Malaysia – Meandering Maxwells

Our next travel day was taking us from Singapore to Kuching on the island of Borneo, in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. We arrived at Singapore airport with loads of time before our flight as we wanted to have a good look around. I’d been to the airport once before in 2009 and enjoyed the butterfly garden then and was keen for Joey to experience it as well.

We went straight to the Malaysia airlines desk to drop our bags and there wasn’t much of a queue but they were so slow. One desk was manned by someone who was giving out stroppy teenager vibes. There was a problem with her desk and she got out to go and speak to her manager and she did it in a manner that really resembled Kevin the Teenager from Harry Enfield.

We eventually made it to the front and were immediately asked for proof of onward travel which we didn’t have. As usual we only had a vague idea of where we going and when but had nothing solid booked. We explained that we were planning on catching a bus to the Indonesian side of the island and then intended to fly to Java but they wanted proof, so we had to quickly panic buy a bus ticket. We only had WiFi and Joey quickly found a site to book a ticket, only it was such a cumbersome site that it was only when we received the email we realised that we’d booked a ticket from Indonesia to Malaysia. Not what we needed! Now I stood over him whilst he was booking it so I know he put the right information in but somehow a glitch switched it! We tried again and eventually we got a ticket proving our exit. We managed to check in eventually and headed off to see the Jewel. We weren’t lucky enough to see the waterfall in action but it was certainly an impressive structure. We also made it to the sunflower garden but we didn’t want to venture to another terminal as we had less time than expected so we didn’t make it to the butterfly garden.

We arrived into Kuching on a Sunday afternoon and we had booked another apartment with kitchen, washing machine and a balcony overlooking the river and a beautiful pool. It was just what we needed as I was feeling the travel burn in Singapore, my feet were blistered from too much walking and I was exhausted. We had planned to do some cool stuff but we opted to choose things that we really interested in doing and spend some time resting.

The next day we got up to go to the Semenggoh Wildlife Centre. The centre was established in 1975 to care for orangutans which had previously been kept illegally as pets or had been orphaned and injured. Since then a number have been rehabilitated and released into the forest reserve and some have even had babies, the orangutans are classed as semi-wild and they spend the majority of the time in the forest but some do appear back at the forest twice daily for supplementary feeds. It was fruit season whilst we were there so the chances of seeing some was reduced, however we got lucky and were able to see two guys, an uncle and nephew and they were absolutely fantastic creatures to watch. We made our way to the feeding area and on our way the uncle was also making his way there swinging above our heads in the tree and I swear that was a sight that I will never forget. We spent 40 minutes watching these two guys interact with each other and feed the fruit that was left for them. They had coconuts which were whole and the uncle picked one up, took it and then bashed it to open it before giving it to his nephew. His nephew was pretty lazy – he kept pestering his uncle to get him more food! They were also given bananas and cartons of milk! Watching those guys get the cartons, open them and then pour them into their mouths (but mostly miss) was incredible. I had tears in my eye as it was so joyful to see these creatures. We also got to witness the little guy do his business! It was such a magical experience and chatting to the staff there you could really tell how much they loved the animals and the care they took of them. They talked with particular fondness of the oldest orangutans and how she’d been ill recently and you could tell they loved her so much. It was a shame that they felt that they had to justify the fact that we ‘only’ saw two – we felt lucky as it was fruit season and actually it was better because if they’d been loads we wouldn’t have known where to look.

We had a rest day the next day and then the following day we headed off to Bako national park, to get here you can catch a bus but we opted for a Grab to get us there. Grab is the Asian version of Uber and we have been using it for EVERYTHING in Borneo and subsequently Indonesia! Once you’re at the park entrance you then need to take a boat to the start of the trails. Another couple approached us to share a boat which helped to reduce the costs. There are various trails you can do and we picked one which would give us the best chance of seeing Proboscis monkeys. Spoiler alert: we saw no wildlife on the trail whatsoever! The trail was pretty nice, we were deep in the jungle complete with all the sounds of the insects. It was a hard climb up a hill to a viewpoint and then back down and my knees and thighs were dead! We hitched another trail onto this one which took us to a beach but I wasn’t keen on hanging around too long given all of the ‘beware of crocodiles’ signs. We walked back to the start of the trail and bumped into a ranger who showed us what we think was a flying lemur up a tree and he then led us to a viper in a tree! It was incredible to see it and you’d probably have missed it if you’d walked past and I was not keen on getting too close!

