Sydney, Singapore and Malaysia Pics

Sydney harbour. No shit.









Singapore's Chinatown







Singapore - rains daily at 3pm











She's happy











...happier











Hindu temple, Singapore







Looking the part at Raffles...












Transvestite karaoke in Melaka, Malaysia







Taxi!








Petronas Tower, KL. Simply awesome











Kuala Lumpur. Personally I wouldn't piss on it if it was on fire











Kapas Island, Malaysia. Really rather lovely








The barbecued quail stuffing contest winner








Mosque stuff, Kuala Besut, Malaysia











Living like the stars on Kecil, Perhentians









Long beach, Kecil, where the young things go...







Garbage disposal, Malaysian style






See that big scaly monitor lizard? Emily didn't.
This was the smaller one, the bigger one lived under the cabins and was over 2m long











Petani beach on Kecil. Which we shared with one other couple and seven baby blacktip sharks








Sequel to Snakes on a Plane - Sikhs on a Boat










Parachute chaos on Langkawi beaches








Langkawi coastal views










Jesus for rabbits, apparently

'Ok, which one of you pissed on my saddle?'

Not pigeon?

Where do I join?

Malaysia - Pulau Kapas and Perhentians

rgh, just been lunched on by a huge mosquito. You know when they're in the middle of sucking your blood and infecting you with tropical diseases and then you splat them in the act and they expolde and blood goes everywhere and you go 'DAMMIT, the little bugger got me'? That's where I was. Right now I'm perched precariously on a bench on the beach trying to type, but I've just realised that I've sat down in the middle of the red ant capital of Pulau Perhentian Kecil. Also there are these staggeringly fluorescent yellow aphids running around (meals on wheels for ants?) so am covered in small tickly bugs and bites. Am a bit worried that they will try and get into the computer and blow it up, as they just sent it a crack aphid team on recon ( though prob not as part of a conspiracy, only because they are stupid) Am just glad we're on the beach and not in the jungle because there was a big storm last night Malaysia is famous for its leeches and I am not a fan of things that feed from my blood.

We're staying at Pentani Chalets on Pulau Kecil ('Little Island') in the Perhentians, which is a nice little beach place run by a South African and her husband (anomaly: all the other foreigners in Malaysia are Dutch). We shook loose several bones on the boat trip over (despite being told by a local we should sit at the back I decided to sit at the front for the excitement. And the spinal readjustment was free. The island is inside the Marine Reserve so full of lovely sea things (turtles – they even lay on this beach sometimes and it's hatching season RIGHT NOW, rays of all kinds, brain coral, millions of fish and reef sharks – but WHY do people keep telling me this like I should be pleased?!? The ferry guy did the same thing!
Him: Can go out on boat and swim with the shark, you can pet the shark, touch it...
Me: Hmmm...what kind of sharks?
Him: Stupid shark, hahahahaha!

Great. Then the woman who owns this place tells us that twenty feet off the beach where their rope is to mark the snorkelling spot, there is a 2m-plus reef shark with seven babies, nd we can go out and have a swim with her. She might get curious, circle us a few times to check us out (is taking a bite involved in the checking out, I wonder?) but she will then allegedly go away, with her seven-shark entourage. Are we the only ones not getting the shark thing???!?! John's more worried about the barracudas, but the sharks scare the bejesus out of me.

Before Kecil, we came from Kuala Terengganu, capital of Terengganu state, where we is now. It was an alright place, but they had the national games on when we were there so every hotel was booked out (except the truly digusting hostels, and I mean sheets that looked like they'd been in the wars. We found a place eventually that was cheap and clean, and went to look for the flating mosque that is the city's famous attraction. Turns out it is not behind the Sultanate, as it appears in their (doctored) photos of the city, itt is about four k out of town. So we went and found ourselves dinner in the form of a very strange 'Western speciality' restaurant, because it was the only thing open.

