Month: June 2019

It’s almost like coming home arriving in Singapore now. We had the frequent visitor pass in our passports so whizzed through immigration etc and off to our hotel. This time we’re at the Holiday inn express, Clark Quay and it’s a great set up here included breakfast buffet is great and as it’s busy they’re restocking frequently, our room is smallish but comfortable and we have no complaints about non maintenance.

The first evening we had an amazing steak dinner together with Allison and her James at a restaurant just downstairs from their apartment at Marina one.

A bottle of wine which we hadn’t had since we were probably there last time went down a treat as well.

We picked up our things that we had left with them, thankfully, as at Penang airport they weighed our carryon and at 10 kilos each were over their 7 kg limit.

So our hi vis vests finally came in to play, we went off got them out of our bags put them on stuffed the many pockets they have full of our iPads, kindles, phones, I put a pair of shoes, raincoats, etc in mine, James had his snorkel and mask in his. Hilarious but hey we got those carryon bags down to the required weight.

Luckily we’re using our frequent flier points to fly business class to the UK so our carry on weight won’t be a problem, apparently we’re allowed two bags up to 23kgs each as CARRYON! As long as they fit the measurements we’re good to go.

Our first morning after breakfast we took off walking around for about two and a half hours. Really the more we come here the more we see, so interesting and it’s easy walking except the humidity. There’s a lot of similarities between the old architecture in Singapore and Malaysia with the Shop houses and street art. There are also a similar mix of religions as well. We walked one street and went past a Hindu temple, a mosque, a Christian church and Chinese temple.

We had a date with our friend Catherine that we met on a day cruise of the Doubtful sound in New Zealand, high tea at the Goodwood hotel near Orchard street. What a beautiful property and an amazing buffet of goodies.

Catherine is another avid traveller and it was a lovely way to catch up, two and a half hours went in a blink.

Back to our hotel to face the final pack for our trip north to the UK and then Spain, plenty of new adventures to look forward to.

Luckily our last day here in Singapore was a public holiday and Allison and her James had the day off so we were able to check out and take our bags to theirs and spend some of their day off together strolling around part of the botanical gardens. It really is stunning and apart from the amazing plants etc we saw big lizards and turtles.

But the humidity got to us all and two hours was more than enough to decide to head back to theirs to relax pool side before we had to say our final farewells and head to the airport to enjoy the Business class lounge before our flight to the UK.

WHAT WE’VE LEARNED ABOUT SINGAPORE.

The more we went the more we saw to like.

There’s still a lot more to do here that is on our list but the humidity really means you should take it slowly.

It’s easy to be here with English widely spoken and it’s first world Asia for those who can’t cope with more basic facilities as found in some other Asian countries.

Cheap food can be found and is brilliant at the hawker markets.

Afternoon tea is a real thing here and not only popular but sensational.

Taxis are cheap and they also have grab and gojek.

The airport is great if you need to spend time there before a flight.

Flights to other Asian countries are easy and cheap from here.

This had been a highlight day of our cruise in 2018 so we were keen to spend a bit more time mooching around and seeing some of the sights we missed on that one day visit.

We booked to stay in an old Shophouse building now run as a guesthouse on Noordin st.

We had a warm welcome and our large room was well appointed and the furnishings were in keeping with the style of the property which retains much of its original charm.

It was a great location for seeing the city but with the heat and walking everywhere draining we booked a scooter after the first day and are keeping it till the end of our stay in Penang. This allows us to keep the walking around for places of interest not just as a way of getting there. We see so much more with the scooter.

Below is the shop we hired our scooter from. They were fantastic and easy to deal with and made sure they gave us rain coats due to the unpredictable weather. We used them several times.

We booked four nights at Noordin st House and it was quite easy to see that for the first three nights we were the only guests, though they tried to deny this. We didn’t see anybody, hear anybody and the dining room was set just for the two of us each morning.

On our last day quite a few guests checked in and of course there were more settings at breakfast and we could hear and see these totally Real people moving about the property.

Unfortunately maintenance was not their forte and a lot of the public areas were in need of repair, cleaning and tidy up, a shame as we particularly booked it as it had a pool but there was just too much green algae around the sides to contemplate a dip.

But! This was a great base to see all of the famous areas of Georgetown and surrounding areas, including the artwork on the shop houses, the clan ferry wharfs, little India etc etc.

A highlight was having Sen and Ana two sisters we met on our Cosmos Christmas tour in 2017 picking us up and taking us to little India for lunch on James birthday, they even bought a cake with a candle to sing happy birthday.

These two awesome girls have traveled themselves a lot over the last six years or so and constantly looking for new places to tour. Their personalities are infectious and we could spend hours talking to them about their lives and travel bucket lists.

Georgetown is great for the architecture of the Shophouses and the six different recognised styles depending on the era they were built. They give Penang a real sense of character and charm.

An English film company was in town filming scenes for a film based on earlier days in Singapore.

