Malaysia | Deer Park

Category Malaysia

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Kuala Lumpur to Khota Baharu

Short post, catching up.

The last job in KL was getting our Thai visa. Good for only 14 days if you get it at the border, 30 at an embassy. Relatively painless

New tires, a seat swop and we’re off north to Thailand, yay

We take the highway our turnoff to the Cameron Highlands and the oldest forests in the world, they say

After the turn-off and a twisty ride for 50 miles, BIG trees, super hot and humid

To the one town up here, Ringlet

We went for an explore in the morning. The air’s cooler at 5000′ and every valley is cleared for agriculture, small, medium and large-scale

A great spot

Immaculate

Great strong smell from onions as we rode by

Up to a big plantation

It’s this, tea. I was surprised, in that clueless city boy way, to find out tea is a woody shrub

1000’s of acres, just stunning

Peaceful

The next day was the border crossing. We’re going the unusual way, up the east coast. Unusual because it’s not the way to Krabi and because this corner of Thailand is involved in a long term war with its Muslim minority

Descending off the mountains through dense forest

Back on the plain we pass limestone crags

There’s a dirt road to the base of some so we go off to explore

A Hindu temple unexpectedly at the end of the road

The base

Later, lunch time. This doesn’t look right

But these crazy ladies have a fruit stand

These mostly, rambutan

Yummy, but a big pit in the middle

Even yummier! mangosteen

The next town had sculptures of mangosteen at an intersection, so obviously a big deal around here

A little further

Big logging just like at home, comforting we thought

The daily rain. The clouds build quickly and all hell breaks loose. You wouldn’t believe it

Then to the border and what a mess. Somewhere in this room is someone with a brutal infectious bug as I was to find out 2 days later. Despite having a visa I had to fill out an entry form for immigration then stand in this crowd for an hour. It was well over 100F and hard work. Then off to customs which thankfully was a breeze

Then back out, onto Lucinda and through another lineup. Not the quickest

And into Thailand. An armed crossing, as expected. Very stupid idea to take pictures of soldiers on the job so this is as good as it gets

to Kuala Lumpur

Jul 4, 15 10:17 AM

Exiting Lucinda at Belawan was a little more complicated than expected. As fantastic as Indonesia is, the regulations and paperwork are a nightmare. It takes hours to get simple work done. Administratively the worst country so far.

Lucinda’s boat ride only took a day once she left and we flew Medan/George Town, Malaysia.

We left a few days after Lucinda and paid the fine to the immigration officer at the airport. He counted the bills out under the table, left them under the table, and smiles

We were staying in Georgetown on the left, below, and Lucinda arrived in Penang, on the right

And the green dot in the middle shows where in the world this is, the north end of the Malay peninsula

We meet Mr. Lim (centre, below) at his office then jump on the back of his scooter and head off to customs and immigration over on the mainland. Malaysia is fast, and we’ve processed the Carnet in 10 minutes, immigration another 20

George Town from the ferry

Then we ride back over an enormous bridge (see track above). I used Basecamp to measure it and it’s pretty much exactly 5 miles long. Huge and cool.

George Town is famous for not having sidewalks, just trenches, and great street food, which is called hawker food. A sidewalk

Off to find hawker food, which is done at night

This must be it

It was excellent and we ate here each night, mostly stuff I didn’t recognize. I’d point at something that looked unusual or smelt spicy or both. This is the best food I’ve had since maybe Mexico

It’s a pretty town by day, lots of British colonial history. In fact english seems to be the spoken language. We haven’t done our Malaysia fact reading yet so actually have no idea what’s going on at this point. Usually we’re better prepared but riders say Malaysia’s casual so whatever

After a few days we head south to Lumut

It’s a dull drive and we jump off onto a B road as soon as possible, which is still boring. Light industry and palm trees the whole way. The next day the ride to Kuala Lumpur

Still boring, but there are lilies in the ditches

White this time

And even lotus

We see on the GPS that we’re very close to the ocean so take a detour. We cross a bridge and see this

Egrets in the trees

So go and park down a side street

Fantastic

We walk along the docks and watch a man sort fish while another counts

The keepers

The discards, we think

The view from this station, really nice

Further along the road, a cow, which I suppose is a reason to stop for lack of another

A house at the side

Then down to Kuala Lumpur.

A nice big city, so we wander around and do the tourist thing. The temperature and humidity are moderately high, but not ferocious as they were in Indonesia. First stop, the Islamic Arts Museum. A modest front but a great building inside

The main hall with inverted dome

There were various exhibits, this one arms and armour

Textiles

And batik originates from somewhere near here, maybe, because they had a lot of it on display

Ceramics

The highlight was the book displays. Koran copies from around the world, some 100’s of years old. A few of the most impressive were from Africa

Great displays

A medical book

This is an astronomy book from north Africa

There was a hall of models. 20 mosques from around the world

Mecca in the foreground

And an adobe mosque in New Mexico

Then, another day, the thing we’ve been looking forward to for a while. This is the base

Looking up

Yes, the Patronas Towers! Big Oil, big-ass building. Asian capitalism in its glory, great to see.

A photo off the web

The tallest building in the world from 1998 to 2004 and still the tallest twin towers at 1483 feet. The foundations were the world’s biggest concrete pour until 2007.

We go on a tour. A holographic tour guide at the bottom