I’m excited to have a routine and to be doing meaningful and important work. I’m also looking forward to being in one place for more than a few days, and all the depth of experiences that can only come with being in one place. But I’m also looking forward to exploring a new city and keeping this sense of adventure alive!
Does this mean I’ll quit travelling? Never! My backpack will probably beacon me to hit the open road every time I see it ( I may need to hide it) but for now I’m excited for this next chapter.
Thanks for coming along on this journey, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!
One last sunset
P.S. I promise I’ll get around to posting about the rest of my trip at somepoint!
The morning I was leaving Mui Ne for I received word that a friend had passed away after being caught in an avalanche a few days earlier. Kira was someone to aspire to be like. She had a passion for everything she did. This included her job as a nurse, but definitely included travel. Every time I’d see her she’d tell me about some amazing place she’d been or what adventure she was about to embark on next. I think this picture taken at Camille and Liam’s wedding a few months earlier captures the kind of person Kira was, always helping out and doing it with class and a smile!
Kira – always smiling and helping out.
If you want to see what kind of amazing person Kira was her family has started the Kira Goodwin Legacy Fund. They are working to fund several worthwhile causes in Kira’s name. Check it out:
And so in a state of disbelief that someone with such a zest for life was gone, and wishing I could be there with my friends I made my way to Da Lat.
Da Lat Town:
Having decided that she didn’t want spend the rest of her time in Vietnam in Mui Ne, and that Da Lat was still close enough to HCMC to get back to for her flight in a few days Aliona had also decided to go to Da Lat and I met up with her there. Having someone else around helped and got me to explore this really cool place. Here is what I saw in Da Lat.
The design of the city and the architecture of the town makes Da Lat somewhere worth visiting. Situated in the hills it is cooler than the surrounding areas. In fact, one of the first things I did when I got there was to get my pants out from the bottom of my bag, where they had been nestled away since I last wore them in the Cameron Highlands over a month earlier. Afterall it was “winter” in Vietnam and was 15 C that night!
Near the middle of the town is a lake, which is surrounded by parks and walking pathways, making it a very pleasant place to explore by foot. On one side of the lake is the local market, where you can find local wares and fruits, especially strawberries. Nearby is a botanical garden which is a nice walk and has a number of large things including a windmill and a bottle of wine.
On the other side of the lake are two buildings. One is shaped like a lotus flower and the other a sunflower. Upon closer inspection we found out that this was actually the towns main mall, which besides these structures is hidden in the side of a hill. It definitely adds to the charm of the town. Within this mall, which lacked an H+M or rollex store, was a bakery which had delicious French pastries – c’est bon!
Da Lat Train Station
The town also contains an old train station, which was built in the 1930s and is an example of French architecture of the period. The train itself is a tourist attraction and apparently goes only 7 km to a nearby village, although there is talk of extending it down to one of the main lines.
Walking around the town there are a number of interesting parks and buildings to see but one of the most interesting buildings, and something that is a must see in Da Lat is the Crazy House.
Close up of the Lotus Flower
The mall
Large wine bottle in the flower garden
The Crazy House:
The architect behind the Hang Nha Guesthouse, or as its known in english the Crazy House, apparently was inspired by a number of contemporary sources for her design. Initially a private residence she eventually opened it as a tourist attraction/ guesthouse in the early 1990s to help recoup some of its costs. She apparently still lives in it and it is still being built almost 30 years later.
Entering the property you make your way thru this crazy labyrinth of halls, tunnels and bridges that take you up and down the property. It’s a surreal experience and gives you the impression that you’ve entered some sort of children’s fairy tale. The pictures here don’t really do it justice and its somewhere that really needs to be experienced to be appreciated.
The Countryside surrounding Da Lat:
Aliona and I decided to take a countryside tour of the area around Da Lat. This ended up being a great day that took us to a number of interesting places including temples, waterfalls, and a grasshopper farm!
Back to my Greenhouse Days
We started by visiting a flower plantation where flowers are grown for flower shops and where many were getting close to being ready for Valentine’s day and Chinese New Years, which was in a few weeks time.
I then was exposed to the most pretentious, and if you were to have it at home the most expensive, coffee I had every had. We visited a coffee plantation where the coffee cherries are fed to civit cats (weasels). The weasels love the cherries but can’t digest the beans so they poop them out. The beans are then collected, cleaned, roasted and turned into a delicious cup of coffee. We got to drink the coffee in their cafe which overlooks the rolling green hills. A very civilized way to spend the morning and something that began my belief that Vietnam has some of the best coffee in the world, so much in fact that I’ve been carrying a bag of civet coffee beans around in my bag every since!
Civet Cats waiting for their coffee fix
Me getting my coffee fix
After this we visited the Linh An Pagoda. In addition to having a big Buddha it has some pretty graphic depictions of what will happen to you in the next life if you do a particular activity in this life.
