My Malaysian pit stop

10 days in Malaysia

This is a weird one! Because the main reason I’m in Malaysia is 1; I have a flight out of KL to Jordan as mentioned in my last post, and 2; I needed to get scuba equipment before commencing my DM training, so sight-seeing in Malaysia was limited and certainly not my first priority. I had planned to at least see KL and Penang and maybe visit Maleka, something I thought would happen until yesterday! Nevertheless, I have had a chance to explore KL in all her glory, and check out Georgetown on Penang.

Kuala Lumpur

KL well!.. I love this place, firstly when I was on the shuttle bus from the airport, I suffered something of a reverse culture shock. After 4 months in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia, Malaysia is startlingly developed and clean and organised, things I’m not really used to over here haha. What I love is that its all of what I just mentioned, but still has all the grubby side streets and alley ways, and markets, street food vendors everywhere, oh and that reminds me of as if I’m not thinking of it constantly, the main selling point, the food. is. amazing!! So aside from eating I did have a stressful few days trying to chase down scuba gear, which is tougher than you’d think uuuggghhh. Still managed to do the mains sights, the Batu caves, KLCC tower, the Petronas towers, Chinatown, and walked the city, oh and I treated myself to a movie at the cinema, this is awful but I hadn’t been for over 6 months!!

The Batu caves are cool, I only went into the main cave, and I was there at morning prayer time so listened to the singing in the cave, there are monkeys everywhere, the stairs up to the entrance proved to be an excellent morning workout. The KLCC and the canopy walk are a nice way to spend a couple hours, the parks lovely, I didn’t go up the tower due to the fact that I’m too cheap to pay for a view, and frankly city views aren’t my thing generally. The Petronas towers are quite pretty, and more so at night. I thought Chinatown was really just a market aimed at tourists, and not particularly authentic. Honestly I rather enjoyed walking the streets and looking around.

Penang

I had planned to spend more time here, but due to problems finding scuba gear, I headed back to KL early, so only had 2 days and 2 nights here, still enough time to explore a little, enjoy the food (definitely the highlight of Georgetown), check out the street art, and explore the market over at Batu Ferringhi. I can advise against taken the train, it only takes 4 hours but if you take the late one like I did, you’ll end up sleeping (sort of) on a bench in a train station in Butterworth waiting for the first ferry across to Georgetown.

As for Georgetown itself I didn’t love at first, but it did grow on me, the architecture and the food made it for me, having said that I’d totally come back and explore the rest of the island!

I ate all my food before thinking to take photos but here’s some pic of the other stuff.