We came to Terengganu from Marang, the port town which takes you to Pulau Kapas, 6km off the coast. We spent three days there, unfotunately during the last week of the Malaysian school holidays, so the normally deserted little island was overrun with small children in orange lifejackets. However, there are several beaches, separated by rocky climbs, and we found a haven from school holidays in the form of Turtle Chalets (everry beach place here is callec 'Chalets-something'), run by a lovely Dutch couple on a tiny tiny beach with just enough room for a few sun loungers. They had snorkelling equipment for free use and a book exchange, as well as a great menu! They also had mad staff who liked to catch poisonous animals and play with them, after extracting their stingers. Odd, but we saw some colourful bugs. The coral around the beach was lovely, full of giant clams and lots of fish, but we were also told that the place was full of black tipped reef sharks. I very nearly refused to go in the water at all, but quite rightly realised that I would be very dry for the rest of Asia if I woullnt swim in shark-infested waters. So we went for a snorkel, with me doing panicky 360s every few seconds to scout for Jaws (they told us the biggest shark they'd got was maybe 1.8m, but that's still bigger than me, so I was not reassured).
Nothing doing, except a little barracuda which caused us some running away (they don't bother me so much, except the one that chased me in Honduras, but that was huge and this was only arm-sized). So we were heading back in to the beach when my habitual scan suddenly caught a familiar silhouette. Familiar from famously gory 1970s horror films. I froze, John grabbed my arm (hard, I might add, like I was going to try the panicky splashing away thing that sharks like) and as we watched in silent horror it did that sharky flick of movement, you know, when they suddenly change direction without looking and then they are coming right at you. That one. So it veered towards us and I tried not to look edible, and after a second or two it veered off and slid menacingly through the water (obviously preparing to circle us and attack from behind with bigger sharks as backup). No fear Steven, I'm not even thinking about going back in the water.

p.s. And before John does a feature on it I would like to admit that I ate two whole quails, four chicken legs and four lamb chops at the Turtle Chalet barbecue. And a lot of
Thai noodle salad.

Catching up on New Zealand - JB

Another late or never post, so I'll just recap a few bits Em missed about New Zealand and make a few disparaging comments about places I know next to nothing about.

jb/NZ/North Island/Auckland to Waikato
It's Hobbiton made real. This part of the north island is a relentlessly cute idealised, romanticised, supersized version of rural England with some dramatic bits just for effect. It's so effin' bucolic I can feel my nature allergies kicking in. There's not a blade of grass out of place anywhere. Everything is freshly painted, moved, trimmed, manicured and new, and you never, ever see the Tidy Pixies doing the cleanup work.

jb/NZ/North Island/Caving in Waitamo
We went to Waitomo to clamber about in the caves (usual up 'n down rock thingies, nice enough) and say hello to the glow worms (quite cool, even if they aren't actually worms). We ended up black water rafting, which we definitely hadn't planned to do.

Black Water-ing consists of dressing up in a ridiculous costume (wet suit, caving helmet with headlamp, huge baggy shorts and bright white mini wellies) and climbing down into a cave system 200ft underground with a large rubber ring (?!). The idea is to jump into a foaming, ice cold underground river and be carried through rapids, caverns and tight tunnels in pitch dark for a couple of hours while perched on your rubber ring. Chuck in a couple of waterfall jumps, record water levels, and Em and I both being a long way left of claustraphobic and I'm amazed we did it at all, let alone really, really enjoyed it. S'funny old world.

jb/NZ/North Island/Drinking and playgrounds?/On nature vs nurture

Are we born knowing to put our feet down at the end of a kiddie slide, or is it something we have to be taught? Answers on a postcard to: Em's Busted Tailbone, PO BOX One Sore Puppy, Waikato, NZ.

jb/NZ/North Island/Rotorua/Smelly

Rotorua really stinks. Great to photograph, worth seeing... but by the time the smell is etched into your clothes and even the food you eat, well, sulphuric-swamp-rot fish 'n chips is reason enough to move anyone on. Oh, there's a whole lot of trad Maori food and dance stuff there too, but we left it for the Saga coach parties.

jb/NZ/Driving all over

After Taupo we took a big loop round the visually rather awesome Tongariro national park over a few days days (very pictureskew, bleak and remote) because it was definitely not the time of year to do the trek across the peaks of the two big volcanos. I was so disappointed. I love walking, so much. Really.

