Tioman Island - Mon 8/02 - Wed 17/02

Tioman Island...Now this is the kind of place I had been waiting for. A paradyllic island in the South China Sea about 2 hours from the mainland. This place had basic chalets, nice beaches (although a little rocky in some places), huge monitor lizards wandering freely and gangs of mischievous monkeys (more about these buggers later).

We stayed for 8 days on the Island and spent most of this time reading, swimming, going for some walks and doing a bit of snorkelling. On about the second or third day we decided to walk over to Monkey Bay which was supposedly a short walk over the hill. It turned out to be a bit longer than this, around an hour and a half through a steep forest track where we had to negotiate through gaps in giant vines and between enormous rocks and the like. This was all well and good and we made it to the deserted beach known as Monkey Bay. We were led to believe that this beach had places to stay and somewhere to get something to eat. Not so. We were dismayed to find nowhere to buy food and we were running very low on water, great. Not to be deterred we decided to stay a while and have a swim before heading back. The beach was totally calm, had crystal clear water and we had the place to ourselves. We decided to stay and read our books and chill out on the beach for a bit before going for a walk to the other end of the bay. This is where we encountered our bit of excitement for the trip. As we were walking back towards our bags we noticed a gang of monkeys heading directly towards our things. Seeing that they were about to start stealing our stuff we started to run towards them and as we did one of the monkeys reached into our bag and pulled out Kate's wallet, the wallet with all the money for our stay on the Island in it, about $300 AUD in all. As there are no ATM's on the Island this monkey had the capacity to make our lives extremely difficult! I gave chase and of course they bolted into the trees so I stopped and this furry little thief sat up in the tree and started to eat the wallet! Now I didn't care much for the wallet but all our cards and cash were in there so if he started to eat those then we were in trouble. Fortunately he began throwing out the money onto the ground note by note. I was under the tree not sure whether I should try and throw something at him to scare him into dropping the wallet or whether this would cause him to retreat into the forest where I couldn't follow. So we waited. After about 15 minutes he dropped the wallet and when I was sure they were far enough away so that he couldn't retrieve it I crept in and picked up all the cash and cards and high tailed it out of there. After this we were off Monkey Bay and resigned ourselves to leaving it to it's rightful inhabitants. Unfortunately this wasn't to be as in all the fuss with the monkeys I inadvertently left my boardies in a tree after changing out of them and had to walk all the way back again to retrieve them the next day. Damn you monkeys!

Another unsuspecting tourist I saw also incurred the wrath of a monkey that had come to where we were staying to steal rubbish/food. We were both taking photos of this particularly large male and the other guy got just that little bit too close and the monkey charged him teeth bared and screaming. The bloke tried to get out of the way but the monkey went for him again and he turned tail and ran. I was doing my best not to laugh but it was pretty damn funny.

So anyway as our time was divided between eating, swimming and reading the rest of our time passed relatively uneventfully. We did go out to one of the bars on one night with a couple we had met where we were staying and they introduced us to a bloke they had met called 'Tony'. Tony was what you'd probably call a 'pompous ass' from England who now spent his time sailing around in his yacht and informing everyone he meets about his favourite subject, himself. I guess you're always going to come across people like this but sweet Jesus. This bloke was drinking almost straight Vodka and prattling on and on at me about his 'adventures'. Pure torture. This bloke would speak to you about 2cm's from your face and just wouldn't shut up. His only even slightly interesting comment came when he spoke about having to remove his boat's two cats on the open sea, to the horror of his female travelling companion, because they 'shat too much'. Top stuff Tony.

So after 8 days we moved on to a place called Cherating where I sit now. We took a boat back to the mainland and a bus up to this place which is the home of Malaysia's only surfing community. But more about this place next time.
'Til then.


Our lovely little chalet - it had an attached shower and toilet (something we haven't had yet!) and a mosquito net over the bed. It was $AU10 per night! From our chalet we could see all the animals that inhabited the island - huge lizards, squirrels, monkeys, tiny frogs, birds, butterflies....


