James & Fionnuala & Daire & Kate visit Malaysia December 2003

Rough Diary

James & Fionnuala, Daire (5 nearly 6), Kate (1 nearly 2) adventuring in Malaysia.

Selamat Datang to our rough diary and notes. We had a fantastic time in Malaysia. Huge thanks (terimah kasih) to everyone we met who were so friendly and made our trip so memorable.

Location, Geography

Kuala Lumpur latitude & longitude is 3°N 102°E
Astro star map for KL

Sydney is 33°59"S 151°1"E
astro stars for Sydney

Map-Kuala Lumpur Streetdirectory.com - Kuala Lumpur Map-Bukit Bintang, KL

Virtual Malaysia Map Malaysia Home Page

Places we stayed

Pondok Lodge, Changkat Bukit Bintang

Pondok Lodge Kuala Lumpur
20-2C, Jalan Changkat Raja Chulan,
50200, Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia.
Tel: +603-21428449 / 03-21440288   Fax : +603 -21459809

Pondok Lodge is a great place to stay. Very friendly and also good value (for us 65 RM for room for us & kids). We made some great friends there and it really felt like coming "home"!

Have to watch the windows with the kids. Some of them are a bit dangerous. Also our first encounter with air conditioning. We froze the first night and I think that gave us colds (along with the long flights of course). After that we figured out setting it quite warm, just a bit cooler than outside worked. e.g. about 26 - 28 degrees.

Park Inn International, Changkat Bukit Bintang

(just renamed to Radius International). This was just down the road from Pondok Lodge and when my parents came we booked them in here for one night just in case they were dying after the trip. It's a grand more expensive hotel with a bit more luxury. Also the teksi drivers all know it and don't know Pondok Lodge.

Ali's guesthouse, Batu Ferengghi, Pulau Penang

near-ish Ferringhi_Beach_Hotel We drove round Penang a bit. Maybe a pity to still have rental car ... but on other hand maybe we needed it? Considered staying in more expensive place with air-con and organised tourist things but saved that for Langkawi. Penang was a bit more built up than we liked & we didn't quite settle in comfort there. Though we did have a good time. Did a really nice fruit farm tour further to North. Before that herb garden tour (just opened) and lunch (hot spicy ikan soup! whoo!) and play in waves by the beach and met a Malay girl called Sheila (though spelling is different). Got lost looking for bat temple and arrived too late for huge other temple. Went into Georgetown and visited temples and shops.

Hotel Aesiana, Pulau Langkawi

Just stayed here one night as was booked out. Big pool with waterslides. Loads of Malaysian people staying there. And some with kids. At one end of Pantai Cenang which has lots of cafe's & restaurants & some shops.

Lanai Langkawi Beach Resort hotel, Pulau Langkawi

hotelreservation.com langkawi-hotel.com

Nice hotel. Nice cool pool in the middle. Right on the beach. Breakfast was good - plenty of it, but beach cafe food was not great. Further from the busier beach pantai cenang. Some nice restaurants were close by this hotel though. Islam ladies on duty at the desk the whole time. Bikes for hire - Daire & I took and evening bike trip as far as the airport and back via a bit of pantai cenang.

The guy on the beach who had canoe's & sailboats to hire also had a windsurfer!! But all his sails were bust :(

Every morning and afternoon tour boats would land on the beach. We took one & visited island with lake in middle. Monkeys on the way there through the forest. Again Daire is a bit scared, I try scare monkey away and bigger monkey trys to scare me! We go on paddle boat onto the lake. Fionn takes a dip, then I. Kids don't fall in! :) Phew! Also visited a more deserted beach (except for all the boat touring tourists!) Saw eagles soaring.

in KL

Cameroon highlands

We had to make space on the digital camera and amazed to find a shop that could print the photos in Tanah Rata. I threw a few pictures on the web from the hotel they're here (Jungle walk, rose & butterfly garden, tea plantation)

Pulau Penang and Pulau Langkawi

Being a pedestrian and Driving car

There is lots of traffic in the cities. Have to get used to mix of ancient buses/trucks/cars/motorbikes along with the new. Crossing road you have to be pushy (use pedestrian crossing if can but have to stop traffic sometimes or when you can't walk on footpath (because perhaps of food stalls & things parked/piled up there) make way on road). We were thinking of this as we had Daire walking and Kate usually in buggy.