The east coast leg didn't start so well as we searched unsuccesfully for the White Island – apparently “Nowhere in the Lonely Planet does it say anything about it only being accessible by boat”. Ah. From there we drove round the Coromandel Peninsula (pretty towns and lovely, long and utterly empty beaches), back past Auckland (stopping on the way at a Go-cart track because Em had never tried) through an nature reserve for average-ish trees (Canadians know how to do trees properly) and on to to Russell in the famous Bay of Islands. By this time we'd both exceeded our twee and cute tolerance threshold and decided to head for the more dramaric South Island.

jb/NZ/South Island/kaikoura

Hate to mention this Chrissy, but whale watching doesn't have to mean sub-zero trips to the antarctic on Russian trawlers. We had a great time in T-shirt weather just off the coast of Kaikoura, plenty of whales up close, plus dolphins and albatrosses for good measure. 130 bucks, free coffee and back in time for lunch. Lovely.

jb/NZ/Did we bungy?/ No we bloody didn't

Call me chicken all you like, there ain't enough peer pressure in the world to make me sign up for bungy jumping. It has all the appeal of genital warts.

JB/ Could you live in NZ?

I keep changing my mind about this. There are so many amzing things about this place. It's beautiful, varied and dramatic and ought to be the prefect place to live home. It's got surf and ski seasons, after all. But...
Every second home is a B&B, every third car is a camper van, and the overall feel is of a giant eco-retirement home for OCD gardeners, it's bloody expensive and way too remote. Anywhere that makes Sydney feel chic and cosmopolitan has some serious issues

Singapore

The flight from Sydney to Singapore is a long one. It was made more painful by the mad Russian couple who spent the entire time yelling at each other across the Australian woman sitting between them. Punctuating their words by punching the seats in front they loudly expounded their (drunken, heavily accented, gibberish) disgust at everything on the aeroplane and in the vicinity, including the Aussie woman. She had clearly decided that drink was the way to deal with them and herself got hammered and aggressive. When it looked like coming to blows, drunk Aussie woman then switched seats with an equally mad Indian woman who spent the remainder of the flight bullshitting her philosophy on life at volume to everyone within earshot (about 250 people). Contemplated hijacking the plane and plunging us into a mountain face as an act of mercy to all on board. (Did I mention the Russians had raging halitosis?)

We got to Singapore at about 11pm, and spent an hour ringing every hostel in town (I kid you not) to find that every single one was out of rooms. So we found a cheapo chain hotel just outside the red light district (but not far enough, as I would discover while John slept like a baby and I was kept awake to the sound of the ladies plying their trade with enthusiam). The next day we packed up our huge, monstrous rucksacks and staggered onto the train, which is cheapish and quick - a single is about 40p - to find a better place to stay. We headed for little India...okay, because I was navigating and wanted to browse the gold markets and eat curry 24/7, and found every hostel full again, so picked up a cheaper hotel across the road from an amazing Indian food place. I say 'food place' because it has no walls and the 'waiter' is about 9 years old. Not quite a hawker but rustic enough for John to look askance!

The air in Singapore was like warm water, until the monsoon started. Then it was just water. Okay, apparently it rains all the time in Singapore, more so June to November, but this was thumping great floods you couldn't see through that went on for about 3 hours! Then the sun came out and it was 30 degrees in the shade again.

We wandered around looking at tat, temples and eating things (becoming true Singaporeans, since the national pastimes are eating and shopping), getting lost and finding some fabulous streets (see pics!). Last night I decided that we needed to go to Raffles Hotel, hangout of movie stars and such from the 30s and 40s...John warned me it would be expensive and I realise inflation has taken its toll on the place because after one drink we got the bill and I squeaked when I realised we could have got four dinners in Little India for two glasses of Tiger!! Then we went down to Clarke Quay, where ll the bars and clubs are, where beer was slightly less! We found a rock and jazz bar with a decent band playing and spent the evening there among the local yuppies and yuppy ex-pats (ok, I'm unncharitable but the area was pretty sterile and stereotypical City).

Sydney

Sydney was an alright place, a bit cheaper than NZ and with a heavy Asian influence, so with really good food! We stayed in the centre of town and spent two days trying to sort out our next few flight dates with Qantas (less said about that the better!). When that was sorted we bought a replacement compact digital camera (ouch!) and went out to see the sights. We went up the tower to get the 360 degree view of Sydney, and it was well worth doing, v impressive from that high up. Though obviously I would not go too near the glass. Loooooong way down.

We went to the Circular Quay bit to see the Opera House (pointy) and Sydney Harbour Bridge (huge), but I vetoed John's 'Skywalk,' idea, which involves clambering all over thing.

Overall verdict on Sydney: we passed through with no regrets.