The view of the ocean from our chalet! The water was only a few metres away and was crystal clear and with no waves - my kind of beach!


This is what the beach and water looked liked every day!


One of the many paradllyic sunsets! These are just a few of them. The sun rises at 7.30am and sets at 7.30pm


Another sunset


The jungle walk to Monkey Bay. The walk was long and hot. The only thing that kept us walking was the swim at a beautiful and isolated beach!


There was a lot of rubbish (like drink bottles, cans etc) scattered around the town and along the tracks in the jungle. It has either been dropped by tourists or left by the monkeys (after stealing it from a tourist). Rubbish on the island is burnt daily so you see little fires all the time. Here you can see a plant in the jungle which has grown through a can (it is likely that a monkey has taken this from a tourist - i think - as it looks like it has been ripped apart by the monkeys teeth!).


Tioman island has heaps of these enormous rocks scattered around in the jungle.

Melaka - Friday 5th Feb to Monday 8th Feb

Melaka….photography, food, feet and fish. These are the things that make Melaka a place worth visiting. Throw in the occasional tropical thunderstorm, Chinese dragons and a bloke who can break open a coconut with his finger and you have the makings of an interesting stay. Our time in Melaka was divided between eating mouth watering dishes (mainly of Chinese extraction but with some Indian and all, happily, very cheap) and wandering the narrow streets and laneways. Photo opportunities literally abound around every corner and there are just too many cool looking old buildings and houses to get photos of them all.

Melaka is a unique place in Malaysia owing to the town’s former colonial heritage and strategic location on the Straits of Malacca. This has made it a coveted port by the Portuguese, Dutch, Chinese and British dating back to the 16th century. Modern day Melaka is a reflection of all of these former influences and this is most obvious in the local architecture. The Melaka River runs through the city and is reminiscent of the canals of Amsterdam with Dutch style buildings squeezed in alongside one another all painted the same colour, white.

Melaka is undoubtedly a Chinese city nowadays with the lanes and alleys filled with all manner of shops run by Chinese merchants and decorated accordingly. We were fortunate as it was the lead up to Chinese New Year and there were performances in the main square, Jonker Walk, every night. These ranged from the obligatory Chinese lounge crooner with the quaffed hair to dragon dances, a kung fu demonstration, and my favourite, the masked lady who could change her face mask seemingly by magic during her performance.

We also had the pleasure of seeing Melaka’s modern day ‘snake oil merchant’ who has the unenviable act of having to break a coconut with his index finger every night. This bloke started out with what seemed like a never ending sales pitch whereby he sold a pinky concoction in a bottle to the crowd that he claimed could cure every ailment from arthritis to rheumatism and presumably injuries sustained whilst breaking coconuts with your digits. When he had sold enough of his brew the bloke finally got on with the job of what we were all there to see. Incidentally, it turns out that this guy is actually in the Guinness Book of Records for this particular talent. He did succeed in breaking into the coconut eventually after about 5 or 6 finger splitting attempts earning him groans from our section of the crowd and cheers of admiration from the other quarters. Cleverly, he even managed to rub his own snake oil on his dislocated finger before stealthily popping his finger back into place to give the impression that the goop he had just sold to the crowd was actually worth the sum they had just parted with for it. Fascinating stuff.
Something that also deserves a mention is the restaurant that sold a selection of skewers containing various meats and sea foods for about 30c AUD per skewer. Pretty cheap I hear you say but the beauty of this place was that they bought you a tall pot of satay sauce that you heated up in the centre of your table and then dipped all your skewers in one by one to cook. That’s right dear reader a whole bucket of satay. It didn’t matter whether you dipped in Chicken, Beef or whatever it all came out tasting like satay-pure heaven.