This was followed up by a visit to the Elephant waterfalls. Despite being beautiful, and us going down to the bottom of it, and behind it, I failed to see the elephant shape for which its known.
After lunch, we visited a silk factory where I got to learn about the stages of larvae, the process of harvesting and extracting the silk fibers, and what happens to the remaining bugs and dirty silk. Lastly, we visited a grasshopper plantation, where I got to eat more tasty bugs, which were on par with the ones that I had eaten in Koh Phanagan, this was washed down with some rice wine.
Silk worms as they come into the factory
The stages of the silk worm
Workers extracting silk
Grasshopper Farm
All and all this was a great tour, and definitely good value for money!
The next day Aliona was catching a night bus back to HCMC but before she did we walked to a nearby monastery and then took a cable car back to the town after feasting on a huge cup of strawberries that cost ~ 1 dollar.
After saying good-bye to Aliona I stayed another day in Da Lat another day before continuing north. From Da Lat the next logical stop would have been the beach resort of Nha Trang. But not really wanting to hit up a party place I decided to suck it up and take the 15 h sleeper bus to Hoi An. It was better than I expected.
I had only a vague plan of what my South to North route thru Vietnam would entail but I did know that I wanted to go to Da Lat. With no desire to take a long direct bus which would arrive at 2 in the morning, or to have to connect thru HCMC, I decided to break it up by first going to Mui Ne. Since this checked off their desire to find a beach Alex and Aliona decided to come too!
From Vung Tau a few hours up the coast is Mui Ne. It’s known for kite surfing, its beaches and nearby sand dunes. While not as popular as Nhang Trang, or so I’m told – I didn’t go, it’s a holiday destination for Russians. In addition to Vietnamese signs and menus in Mui Ne more often than not included English and Russian. As you walked along the main street restaurant staff had an uncanny ability to know which language to greet you in. Aliona, who was born in Latvia, got greeted equally in English and Russian. On-the-otherhand I was always greeted in English. I guess those Irish genes are more noticeable than I thought!
Pool Jousting
To date Mui Ne was the cheapest place I’d stayed throughout my trip, costing ~ 4 dollars per night. It was also probably the most party like place I stayed since Camille, Liam and I mistakenly stayed at the party hotel on Koh Samui. But it was clean and fun. They had multiple pools, including one which had a daily jousting match with wet pillows. Although he fought a battle worthy of a knight, Alex was sadly defeated. Interestingly, the reception of this place also happened to be ran by the guide that I had when I was at the Elephant Orphanage in Thailand a few months earlier. This running into people I had previously met was a characteristic of Vietnam, but I guess there really is only two ways to go (north or south) so its bound to happen.
Kite surfing
There wasn’t much really to do in Mui Ne. Not wanting to spend the time (5 days) or money (300 USD) to become proficient in kite surfing, Alex and I settled for renting jet skis and zipping around the water front for a while. I also went on one of the tours organized by the hostel to check out some of the nearby attractions.
I had chosen an afternoon tour which was to end with watching the sunset on one of the dunes. The tour took us thru the “fairy stream”, to the white dunes, showed us a harbour full of fishing boats, and ended with watching the sunset on the red sand dunes. Only problem with that was that our “guide” was overzealous to return to the town and made us leave before the sun had actually set. But I guess what can you expect for 80 000 Dong (~ 4.5 dollars)
At the “White dunes”
Fishing Village
Fairy Stream
“Sunset” at the red dunes
White dunes
After feeling that I had seen all that was worth seeing in Mui Ne I made arrangements to continue North to Da Lat and probably the best coffee that I had in sometime. It was definitely the most unusual!
A few hours from HCMC is the beachside town of Vung Tau. Although a favourite escape for American and Australian soldiers stationed in HCMC during the Vietnam war today it has very little international tourism and is primarily an escape for locals. It was here that I was meeting up with Alex and Aliona and where we would spend New Years.
Needing a break from hostel life I decided that I would splurge and get a hotel for my time in Vung Tau. The primary obstacle to this was that the address was incorrect on both Maps Me and Booking.com (where I had made my reservation). After walking around for a while, and in an area that was clearly not the hotel, I came across a group of older women sitting on the steps of a building. With the aid of some non-verbal cues and google translates I set off in a new direction for something that I could only guess was a few blocks east and south. A few minutes later one of them came by on a bike and pointed to the street that I was to turn south on. I arrived at the hotel a few minutes later. The friendliness of the Vietnamese and this kind of act of kindness was something that I observed several times thru out my time in Vietnam.
Tired, and with the quietness of having own room for the first time in weeks, I fell asleep pretty early. Well besides being awoken by the giant, and surprisingly resilient, cockroach that was scattering around the bathroom.
