Month: July 2012

Today we have reached the halfway point of our trip – five weeks gone, and another five to go.  It seems more than five weeks since we left home but I suspect the second half of the trip will feel much shorter.

We have been busy since we last updated the blog.  Everyone was well enough to thoroughly enjoy our last day in KL at the Sunway Lagoon water park.  We went down all the water slides, and most of the fair rides as well.  There was some random height measuring going on.  The official height restriction was 1.1m for all the rides, but at some rides Susie stood well over the marker and at others a good 10cm under.  In the end, after some debate, there was only one she was not allowed on.  We arrived as the park opened, and left as it closed.  We all slept well that night.  Phil has taken some footage with the waterproof camera but video is proving difficult to edit and upload so it may not be seen until we are home!

The following day we caught our bus for Penang.  Ramadan caught us out again – the six hour bus was broken only by a toilet stop and not the expected lunch one!  The kids thought all their Christmas’s had come as they ate bisuits and crisps for lunch :-). We made it to our hotel on Bayu Ferenggi by about five pm.  A quick dip in the pool and off to look for tea.  It turns out there is an excellent hawker centre ( well Penang is famous for it’s food) nearby which we have frequented every night.  The sweet rotis with cndensed milk have been a hit, as was Emma’s oxtail soup!

While we have been here we have visited Georgetown where we took the opportunity to buy our 20 hour overnight train tickets to Bangkok for later on.  The lovely lady behind the counter informed us all days after ours are already booked solid due to the end of Ramadan but also told us that one or two days a week the train is cancelled on the day!  Fingers crossed it is not ours…..  We enjoyed walking around the city, looked at Fort Cornwallis and the museum as well as taking in the architecture and soaking up the culture.  At lunchtime we stopped in Little India at a small restaurant where we liked the man cooking rotis at the front.  We sat down and when asked for our order mentioned rotis.  “only lunch menu now” we were told.  We looked hopefully for a menu but none was forthcoming so we asked “what’s on the lunch menu?”. “banana leaf set”.  So that’s whar we had, and very tasty it was too!

We have also visited Kek Soo Li temple, been up Penang hill and played in the Youth Park. All good fun.  Now we have to pack up again, we are off to our third country – Indonesia – with a flight to Sumatra tomorrow.

We’ve been enjoying our time in KL. We have explored the various parks and playgrounds and we did a bus tour of the city. We were expecting an open top bus with commentary as per the UK but all the buses bar one were completely enclosed and there wasn’t a commentary! Made it rather less interesting than it might have been….but we used it to go back to the KLCC water play (with swimming costumes this time!) which the kids thoroughly enjoyed. We have been entertained by the apparently full time presence of two police officers whose only role appears to be to whistle at anyone who tries to enter the water area with shoes on! They take it very seriously…..

We have been finding that even somewhere as multicultural as KL Ramadan causes some challenges for us. We walked home through the Kl city walk looking for tea. Loads of restaurants but none of them open. Eventually we gave up and went back to an unhopeful looking one, open but deserted. It turned out to be a brilliant choice. They had boardgames to play while we waited, a waiter in love with Susie and delicious Indian food, all for less than £10. We were sad to leave.

Yesterday Emma had our first stomach upset. I can’t quite believe that we had made it very nearly halfway through our trip without issue, we must have cast iron stomachs. We think Emma’s was probably brough on by her falling over into what appeared to be an open sewer the day before. Although we cleaned her up and antibacterial gelled her, it seems some germ escaped our efforts. Anyway, Emma recovered within a few hours but by that point we’d already made the decision to keep her at the hotel for the day with Phil while I took Luke and Susie to an indoor play centre to keep them occupied and away from any potential germs. Much fun was had!

In the evening we decided to venture to a hawker market slightly out of the centre with great online reviews. It’s called Suzi’s corner which entertained our Susie! Turned out no taxi driver had any idea where it was. The first taxi took us in the right direction through awful rush hour traffic. He was very unhappy about the whole thing and tutted loudly throughout.  He eventually dropped us off without having found it. We walked a mile or so without finding it before getting in another taxi who drove us round in circles for a while before eventually finding it, only about 50 meters from where we had got in! By that point the kids were tired and hungry and Phil and I were pretty stressed. However it turned out to be worth finding as the steaks were the best we have ever had! Very unexpected in such a location. A much simpler taxi ride back to the hotel.

Today we will try again for the waterpark. Everyone seems well, the sun is shining and it’s time to get dressed.

We arrived in KL slightly bleary off the night train. We had a real adventure with our five top bunks through the jungle but I don’t think anyone actually slept all that well. A quick stop in KL Sentral station for breakfast and then on to find our hotel. Two interlinking rooms this time, very lovely and very friendly staff.

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We couldn’t check in until 2pm so we went to look at the shopping centre opposite. Turns out it has a theme park on the top levels including a full size roller coaster. Only Phil was tall enough and brave enough to go on the big one, but we still enjoyed the smaller rides and we had the place pretty much to ourselves for a good deal of the afternoon. For tea we hit the hawker stalls and had fabulous beef ball noodles! A broth with beef balls in and a separate bowl of noodles with soy sauce mince on top. Delicious and very filling.

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For thursday we had taken the plunge and booked a tour to the Malaysian elephant sanctuary. It was highly recommended by both locals and travellers but we were very disappointed. Bathing the elephants was cancelled due to high water levels, feeding them was much as you can do at Colchester zoo, and the “ride” was only a 20m circle. Not at all what we had hoped for, and very expensive for what it was. We visited deerland on the way and the kids held an albino python.

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Today we have redressed the balance a bit by playing in a free playground all day. The kids had been in their pants in the water play / paddling pool as we didn’t know they would need costumes. The water provided some much needed cooling from the blistering heat. I’m trying not to moan as i know those at home are still hoping for some summer weather but, my goodness, it has been hot on this trip!

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This evening there has been a thunderstorm so we have been out for dinner at the indian just a few doors from our hotel. As we walked there i thought maybe one korma, one biriyani and one hot one for Phil should do. Once we got there we realised that making plans like that is hopeless! It turnedout to be a canteen type effect with no words of english spoken so we pointed at some random things and hoped they wouldn’t be to spicy for the children. The staff couldn’t have ben more welcoming. It turned out just fine with delicious food and enough that the children could manage, just far too much. Child size portions seem so far to have eluded us completely. Normally we order three adult meals and share but today everyone wanted a chance to choose from the counter so we ended up with five adult meals. No chance of starvation tonight…..

We’ve been far too relaxed here, even updating the blog has seemed to be too much effort!  The setting and weather have been ideal, the kids had been happy playing on the beach and snorkelling and i have finally got stuck into some of the books i brought on my ereader.

Phil has had some great diving.  After my refresher course i just did one dive.  Unfortunately it was marred by too many stinging jellyfish to avoid at that particular site on that particular day.  Then i ruined it completely with my error on set up (someone had already turned my air on, so I turned it all the way off and back on half a turn, instead of all the way on and back half a turn) meaning that my air stopped very suddenly.  My buddy and i had to quickly put into practice our training and ascend together using only her air.  Wouldn’t have been much fun at the best of times but through the jellyfish it was pretty horrid.  All in all i’ve decided to leave the diving to Phil for now 🙂

Today we have to drag ourselves away from here, several stone heavier and a good deal browner?  We will spend one more night in the same hotel at Kuala Besut and then move onto to Kota Bharu.