Now one thing I need to mention before I wrap this up is the feet and the fish I alluded to in the first line of this update. This is something I have never seen before and I’m convinced that if you exported this idea to New Zealand or Australia it would be a winner. My feet are not normally something I inflict on any person or animal usually but here in Melaka I had to make an exception. I’m talking about putting your feet in a tank full of dead skin-cell eating fish that see your grimy hooves as some kind of all you can eat buffet where no one has to leave before they’ve had their fill. Kate and I were literally rolling about giggling hysterically as these voracious little critters chowed down on the skin of our feet like it was their last meal. To say it tickled would be an understatement but when my feet emerged from that tank after 20 minutes they were positively beaming the way that only feet that have been massaged by a fish’s mouth can. This has to be one of the stranger things we have done so far but also probably one of the most fun. If you get the chance to let a fish eat the skin off your feet I highly recommend you jump at it, you won’t regret it and my feet have never looked so healthy!! Seriously….

So to finish I can say that Melaka was an extremely cool place to visit full of history and more good food than you can shake a chopstick at. Well worth a visit.
Alrighty well, I’ve said more than enough (as usual) and I shall sign off again until the next installment. Find out what happens when we hit Tioman Island and get to know the locals, such as the wallet stealing monkeys (the wallet with all the money in it), have fun with dead snakes, cheap vodka and much-too-pissed sea captains that tell you at length how they had to throw the ship’s cats overboard because ‘they shat too much’. All this and more to come next time in the next installment of the life and times of ‘The Slitherants’. Til then.


The view from the balcony at our guesthouse. Back in the day, boats would travel up the river dropping supplies off at the house/storage sheds along the river front. The guesthouse owners said that the building was estimated to be around 200 years old.


The view from the balcony at our guesthouse at night time.


Windows of buildings in Melaka. There were many building getting a new splash of paint before Chinese New Year! A lot of these building are hundreds of years old.


A street in Melaka. You see a lot of old men riding around the city on their rustic bikes. The city was obviously not built for traffic as the streets are really narrow – just one vehicle wide.


Satay heaven! Choosing our skewers and bowls of fish balls.


Fishing out our fish balls form the boiling brew of satay.


Our skewers cooking in the satay brew.


Eating the yummy satayed food.


Chendol or cendol– the best desert ever! It is shaven ice with coconut cream, brown sugar syrup, red kidney beans, corn kernels and green worms (not real worms). We were told to mix all the ingredients together before eating to make it into slushy, sweet soup.


A coffee shop with the best coffee from all the 13 states of Malaysia. Mine had coffee combined with 5 spices, and Tim’s had 75% coffee with Margarine and salt. They were both yummy!


The heavens opened and down poured the rain! Tim and I hadn’t seen any rain like this in a very long time. We were so excited that we went ‘swimming’ in the rain. I think everyone thought we were nuts!


The fish massage. I am very ticklish when it comes to my feet so you can imagine my reaction when the fish where biting me and to make it worse, the fish loved my feet more than Tim’s! These fish, Garra Rufa/doctor fish, are found in the Middle East. The mineral content and warmth of their water makes food scarce. Because of this, it is believed that they have developed their unusual behavior of nibbling at dead skin from people in the water.


Tim at the entrance of China Town. There was a normal touristy market along Jonker Walk over the weekend


The ‘snake oil merchant’ breaking a coconut with his finger. He said it was too easy to break a coconut with his fist or elbow!


Driver of a trishaw waiting for his next passenger while his tunes are blearing out of his boom box (at the rear of the trishaw).

Kuala Lumpur - Mon 1/02 to Friday 5/02

The first 5 days of our journey have consisted of the obligatory sight-seeing and weary trudging through the strength sappingly humid, traffic choked, sewerage reeking streets of Malaysia's capital. The streets are filled with the acrid scents of exotic spices, exhaust fumes and every kind of faeces, human or otherwise, you can imagine. Having said that the cityscape is a beguiling mixture of dishevelled dilapidated buildings on the verge of collapse and brash, ultra modern skyscrapers lorded over by the imposing Petronas towers.