We took the boat back and then got a taxi back. We had a day exploring Kuching itself, Kucing in Malay/Indonesia means cat and they really milk it in the city – there are cat statues everywhere! There’s also a cat museum apparently and I’m gutted that I missed it.

We enjoyed our time in Kuching, the city was nice and there was lots to do on the doorstep, I would love to come back another time and explore more of Malaysian Borneo.

Our time on the island of Borneo wasn’t over though, we had a bus to Indonesia to catch! Our friends Wun and David had told us that the town of Pontianak had an equator monument and we were keen to visit. We have visited the Equator in South America so we wanted to do it in Asia too. Our bus ride was pretty good, it was on time and the seats were comfy, we’d got an E-visa online so the border crossing was pretty straightforward. We arrived into Pontianak in the middle of an almighty thunderstorm, it was torrential rain but everyone was still riding their scooters in flip flops just with ponchos on!

We got a taxi to our hotel and enjoyed a cocktail on the rooftop to toast our first night in Indonesia.

The rain gave way to a very pleasant sunset

The next morning we had a packed agenda, we got a Grab to the equator monument and had fun recreating some of our pictures from when we visited the one in Quito. We’re determined to visit the equator in Africa next! We wanted to head back but didn’t yet have a local SIM card to call a Grab so we asked the very helpful staff to help us only there were no Grabs to be had! We went to the office and he called a friend and then printed out a certificate for us to say that we’d visited the equator!

We made it back to the hotel, packed up our stuff and then called another Grab to take us to St Joseph’s cathedral. The cathedral was very modern and we enjoyed our visit. We met a very enthusiastic lady there who showed us around and then proceeded to give us a thousand warnings about walking back and to be careful of muggers on scooters who would slash our bags etc etc etc. she said it so many times that she put the absolute fear of god into us and we were really stressed as we headed off! We headed to a phone shop so we could get SIM cards and the process took so long. In Indonesia you have to register the SIM card and it took about 40 minutes. It was after 11.30am before we finished and we had a flight to catch at 1.50pm! I called a Grab but the app placed our location in a weird spot and we spent about 10 minutes trying to find our driver. Once we found him we asked him if he’d wait at our hotel and then take us to the airport which he was happy to do! We ran up to get our bags and quickly check out and we did make our flight but my goodness my stress levels were high!

As I say earlier Borneo was really enjoyable and we got to see some good wildlife and I am definitely adding it to my return list for a time when we don’t have a backpacker budget!

Well I am very pleased to announce that this blog opens with a smooth, drama free border crossing! Yes we had to change buses twice (once more than expected) but it was a smooth journey. We were picked up from our hotel in Krabi and we met a guy on a bus who was staying at the same guesthouse as us in Penang so he negotiated a drop off at the guesthouse, so nothing to report here!

Our first stop in Malaysia was Penang, a UNESCO site, and we arrived on the first day of the hungry ghost festival, so as we were driving through the streets of Penang we saw people burning piles of paper money and leaving gifts of incense and piles of food on the side of the road. The Hungry Ghost festival occurs during the seventh lunar month and it is said that during this month the gates of hell are opened and ghosts will come out until the gates are closed on the 30th day of the month, so for the safety of ghosts and the living there is a Chinese tradition of worshipping the dead. So it is believed that offering ghosts sacrifices of burning paper money and food (to feed them as they are hungry) will stop the ghosts from causing mischief amongst the living. It was an interesting way to be welcomed into Malaysia!

Penang has a huge Chinese influence and as such has a huge abundance of Chinese temples which was fascinating for us to see as it was so different to anything that we have seen so far on this trip. Penang also has some very British style buildings from colonial times as well as very different quarters such as an Indian quarter – the smells and temples here took us right back to Southern India and I even found myself craving chai! We walked miles round the city exploring all of the different quarters, temples and hawker centres for dinner!

There are some interesting and unusual museums here, including the ‘cool ghost museum’ which we thought would be interesting to visit in light of the Hungry Ghost festival. This museum had displays of various ghosts and the stories behind them and why the tales were told – for example the water nymph story was told to stop children playing in dangerous waters. There was also the opportunity to dress up as some of the ghosts and take photos. There was also the cat art museum which was our favourite, there were thousands of examples of cat art, cat statues and paraphernalia all to be enjoyed whilst listening to various cat songs (such as Smelly Cat from Friends).