Vung Tau Beach Front
The next morning I set out towards the beach hoping to spend some time there only to find that it was way too windy for swimming. In the afternoon I met up with Alex and Aliona and we explored the town side before finding some random side street Pho for dinner.
The next day was New Years Eve and one of the things about Vung Tau was that it went from a sleepy beach town with almost no one around to a bustling place where you could hardly walk around within a day. Then just as quickly it reverted back to its sedate beachside self. This influx of people was centred around the beach and a stage that was constructed along the street that ran adjacent to it. The atmosphere was very party like but like the town itself the crowds emptied out only a few minutes after 2018 started and by 12:30 it was pretty much just us. You can see a link to a video of the stage here : Happy New Years!
New Years Eve in Vung Tau
Besides the beach, the other big thing to see is the Christ of Vung Tau. You can climb to the top of it and look out into the South China Sea. It was definitely worth the climb. It was a bit off to see the high-caliber guns on either side of the statue, but I guess Jesus is well defended!
Christ of Vung Tau
As 2017 ended I couldn’t help but think of what a year it had been for me. I quit my job, put my stuff in storage, and set out on a big adventure. This had taken me not only to some far off places in Canada but also the world. I’m excited to see what adventures 2018 has in store for me!
I will say that by the time I left Vietnam it was amongst my favourite countries that I’ve been to, and I was revitalized and excited about continuing on my travelling adventure. But I didn’t arrive to Vietnam that way. I was exhausted both physically and emotionally and was considering going home. Despite having slept pretty much the entire flight from Singapore to Ho Chi Minh (HCMC) aka the city formerly known as Saigon, I was still tired as I walked down the stairs of the plane into the Vietnamese heat of the tarmac and made my way into the airport.
Since I had an E-Visa I went straight to the passport control line, hoping that I had made the right choice and didn’t need to go to the letter of arrival part first. My fear was somewhat elevated when a Dutch girl in front of me was escorted away from the booth by a guard. The look on her friends face was sheer horror, I never found out why, but I hope they made out ok. Luckily, I reached the desk showed a smiling guard my e-visa and passport, got my stamp and was on my way in less than a minute. Phew!
After getting some Vietnamese Dong from the ATM I got a SIM Card and used my phone to hire a Grab to take me into the city. Want to be a millionaire? Go to Vietnam the exchange rate is ~ 1 CDN to 18 000 VND (it fluctuated a bit while I was there).
This doesn’t really do it justice but is the only picture I have of motorbikes in HCMC. There are a LOT!
The first thing I noticed as I left the airport was the motorbikes. They are everywhere. I thought Bangkok was crazy with motorbikes but this was next level! I’m planning on writing a separate post on the motorbike and Vietnam so stay tuned for that! The second thing I noticed is this city had a soul. It’s different from that of Thailand, Malaysia or Singapore. It was more of the experience that I had imagined when I planned on going to Asia. It was chaotic, dynamic, and overloaded your senses. But this is what made it great!
Walking thru the maze of side streets in HCMC
I got dropped off on the street and told that my hostel was down this road. I made my way thru this crazy labyrinth of narrow “walking only” roads and even narrower side roads. None of them seemed to go in a straight line, and all of them had the occasional motorbike that you had to dodge. Luckily my phone and Maps Me navigated me to the right place. The included breakfast at this hostel made it worth it alone. After breakfasts of toast and maybe a banana the smorgasboard of fruit and a menu of way too many options was a nice change. I particularly liked the brewed coffee and smoothies. I was not the only one that agreed, I met an American who had been staying at this hostel for almost two months while he was learning Vietnamese. He later showed me the best local place to have Pho, it was delicious and the 3.50 dollar price tag (beer included) made it even better!
The next morning I set out on a planned route that would take me to some of the highlights of the city. This started with a walk along a park that ran adjacent to the main tourist area where I saw several groups of seniors engaged in a morning dance exercise routine. From there I made my way to the Independence/Reunification Palace. It was the presidential palace and the site of the South Vietnamese Government until it fell in 1975. It has been preserved as it was at that time and included a number of relics including the presidents rolls royce. It also has a replica of the North Vietnamese tanks that first entered the palace. I took an audio tour of the place and it was interesting to hear about the Vietnam war (or the American war as they call) it from the Vietnamese perspective.
From there I walked by one of the impressive cathedrals that date back to the period of French colonization. After this I made my way to the old post office and nearby statue of Ho Chi Minh. After checking that out I had started on what should have taken me to the War Museum which is a must see in HCMC. However, the streets along my way were blocked off due to a fire in a nearby office building. With paramedics arriving and police and firefighters redirecting traffic I decided not to continue that way and gave up on going to the museum in favour of have my first, and definitely not my last Banh Mi (Vietnamese Sub) in Vietnam.