Mixed in amongst the noise, the traffic and the sheer volume of humanity are the countless mosques with onion shaped domes and grand towers reaching up towards the heavens. Ancient chants and incantations of the devout can be heard wafting over the streets in the early morning and evening and make for an eerie atmosphere in such an ambitiously modern city.

As we have been staying right next to the 'Little India' sector of the city we have experienced all sorts of delicious cuisines from all over India for very reasonable prices. All manner of materials such as silk are available for sale in the tiny alley bazaars and bling-tastic gold chains and necklaces seem to be extremely popular among the local Indian population.

This country is very squarely divided between the three main ethnic groups, the Indians, Chinese and ethnic Malays and they all seem to live together relatively harmoniously if albeit separately. The only group who seem to get a hard time from the locals are the African population who are not allowed to work (other than do odd-jobs) and are generally treated rather poorly. This I was made aware of by an African refugee we met on the bus on the way back from the Batu caves. He had several Malaysian flags stuck in his hat and immediately set about giving us his life story (there's always one...). This guy proceeded to tell us about the plight of the Africans in Malaysia and seemed genuinely hurt when I refused his offer to give him my e-mail address after having said little more than ten words so he could 'communicate with me'!

We have seen most of the major landmarks in KL as you will see through the photos below and four nights was more than sufficient. The National Islamic Arts museum had an interesting photography exhibition by Steve McCurry who is supposedly a well known contributor to National Geographic and other such publications. The rest of our time was spent traipsing the street in search of cheap meals and taking respite in an enormous, very well air-conditioned shopping mall. The malls here are pretty spectacular and are cheaper than our ones at home. The street markets of Pentaling st in Chinatown are a lot cheaper (depending on your haggling skills) but the sheer harassment you encounter from the hawkers and petty traders hardly make it a relaxing place to browse for some fake Rolexes, sunglasses or Gucci handbags.

So there you have it, (if you're still reading at this point I take my sweat soaked hat off to you) our first five days of the trip. I could go on and on but for the sake of us all I shall sign off and post some pics which I imagine is why you even followed the link to this blog in the first place. Lastly though, I would totally recommend the Serai Inn where we have been staying. Clean, cheap rooms in a great part of the city near to most of the main attractions. The owner Ko is a top bloke and very helpful. We feel pretty happy that we ended up staying there. Having said that, where we are staying now is the same price as the Serai, but you wait to you see the photos. But for that you'll have to wait until the next entry...til then.
TC.

Holding a big snake at Batu caves.




One of the many, many photos we have taken of monkeys while in Malaysia. This monkey looks like he is drunk from all the sugary drinks he had stolen from all the tourists at Batu Caves.

A very grumpy looking cat.


I thought this was super cute - two cats asleep in the basket of a motorbike!

National Islam Mosque
Behind Tim is the main prayer hall. As non-muslim tourists, we could only enter the Mosque certain times of the day - ie. outside the 5 prayer sessions per day.

This is me in my gown - I was sweating like a pig here and since I'm short I had to hitch up the gown as well!


Tim dressed in his gown at the National Mosque. He looks like a hunchback – he has his backpack under his gown!


A beautiful white and gold inverted dome in the lobby area of the Islamic Arts Museum. There was a wonderful exhibition of Steven Curry’s work on his travels through the Muslim world. He is well known for his National Geographic photo of a Muslim woman with those piercing green eyes


Eating the yummy food from the street stalls. Super cheap - it costs around $2-$4 for a meal and drinks.


Food stalls under a highway in KL.



I thought this was an interesting piece as muslim women have to wear Hijab (head scarf), or at least, dress modestly and not dress in a way to seek attraction males - ie no cleavage, no singlets, minimal make-up and tight fitting clothes.




This is quite provocative as in Malaysia illegal drugs are highly illegal - if caught smuggling drugs into Malaysia you are given a mandatory death sentence


Cherry blossom trees and red lanterns outside a huge shopping mall –KL was just starting to get ready for the Chinese New Year! It would get hot and humid between 1pm-4pm so we would escape the heat by chilling out in malls or museums with air conditioning.