We had a day trip to Ken Lok Si temple, this was a beautiful, huge temple that looms down from a hill, it’s the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia and has a huge statue of the Goddess of Mercy, as well as a 7 floor pagoda that you can climb with a Buddha on each floor, these Buddhas differ as they are in Burmese, Chinese, and Thai styles! There’s a lovely tortoise pond here as well which we almost missed but was great to watch those guys climbing in and out and climbing over one another. We tried to get the funicular up Penang hill but the queue was over an hour so we quickly abandoned that idea!

To leave Penang we took the free ferry to Butterworth (back on the mainland) and just bought a ticket for the next bus to Kuala Lumpur. The buses in Malaysia were really nice and easy to just buy a ticket for on the day. The accommodation in KL was looking to be pretty expensive until we read a tip about booking serviced apartments so that’s what we did! We were able to book a really nice apartment with a small kitchen, washing machine and a balcony with a lovely city view including the Petronas towers. The building also had a pool, gym and a couple of small grocery stores so we were happy! You can’t beat a bit of home comfort, especially just after staying somewhere with a shared bathroom! We walked around the city, visiting Independence Square, Chinatown and a very large mosque. The following day we visited the botanic gardens and I was a little disappointed to discover that the orchid gardens were temporarily closed. Ever since I’d worked for the RHS I’d wanted to visit botanic gardens in Malaysia and Singapore and see the orchids.

The main problem with both Penang and KL was that neither were particularly pedestrian friendly. Penang didn’t really have pavements and crossing the road was basically a dash across the traffic, KL did have pavements and pedestrian crossings but most of the time we thought they were broken as they would take MINUTES to change to green, so half the time we would take our lives in our hands and just run across. I eventually got the hang of commanding the traffic to stop by holding my hand up and it seemed to work!

We left KL early to catch a bus to Malacca, another UNESCO world heritage town similar to Penang. This one had a Dutch quarter which I really liked, it was full of buildings all painted red. We also stayed in a guesthouse within a Chinese temple which was different. Again the town was full of Chinese temples which we are really enjoying seeing. I actually preferred Malacca to Penang as I found Penang to be a little grotty.

From Malacca we caught a bus down to Johor Bahru, a town which borders Singapore. The purpose of this was to just stay overnight to give us an early start to get to Singapore the next door. Again this border crossing was straightforward – you book a train in advance to Woodlands, get there 30 minutes in advance and then go through Malaysian immigration, wait for the train, board the train, get off 5 minutes later and then go through Singapore immigration! All very straightforward. Getting into Singapore city itself involved a bus and then a metro. By sheer coincidence our hostel was in the district of Maxwell so we had great fun getting off at Maxwell tube station and snapping pictures of the Maxwell’s at Maxwell.

We’d booked dorms as Singapore accommodation was frighteningly expensive, we booked 6 days ahead and budget options were limited! It was a toss up between dorms or a capsule hotel bed and we opted for the dorm option and I almost cried when I realised it was two thirds of our daily budget! Definitely our most expensive accommodation so far. It was an ok experience, there was free drinking water and coffee so we were happy enough! Again there seemed to be a bit of a lack of fresh air and my sensitive nose can’t cope with all these smelly men I seem to end up sharing with. I was pleased though to finally have a dorm room where I wasn’t the only girl!

We only had two days in Singapore so we needed to hit the sights hard. We started off with another visit to a Chinese temple, this one holding a relic of Buddha’s tooth. The tooth relic is held on the fourth floor and not many people actually make it up there so we almost had that floor to ourselves! There was also a cute little roof garden. We then went to another Hindu temple and similar to Penang it was very South Indian in style. We walked to the river and to the Merlion statue from which you can view the famous Marina Sands Bay hotel. There are lots of sculptures along the river as well such as these boys jumping in and these little cats.

It wouldn’t have been a trip to Singapore with having a Singapore Sling, we couldn’t afford Raffles but we managed to find somewhere with a happy hour. This was just up the road from our hostel and Joey now has a video of me with me saying my made up tongue twister of ‘Maxwell sipping a Singapore Sling in Maxwell Singapore’ for anyone who wants a giggle! That evening we visited the Bay of Gardens for their Supertree light show.

Maxwell sipping a Singapore Sling in Maxwell Singapore

The following day we were back at the Bay of Gardens for a walk around and we visited the flower dome, which also happened to have an Orchid extravaganza on so I finally managed to see orchids in Singapore! We then headed to the botanic gardens and to their orchid gardens! It was definitely worth the visit and I’m so happy to have finally seen these famous places.

From Singapore we were flying to Borneo and of course there’s a border crossing story to follow!

Tag: Malaysia

A brief introduction to Borneo

Orchids and temples galore, from Malaysia to Singapore!