Park exercise
Independence Palace
Replica of tank that took the presidental palace, the original is in Hanoi
I then returned to the hostel and figured I’d try again the next day. However, the hostel was full the next day and instead of trying to find another place I decided that I would just continue onto Vung Tau as originally planned. It was here that I was going to meet up with Aliona and Alex for New Years. Although it was a short trip to HCMC and I didn’t get to see some of the key things it’s an exhilarating city to visit and made everywhere else in Vietnam (and Asia) seem sedate by comparison!
From Melaka it is supposed to take about 4 hours by bus to reach Singapore. Mine took 8. This had nothing to do with the border crossing, mine was far easier than others I knew. Then again I did not any contraband (FYI an e-cigarette is a 20 000 SGD fine) and I had proof of onward travel to Vietnam. No, my ridiculously long trip had everything to do with the bus. I choose a bus that would take me to the Golden Mile Complex in Singapore, less than a km from the hostel where I was going to meet Vince at. According to Wikipedia it also happens to house the North Korean Embassy. This bus was supposed to leave at 2:00pm, it didn’t show up until 3:15 and didn’t leave until 3:40. We then had some random stops and traffic delays. All of this meant that instead of arriving at 6:30, I got to the Golden-Mile Complex at 10:15pm.
This long bus trip, coupled with the fact that I saw not one, not two, but three cigarette butts along my walk to the hostel somewhat diminished my first impressions of Singapore. After all Singapore is supposed to be extremely clean. Luckily, after some food and sleep my impressions improved!
Biking around Singapore:
Why did the otter cross the road? Probably to get to one of the more than 100 Starbucks in Singapore
Singapore is easy to get around by various ways. It’s got an awesome public
transit system (best way to get to the airport). It has Grab/Uber and it’s very walkable. But one of the most fun ways to get around is by bike. It’s also great value! Mobikes is an application that you can install on your phone, and for 5 SGD (1 SGD is ~ 1 CDN) you can unlock and ride a bike for 2 h each day for 180 days! Then when you get to your destination you lock the bike up. When you’re ready to go again you find a new bike. Very easy! I used this visit some of the destinations listed below. Along the way I saw some interesting things – like this otter crossing the road, or a fallen tree surround by tape and pylons. Safety first Singapore!
Walking around Singapore:
Biking/walking along the water front you come across a number of interesting things including the merlion where a plethora of people are trying to get pictures that make it look like they are drinking the water coming out of the fountain. I did not. We also found the place where Sir Raffles first stepped ashore on Singapore, which soon after resulted in the British establishing a colony in Singapore. Nearby there we had a Singapore Sling, because you kind of have to, and listened to a local band performing renditions of numerous popular songs.
Sir Raffles Statue
A Singapore Sling in Singapore
On the DNA bridge
From one end of the Harbour front you can walk across a DNA shaped bridge to reach the Marina by the Bay. Along the bridge are a number of lights with bases on them. Much to my horror, and the amusement of my companions, there were non Watson-Crick basepairing! I guess the artists should have used a proofreading polymerase when building the bridge, or maybe some mismatch repair! But the bridge is pretty cool none-the-less.
Marina by the Bay:
Marina by the Bay
One of the premiere attractions in Singapore is the Marina by the Bay and the nearby Gardens by the Bay. It is easy to see why. Built on land reclaimed from the ocean this mammoth complex is estimated to have cost approximately eight billion dollars when it was completed in 2011¹. It’s a giant shopping complex, with a casino and hotel that has THE infinity pool. Unfortunately at 800 dollars a night around christmas it was a tad out of the range of my travel budget!
There is also a pretty cool Art-Science Museum there which had a lot of trippy light shows and other things worth checking out.
Inside the Art-Science Centre
Every night there is a light show on the water in front of the Marina Bay, which is impressive, so much that I went three nights!
Nearby is the Gardens by the Bay. It’s a collection of gardens, ponds, various indoor ecosystems, and these structures called supertrees It’s a pretty nice place to walk around and during the christmas season they had part of it as a christmas theme park – complete with “snow” (aka foam).
In the “snow” at Gardens by the By
Supertrees!
Drone stuck in the tree
Fun fact: Do you know anyone who has swam in the ponds at the garden by the bay? Well I do. Wanting to capture the beauty of the area Vince set up his drone and after a few minutes of filming the supertrees he decided to take the drone down along the water. Unfortunately the drones navigation system didn’t work properly (its supposed to avoid obstacles) and it ended up stuck hanging in a branch on a tree on an island in the middle of a pond. After sweating for several minutes Vince concluded that he needed to swim out and get it. This plan was immediately kiboshed by an arriving security guard who told him that he would have to wait until morning. O this was around midnight. Luckily after what seemed like forever, and discussions with her supervisor, his supervisor and then the head of security, it was agreed that Vince would be given a window of 10 minutes in which he could swim out to the island (it was maybe 1.5m deep and 10 m away) and retrieve his drone. By this time the drones battery had died and it was getting increasingly closer to the water. So with his water proof bag in tow and he swam out retrieved his drone and returned to the shore. Remarkably the drone still worked! We hastily left the Gardens by the Bay and caught a Grab back to the hostel.
