Malaysia

Back in Malaysia after almost 6 years.

After leaving Bali, we flew to Singapore and were met at the airport by Raja, a friend of mine from work. He gave us the abbreviated local tour as we were in Singapore for exactly 24 hrs. The next day, he graciously drove us into Malaysia (Johor Bharu) where we caught a flight to the North East corner of Malaysia. To travel this distance overland, it would have taken us two days. However, we found an incredible deal on a low cost airline, Air Asia, and we took the hour long flight for the amazing sum of $12 CAD per person. Once we landed, we driven to another coastal town where we caught a boat to the Perhentian Islands where we spent 5 days sitting on the beach and relaxing. It is a beautiful, idyllic island with nothing to do but enjoy the beach and scuba dive. After a little bit of apprehension (I haven't dived 6 years...since the last time I was here), Melissa and I did a quick refresher and went diving. One was enough for her, but I did 4 dives. Nice diving and very cheap. *Random Thought- Everything I write about seems to get related back to price or value...typical accountant.* The highlights were my first wreck dive, swimming in a school of 3 ft barracudas and seeing a stingray. For anyone who has never been scuba diving, please try it if you get the chance. It is an amazing sensation. However, the underwater pressure, was as deep as 23 metres, caused my left ear to become plugged. Kind of annoying, but it will have to wait until I get back to camp to get cleaned out.

After finishing off our beach tans, we headed back to the mainland and on to Kuala Lumpur. Upon arriving at the impressive airport (nicest airport I've been to), I ticked off an obscure goal from my list of life goals. I had been in this airport in 2000 and traveled from Canada going westward. This time, I arrived from the east. Therefore, I have now officially traveled around the planet. Kind of stupid, but I'm kind of proud of it.

KL has got to be my favourite city on the planet. A vibrant city with an amazing skyline covering up grotty little neighbourhoods. After being to Singapore, I can see that this skyline is in direct competition with Singapore's. It's kind of like the pissing matches between the billionaire sheikhs in the middle east. However, KL will never be able to match Singapore in terms of efficiency and cleanliness. It is this haphazardness that I rather enjoy. The people are great (not pushy like the other asian countries I've been to).

As our schedule has it, we only have 2 full days before heading back to Singapore. I wish we had more time, but we are looking forward to exploring Singapore, having already spent significant time in KL back in 2000. We only have two real goals while here. One was to go to the Petronas Towers, the tallest twin towers in the works (88 floors) and the other is to go back to Chinatown to explore. Yesterday, we did the first. We even went up to the skybridge (the walkway linking the two buildings on the 41st floor). Today, we are heading to Chinatown and tomorrow we are off to Singapore via a 7 hr train ride.