Our Asia Trip Diary – Part Twenty Two
Last week we didn’t upload a travel diary. We were in Melaka (Malacca) for one full week but needed our time to rest and recover. We’ve both been sick, so the blog wouldn’t be too interesting.
Overall Melaka is a very cute town! The old city is full of cute cafes and restaurants and at the weekends Jonker Street comes alive.
On Sunday, we took a bus to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. We arrived in the late afternoon and visited Jalan Alor Night Market, a street full of restaurants and Bukit Bintang Crossing in the evening.
On Monday we started our day at Merdeka Square with the majestic Sultan Abdul Samad building. We walked via the river (at the back of Sultan Abdul Samad) to Central Market. In this covered and air-conditioned hall with shops, we had some lunch.
Afterwards, we walked through Chinatown and ticked off Petaling Street Market and Kwai Chai Hong. We’ve seen a lot of Chinatowns lately and this was our least favourite. It was more of a tourist street full of stalls selling fake brands fashion and cheap clothing instead of food stalls (you can guess which one we like more). Kwai Chai Hong, on the contrary, was a very cute alley, filled with beautiful murals. We ended our Chinatown walk in REXKL, a building that used to be a cinema but houses an intriguing bookstore now!
On our way back to the hotel we visited the Sultan Abdul Samad Mosque. The exterior of the building is faded glory and the paint is peeling off. To have a look inside we could borrow some covering clothes at the entrance.
Tuesday we visited two religious sites located a bit outside the city centre. The first stop was the Federal Territory Mosque (Masjid Wilayah Persekutuan). This majestic building is truly gorgeous. When we arrived, they offered us a free tour of and around the mosque, which we couldn’t dismiss. Our guide took us for two full hours around and told us a lot about the building and the religion. Truly interesting since we both don’t know much about mosques and Islam.
After this visit, we took a Grab (taxi) to the next stop, the famous Batu Caves. We were lucky to have some Indian food before climbing the 272 flights of stairs. Marnick paid a visit to this site a few years ago and at that time you could also visit the Dark Cave next to it. Now, this cave is closed so it was only the temple we could visit. Still worth the visit, because the cave is grand! Hindu temples are always a bit messy if you ask me, so the temple inside wasn’t that impressive.
We ended our day with some yummy food at the Tapak Urban Street Dining. This parking lot is transformed into a food court, and this time, there are a lot of international stalls! We’re quite done with all the Asian food at the moment, so happy us! Afterwards, we visited the famous Petronas Twin Towers. It’s pretty massive and it lights up pretty in the evening! We took some photos here and called it a day.
Wednesday morning we wanted to visit KL Forest Eco Park. When we arrived, the entrance fee was 40 MYR (about €8,50) which we think is quite a lot for just a park… Before buying the tickets we first checked the Google reviews but those were not very positive, so we decided to save our money and do something else instead!
We did some mall hopping starting off with Berjaya Time Square which houses a theme park inside the mall! Crazy! Afterwards, we went to Sungei Wang Plaza, followed by Lot 10. In the evening we went back to KLCC (the park near the Twin Towers) to stroll around here, have some food again at the Street Dining and visit the Twin Towers again for some more picturesque photos!
On Thursday we paid a visit to Thean Houtemple. This Chinese temple is the most impressive one we’ve seen thus far. It’s six levels high and is decorated with lanterns everywhere. From the temple, you have a great view over Kuala Lumpur and there were a lot of young couples taking their wedding photos at the temple.
On our planning, we also had Brickfields (Little India) but we were tired so we skipped that and went directly to Perdana Botanical Gardens. At the botanical gardens, we mostly saw western people and it was not that special. Or maybe we were just too tired to enjoy the park? We did end up seeing some turtles and a monitor lizard after all!
Friday morning we took a bus to Jerantut. From there we wanted to travel further to Kuala Tahan, the village located next to Taman Negara National Park. We couldn’t find any busses online for the second part of our journey… We were a bit scared we wouldn’t get there easily but when we arrived in Jerantut, a tourist minivan was waiting at the bus station that brought us to the park, lucky us!
We quickly found a motel to stay when we arrived in Kuala Tahan. We went by the tourist information point and immediately booked a night trekking. Before some chill time in our room, we crossed the river to buy our license for Taman Negara National Park. This park is one of the world’s oldest deciduous rainforests. So, after some rest in our room, we could go into the jungle!
We had a group of six for the night trekking which was really nice. Our guide sadly had to announce that we were unlucky because of the Malaysian holidays. That’s why there are a lot of local tourists so we wouldn’t see big animals (such as tapirs). But we did see spiders, insects, a snake and lots of scorpions! It was a cool experience to start our jungle adventure!
On Saturday we woke up early to avoid big crowds in the rainforest. We have some breakfast next door and cross the river to the entrance of the park. We have a small hike loop in mind we wanted to walk and were going to do it by ourselves, without a guide. This is because there are plank walks everywhere and it’s really easy to walk around. So in our opinion… not really a jungle. But this was still fun! We ended up seeing some squirrels and woodpeckers (did we really have to come to Malaysia to see this?). Our first stop is at the world’s longest canopy walk. We arrived here at 9am, right as they open. Apparently, more people had the same idea as us, as it is already quite busy and there is a big line. Luckily only four people are allowed per bridge each time, so on the walk itself, it wasn’t too busy. After this, we walked up for about a kilometre which was super heavy! We sweated our asses off when we arrived at the top for a nice view over the national park. The trekking was nice but all in all, it wasn’t really a “rainforest experience”. Still cool though!
Sunday we took a bus to Cameron Highlands. This small village lies 1,5km above sea level and is surrounded by many plantations! The mountain roads were extremely nauseous inducing and we were glad to be out of the minivan. Cameron Highlands is mainly known for its huge tea plantations, there are also lots of strawberries to be found. So, the coming week we will be exploring here and we are excited!
See you in our next blog!