The National Museum:
My dad and I at the Reynolds Museum in 2011.
December 24th marked the 5th anniversary of the death of my dad and I spent a good portion of the day thinking about him, his death, and the way that my families and my lives were drastically changed following his death. I think being away from my family made the day more difficult for me but I ultimately decided that the best way I could honor his memory on this sombre anniversary was to do something that we both liked to do. I went to a museum.
The National Museum of Singapore
The National Museum in Singapore is in a building that has been a museum in one form or another since the mid-1800s (although its had add ons and renovations). It was spared by during the Japanese occupation during WWII and following Singapore independence it morphed into a museum to the history and nation building of Singapore. It has a collection of artefacts from periods ranging from ancient times to colonial times, thru Japanese occupation, and independence to the present. This included a number of galleries that described the transformation of Singapore from a third world country to a developed garden state in a generation. The museum was a nice distraction for me, and my Dad would have enjoyed this place too. Although I think he would have liked it more if there had been a train or two!
Christmas in Singapore:
Maybe owing to its large expat population, or as a grab driver told us because Singaporeans love to shop and this gives them an excuse, but Christmas is big in Singapore. Christmas decorations and music was everywhere! We even managed to find a mall Santa or two.
Christmas at the Beach
Christmas day Vince and I decided that we would try to escape this flurry of Christmas activity by doing the least Christmasy thing we could think of. We would go to the beach. After spending sometime at the manmade beaches at Sentosa, and getting the obligatory selfie to send everyone at home who were experiencing a proper white christmas we rode our Mobikes back to the city, stopping in Chinatown for dinner and shopping. I got a Go-Pro, before returning to the hostel.
A tourist SIM card in Singapore is 15 SGD and gives you 5 days of access and 100GB of data! I made use of this and the safety of Singapore to FaceTime my family while walking the streets of Singapore. It was nice to be able to see my family and hear my three-year old nephew tell my about Santa coming and how he got a new digger for Christmas! It definitely made me feel more positive about being a way from them at this time of year.
The next day I spent some more time walking around Singapore and replenished some of the things that I had ran out of (aka gravel after my fun-filled boat trips in Thailand), I also spent way too long and way too much to find somewhere that I could print my e-visa for Vietnam. The next morning exhausted from some people who really need to learn some hostel etiquette and not turn on the lights and talk at 3 in the morning I made my way to the airport and set off for Ho Chi Minh. I fell asleep before the plane took off.
Is it Malacca or Melaka? I wasn’t sure about this even as my bus got there from KL. You’ll find them used interchangeably all over the place. Apparently one version is the English version and the other is Malay. In order to provide some sort of clarity the state government decried last year that official correspondence would use Melaka¹. So Melaka it is. Maybe this is why there are aggressive looking Don’t Mess with Melaka signs all over the place? It’s not, it is part of an anti-littering campaign.
Where is everyone?
Arriving at the hostel I had booked, I could swear that I was stepping into the scene of some postapocalyptic movie. For several blocks spreading from where I was staying to the edge of the old-city there were brand new buildings that were essentially empty. It was all a bit eery, but at least the place I was staying at was really nice and I got told that I looked like Matt Damon. That’s a complement, right?
Having learned a bit about the region while at the National Museum in KL, I was looking forward to exploring the old city and its history. Melaka was initially a fishing village, but it became an important trading and refueling port for Chinese traders navigating the straits. By the 15th century it was ruled by the Sultanate of Melaka. After years of holding them off the region fell to the Portuguese in the 16th century and then was taken over by the Dutch in the 18th century, and finally the British in the 19th century. The British governed it as part of the Straits settlements, along with Penang and Singapore, until it fell to the Japanese in WWII. After the war it became part of the British run Malaysia and it was here where in 1956 it was announced that Malaysia would become an independent country in 1957. The mixture of cultures and its storied history, led the region to be declared a UNESCO site in 2008².
I entered Chinatown and walked down Jonker street, which is where there are a lot of cool shops and restaurants only to find at the other end an H&M on one side of the street and a Hard Rock Cafe on the other. Never did find a Rolex store though.
H&M in the Old City
Crossing the river you find a number of bright red buildings, which were apparently the influence of the Dutch and a central square which has a fountain that was commemorated in honour of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. There were also buskiers singing western music near the square. So in addition to Thai Elvis (Bangkok), and Malaysian Johnny Cash (KL), I’ve now seen Malaysian Bono and Hank Williams.