Teksis are great for getting around. The honest teksi drivers were lovely and trips really cheap. BUT there is a set price and it's handy to know how much trip should cost cause a good few times teksi driver will say they'll only do it for 5 times the price. This is actually sometimes fair enough as at rush hour it's not worth their while trying to get through traffic. Just make sure teksi price goes on the meter.

We figured out buses a bit in KL. Really cheap and adds to the adventure of getting places. Organised bus tour we did whirled us to a rubber tree on the side of the road, to butterfly & insect factory, to a pewter factory, to Batik (clothes) factory, to Batu caves (limestone outcrop with caves and temple & monkies inside). It was good, only problem was we could have done with more time in some places.

Big confusing central bus station can be trickey. Lots of buses (all?) do leave from there but local buses we didn't quite find where to go. At bus stops often a conductor hangs out door shouting destinations. If you yell where you want to go they'll leave you on or tell you what bus to get or where to go. Guide book was a bit wrong just on a couple of buses. We didn't get hold of a bus route guide which would have been handy.

If e.g. want to go tu Batu caves, these buses will be going North so we wanted to get onto roads leading north from centre of city. On bus stations you can see maps and numbers which bus goes where. (but only on the bus stops the buses leave from) Ask teksi driver to bring you to road from which bus will leave from for _destination_.

Scary to see families on a motorbike! Yai! :)

We hired a car for a bit. Car hire guy drove a couple of blocks until we were on main route. All we had to do was go straight straight straight until get onto motorway to go North. Trying to find way in KL traffic would have been trickey. Thinking of one-way streets and finding your particular turn. You have to be very pushy driving, e.g. turning right OR left on road so long as oncoming traffic can give way you make them stop sometimes. But that's grand as it's a little like that in Dublin. There was a bit more to watch with motorbikes. Motorway drive was grand ... only it got HOT after a few hours. We stopped at a motorway stop. Got some mango and guava chopped from a stall. Had milkshakes (yai expensive ones but air-conditioned ones) found where everyone else was eating; in lovely busy big food market only kids & fionn weren't up for that. Tired. Airconditioning had de-iced or at least worked from then on when we drove again.

From Singapore Traffic and Road Signs in Malaysia Driving In Malaysia Singapore drive in Malaysia advice
Road safety
RoadSafetyResearchCentre anout road safety
penalty points? SISTEM KEJARA APAKAH SISTEM KEJARA ? Pengertian Umum : Sistem KEJARA adalah singkatan daripada perkataan SISTEM PENALTI MATA DEMERIT KESALAHAN JALANRAYA. Sistem ini ditujukan khas kepada pemandu-pemandu kenderaan yang memiliki lesen memandu CDL dan Lesen Memandu Percubaan.
USA road safety

Language

Some words we learned:

Thank you	terima kasih
You're welcome	sama sama
Welcome	selamat datang
Hello	Helo
Goodbye	Selamat tingal
I	saya
Toilet	Tandas
street	jalan
hill	bukit
beach	pantai
taxi	teksi
bus	bas
water	air
orange juice	jus oren
pineapple	nenas
fish	ikan
mee	noodles
nasi	rice
roti	bread? indian pancakes (Daire liked them (actually we all did))
cat	kucing
tiger	harimau
snake	ular
monkey	monyet

English-Malay Vocabulary Quizzes English-Malay Vocabulary Quizzes Good BUT for mozilla colours and characters were a bit off. A bit of hacking and I might maybe fix it.

Travlang English - Malaysian TravLang Bahasa Melayu untuk pelancong (English)

Learn Foreign Languages Online: Language Exchange Community Simple, everyday phrases in Malay.

malaysian pgoh.free.fr pgoh malay english
The Malay for CHEESE is KEJU (KAYJOO) Imagine they cage you for stealing cheese.

Nationmaster.com British-and-Malaysian-English-differences
asiaosc.org Malaysian_Proper_Noun_List Bahasa_Melayu_word_list.html

Misc links

I Am Heng Kamat's House of Pictures

The Malaysian Star It was quite surprising to us how everything was done through English still.

Shopping, bargaining. I'm not sure have things changed? Many shops now the price on things is not really up for bargaining. Some places yes, especially stalls. Though it's more bargain back down from tourist price offered. heh! :) Advice on bargaining from a Dutchman.

Other stuff

TMB - Tropical Medical Bureau Ireland - Vaccinations and Health Information for the International Traveller

Pointing in Malaysia.