Dodging a number of crazily decorated tuk-tuks playing really loud music I made way to the centre of the city and climbed the hill to the old church ruins, which gives a pretty spectacular view of the city. From here I meandered back along the river and to the hostel, which was as equally empty as when I left.
Melaka also has a really interesting food scene owing to its mixture of cultures. I had a pretty delicious Portuguese noodle dish and curry the day before I left.
I really don’t think I did Melaka justice and probably should have spent another day exploring the nearby areas and some more of the museums, but I had promised I’d be in Singapore by the 23rd and it was time to move on.
Having found a bus that would take me to a mall downtown Singapore, the same mall which apparently houses the North Korean Embassy on one of its upper floors, I set off to the bus station. Little did I know that this 4 h bus trip would end up being closer to 8 h.
I think its inevitable that at some point travelling you reach a point where you just aren’t feeling it anymore and end up asking the questions – Why am I doing this? Maybe it’s time to go home? Kuala Lumpur was the place where I reached this point. I think for me there were three reasons that lead to this:
1) I wasn’t liking the group dynamics I was with. When we got to KL we rented an airBnB which was lovely and had a sweet infinity pool with a view of the city, but there were 6 of us.
While these were all great people on their own, the size and fussiness of some individuals meant that no one could decide on anything. This meant that we ate in a crappy food court three days in a row. I did not come to SE Asia to eat subway and would have gone off on my own but we only had one key and only one other person had a SIM Card. This made it a logistical nightmare and made me decide that I would never travel with a big group again. Luckily this was only for a few days and was much better when we moved to a hostel and I regained my freedom to come and go as I pleased. In hindsight I should have just taken the loss of money and left sooner.
2) Christmas was coming. Christmas is a hard time for me. My dad died on Christmas eve and it was coming up on the 5th anniversary of it and with lots of time to think about it this had been weighing heavily on my mind. It also didn’t help that Christmas decorations were everywhere.
3) I had no plan for where to go past Singapore. I had originally planned on going from Thailand to Laos, Cambodia then Vietnam before flying elsewhere. However, my plans changed within the first week when I decided to go from Chiang Mai to a full moon party with Camille and Liam. From there I had decided that I would work south thru Malaysia to Singapore and then fly somewhere. But as I reached KL I found myself overwhelmed by the infinite options. After deliberating for way too long and making a short list of the Philippines, Indonesia or Vietnam I finally decided that, in light of Vietnam just recently making it so Canadians could use their e-Visa program, that I would spend Christmas in Singapore and then fly to Vietnam. If I didn’t feel better about travelling by the time I got thru Vietnam I would go home. But with Christmas still a couple of weeks away and not wanting to spend a lot of time in Singapore, and only one place I wanted to see between KL and Singapore, it meant that I would spend almost 2 weeks in KL.
It was somewhat nice to have a routine for a bit. I’d get up have a mediocre breakfast at the hostel and then go out grab a good coffee at this tiny coffee stand nearby and explore the city for a while. Usually in the afternoon I’d meet up with Vince and we’d check out some of the other things that KL had to offer before hitting up the street market or food trucks for dinner. Here are some of the other things I saw during my time in KL.
The Twin Towers:
Let’s face it the major landmark in KL is the Petronas twin towers. Although there is a flurry of new construction occurring near it these buildings still dominate the landscape and they are pretty cool to see. We went to the base of them multiple times, taking in the view from multiple angles and multiple times of day (there is a light show in the lake near it at night!) One day Elly, Aliona and I took the plunge and did the most touristy thing, we took the elevator trip up to the bridge and observation deck! The view was pretty cool and we managed to sneak in a few extra minutes of sightseeing and get to see the sun starting to set by pretending we didn’t hear the guides calling our group colour to return to the elevator.
View from the top
Sunset view
On the Bridge
View from the Bridge
Batu Caves:
The Batu caves are easily accessible by the train system in KL and another one of those things that a tourist visiting KL should see. You climb a couple hundred steps reaching a plateau that gives you a view of the city before entering the cave and climbing another set of steps at the back of the cave to the temple.
Batu caves
It’s still being built and so visitors are asked to bring a brick and/or bucket of sand up the steps. I brought a brick up the first part and then a bucket of sand to the second arm, so I guess I can add that I helped build a temple to the old CV. Yay transferable skills, haha.
There are also a number of monkeys inside and around the caves. As usual you have to be careful around them as they will try to steal your food and other items. However, luckily for Vince he managed to make friends with one when he gave it a coconut that was leftover from one of our drinks.
Taking in KL’s Cultural Scene
KL is much more than just infinity pools and the twin towers. One of its best aspects are the museums. They were reasonably priced and I learned a lot at them. Two particular ones of interest were the Museum of Islamic Arts and the National Museum. There were also a number of free walking activities and exploring Chinatown and little India were pretty cool too!
Inside the Museum of Islamic Arts
The Museum of Islamic Arts is a beautiful building containing a number of interesting domes and courtyards. Inside it has exhibits a wide variety of artefacts from throughout the islamic world and dating back centuries. This included clothing, tapestries, weapons, maps, coins and pottery. It also had an exhibit on Islamic book binding, and one that explained the different types of mosques found throughout the world. I learned a lot here!
Near the Islamic Arts Museum is the National Mosque which, although we did not enter due to us arriving at non visitor hours, was a pretty impressive building.
The main hall of the Muzium Negara
The Malaysian National Museum (Muzium Negara) is also a really interesting visit. It depicts the history of Malaysia going from ancient times, through its colonization by various European powers, to its occupation by the Japanese during WWII and finally the push to independence and the period thereafter. It also has some information about the departure of Singapore from Malaysia in 1965.
The River of Life
Some of us took a free walking tour through little India and Chinatown which exposed us to a number of the interesting foods and items available. Vince and I would go back to Chinatown a few days later where I would get my second pair of “Raybans.” I was assured these were “top quality” from “my friend” who sold it to me as the lenses were glass. In his defense I still have them almost two months later. Near Chinatown is a number of large parks and a region that is being redeveloped and called the River of Life.Finally because I didn’t want to get rusty in my science skills Elly and I visited the planetarium. Unfortunately we did not realize that the show we were going to see was a children’s one featuring a trouble causing coyote. But at least he was a truthful one and debunked some common misconceptions about the universe.
Sunway Lagoon:
On the suspended bridge at Sunway Lagoon
Elly, Vince and I decided to take one of the days in KL and head to the amusement park at Sunway Lagoon. Here we stuck mostly to the water part, making a friend to round out our numbers. There are a number of tubing and slides which are pretty fun. There is also one where you get in this coffin like tube and then the bottom falls out launching you down the slide. Apparently the look on my face as the floor fell out was pretty amusing.
We also took in some go-carting and roller coasters, neither of which were exactly fast. But all-and-all it was a fun day and helped me to get a bit out my funk.
MALLasia
Mall Christmas Decorations
Malaysians LOVE their malls. Vince met someone who could see 11 of them from her apartment. There are also speciality malls including Low Yat Plaza which specializes in electronics. With my Asus tablet’s screen cracking while in my bag somewhere along my travels I hit up Low Yat to see if I could get it fixed. It turns out the warranty is not so great and it would have cost the same as the tablet. I ended up leaving Low Yat with a 11″ macbook air, which is no longer available in Canada but was much cheaper than when it was available. I was happy to have a functional computer again, makes this whole travel blogging much easier 😉
But there are so many other malls in KL and it was inevitable
Coke around the world
that we’d be in at least one thru out the day and with Christmas coming up these malls were decked with Christmas decorations. It all seemed a bit out-of-place for me considering that the weather was pretty drastically different from what I was used to at Christmas.
It was here that Vince and I fine tuned our spot the Rollex store or H+M. I really don’t understand the number of Rollex stores. There can’t be that many people buying Rollex’s. FYI my “friends” in Chinatown will give you a “good deal” on “good quality” fakes. Haha.
During my time in KL I had said good-bye to Elly, who was off to Sri Lanka, and Aliona had left to explore other parts of Malaysia (I’d later meet up with her and Alex in Vietnam). Vince was going to fly to Singapore and I was planning on meeting him there in a few days, and so having run down the clock I got ready to finally leave KL and head off to Melaka on my own.
In some sort of physiological response to my mood at the time, or more likely the not so great chicken tacos I had the day before, I boarded a bus to Melaka having just thrown up on the train to the bus station – luckily I had a plastic bag handy. I guess it was my body’s way of saying I was done with KL!
From Penang we caught a bus to the Cameron Highlands. The bus looked like it was straight out of 70’s but was at least comfortable. Crossing a 24 km bridge we left behind Island life and for the first time in weeks I was back on the mainland. Leaving the oceans and palm trees behind the bus weaved thru rolling hills rising to 1100 m above sea level by the time we reached the hostel in Brinchang. This area was initially colonized by British settlers looking for an escape from the nearby heat.
70’s disco bus – where’s the strobe light?
The first thing I noticed as I stepped off the bus was how right those settlers were – it was cold! By cold it was maybe 18C, but it was still an adjustment after the heat that I had become used to over the past few weeks.
After retrieving some pants and a jacket from the very bottom of my bag we discovered that the Mossy Forest, the major reason I came to the Cameron Highlands , had just closed for repairs/construction and wouldn’t be opening again until at least January.
Rather than get roped into a 80 ringgit tourist package which had its key attraction missing we decided, much to the dismay of our hostel, to make our own Cameron Highlands adventure.
With two Parisians joining our francophone group (well sans moi), we hired a taxi for 6 ringgit each and made our way to one of other things the highlands was known for – tea plantations!
Following a two ringgit entrance fee we spent the next hour or two wandering amongst the beauty of the plantation before topping it off with tea and a strawberry cheesecake at the cafe that over looks the area (strawberries being one of the other things the area is known for).
For reasons that no one could understand an inspection of the gift shop revealed that some (most?) of the Cameron Highlands tea was actually a product of China. Seemed a bit weird…
Visiting a Tea Plantation in the Cameron Highlands
Anyways after the plantation our DIY tour decided to take in yet another of the things the area is known for- hiking!
The area has a number of “marked” paths and we decided to hike number 10, which takes one back to town. The paths were muddy and not something that I’d recommend if it had been raining, it was steep in a few places. But we were rewarded with some pretty incredible views along the way, and no one came back covered in mud. Furthermore we did the tour for a tenth of what the group tour would have cost! Yay!
Hiking the Highlands
Arriving back in town tired but pumped from a great day, we made arrangements to head to Kuala Lumpur the next day, a place that I would spend way too much time in, and where I would seriously contemplate going home.
I have friends that took the ferry from Georgetown on the island of Penang, to Langkawi in July and described it as one of the worst experiences of their trip. It was hot, chaotic and the seas were rough. Fortunately for us it was now the dry season and the seas were calm and the trip uneventful. We’d spend the next few days exploring the island of Penang – here are some of the highlights:
The old town of Georgetown:
Georgetown is a UNESCO world heritage site which has a rich mixture of Malay, Chinese and Indian cultures. In the late 18th century the British settled the region building a fort at the north end of the island, hoping to make it a major trading port. It, along with Singapore and Melaka, was governed as a colony until it was occupied by the Japanese during WWII. After the war it returned to British rule before ultimately becoming part of Malaysia following independence in 1963.
Milk Tea!
Exploring Georgetown
This fusion of numerous cultures makes the old part of the city an amazing mixture of foods, buildings and art work. We were honoured to have met Richard in Langkawi. He was from Penang, and he was kind enough to take a day to show us around some of the more interesting, and local hidden gems, of the old city. He took us to a cool coffee shop, a great Chinese place for milk tea, and we had an afternoon snack at a Indian restaurant which served us on banana leaves. We also saw numerous buildings and cool art work . Local artists have decorated many of the buildings with colourful murals and I would spend another day wandering around more of the streets of the old city checking out this art work. He was also kind enough to let Elly and Vince cool off in the pool of his apartment building. Thanks for your hospitality Richard!
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Some of the Artwork in Georgetown
There was a Chinese festival occuring while we were in Georgetown and our hostel was near to one of the sites where music was being played until wee hours of the night. While it was interesting and Vince and I got to see inside one of the temples where worship was going on at 1:30AM (complete with gongs), this loudness made it impossible to sleep and did definitely dampen our experience in what was otherwise a really cool hostel that had been built in an old warehouse.
Late night festivals and Temple worship
Exploring the rest of Penang:
Penang is a big island (about the size of Langkawi) and having tired of the loudness of the area we were staying in we rented an AirBnB (Mickey Mouse themed) and moved outside of the old city. From here we explored some of the rest of the island by car taking in a hike to the top of a dam, a visit to a fruit plantation where we feasted on numerous delicious fruits and had some interesting fermented fruit drinks. We also escaped the frequent rain storms by visiting some of the many malls. Thus began Vince’s and my game of spot the H+M or Rollex store, and our belief that Malaysia’s unofficial name be MALLasia.
Vince and the other member of our group – Le Drone
Feasted
Fruit Feast
Fruit Plantation Tour
Adventures around the rest of the island included visiting a fruit plantation and climbing up to the top of a dam
Having spent enough time in Penang we boarded a bus and headed back to the mainland and the surprisingly cold, yet beautiful, Cameron Highlands.
For a Quebecois take on Georgetown and some pretty sweet drone photos check out my friend Vince’s blog post at:
Every night there is a light show on the water in front of the Marina Bay, which is impressive, so much that I went three nights!
Is it Malacca or Melaka? I wasn’t sure about this even as my bus got there from KL. You’ll find them used interchangeably all over the place. Apparently one version is the English version and the other is Malay. In order to provide some sort of clarity the state government decried last year that official correspondence would use Melaka¹. So Melaka it is. Maybe this is why there are aggressive looking Don’t Mess with Melaka signs all over the place? It’s not, it is part of an anti-littering campaign.
The Travelling Scientist 