We booked after arrival in Penang our last six nights at the Copthorne orchid at Tanjung Bungah. A little out of the centre of Penang and coastal but an easy six or seven kilometres back in if we want to head there.

It’s quite a bit tired but we have a balcony with sea view, breakfast included, a massive pool and a great little village of restaurants, food markets and convenience stores just a five minute walk away.

We did enjoy the sunsets in the evening from the balcony.

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We found a German style restaurant serving huge meals so shared one between us which we often do. Bought in some supplies and headed back to relax and enjoy the serenity.

Our first full day over in our new location we ventured out after breakfast on our scooter and went to places we wouldn’t have seen otherwise and this is exactly what we love. Just riding around wherever we happen to like the look of and discovering little pieces of local life away from the tourist trail, that’s not saying we don’t love ticking of the favourite spots, they’re favourites usually for a reason.

Late Lunch back at the German restaurant was a shared salad and iced tea. Then it was poolside to read and swim, finishing the day with a dinner of British style fish and chips.

There are a lot of great looking little beaches with clean sand along the coast but I’m not sure the water looks that inviting, and there was a sign we saw somewhere about toxic poisonous stingers, not sure if that’s seasonal or not.

As the days drew closer to our leaving date we had one full day not venturing out anywhere new and just going over to the local village shops for dinner and spending the day lounging around reading.

Another day we rode off after a lovely breakfast at a local cafe (breakfast at hotel not that great) and went to the Kek Lok Si Temple. WOWSERS! All I’m going to say is that’s it’s well worth the trip, it’s free and there is quite a lot to see. I’ll pop in some photos of this incredible Hindu temple for you to try and grasp the size and work involved in creating such a wonderful place.

The sheer workmanship alone is hard to take in. The most intricate sculpting in stone is breathtaking.

In one area they had stone statues of the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac. There was also quite a few other stone animals including the very adorable seats with dogs depicted at each end and also some rather strange ones of tortoises mating!

Having enjoyed our breakfast the day before we headed back to the same cafe the next day and met a couple we had spoken briefly with a few days before, as we were both just arriving at the same time we sat together and enjoyed a wonderful hour swapping life stories.

Brian and Sue are a couple about to move to Penang to live after living in Singapore for some years. Originally from the Uk and South Africa their life of moving and living in quite a few different countries was fascinating. Certainly hope we catch up again sometime somewhere.

From breakfast we took off on our scooter north up through the mountains and past the tropical fruit farms including Durian farms, which you smell as you get closer to the side stalls selling them.

The first photo below is a tree with Durians growing,they have been covered by newspapers to protect them before harvesting.

We stopped several times to take photos and put raincoats on and off as the weather changes very quickly here as in most of Asia. We rode into little villages on the flat and located next to rivers where the colourful boats were moored up, we sighted a large monitor lizard, wild monkeys swinging from branch to branch, as we rode around the winding roads up and down one mountain and the next, completing a circle ride of about half of the island before arriving back safely to our hotel to give our bums a rest.

Our last day began with breakfast with Ana and Sen in Georgetown, we ate like kings and queens for next to nothing and loved every minute spent with their exuberant personalities and zest for life.

We left them with promises to see them again and a possible road trip in Malaysia together or who knows maybe meet up overseas.

We drove into the centre and had a coffee and I purchased another pair of trousers from the lady on the Chin Jetty.

Not sure if I should have as two days later in Singapore I found the first pair had repairs needing where the fabric has pulled away.

This is becoming more of an ongoing joke as I bought two pairs in France they lasted less than a month, I bought two pairs in Bali one didn’t last a week. The other made it to two weeks.

Oh well that’s life…

After my quick purchase it was time to hand the scooter back and get back to our hotel for some packing and relaxing before heading out for our last meal in our local town.

The Copthorne Orchid hotel had a great pool and fairly comfortable room but it’s very tired and putting a bandaid on the problems as they come up isn’t satisfactory for either the guests or the staff.

WHAT WE’VE LEARNT ABOUT MALAYSIA.

It’s a great mix of cultures.

It’s pretty great value.

It’s countryside is cleaner than Bali.

English is pretty widespread.

The architecture is interesting.

The people are friendly.

There seems to be a lot of empty apartments.

Some families are living on the equivalent of $400 Aus a month.

As with a lot of Asia maintenance on properties including hotels doesn’t seem to be a priority.

The temples are incredible.

The countryside is beautiful.

Kuala Lumpur was an easy flight and once again we used the grab app to get around. This had been more expensive than taxis in Phuket for some strange reason, so it was great to find them excellent value in Malaysia.

Our hotel was the Park Royal serviced suites and we were soo comfortable there. It was really a one bedroom apartment. The hotel boasts two outside pools, one on the rooftop with incredible views of the city lights at night.

It’s Ramadan but it’s the first time we hadn’t felt in the least bit uncomfortable about eating and drinking during the fasting hours due to the mixed population.

We quickly found a local cafe/ restaurant which was to our liking and ate there most of the time Feeka is the name should you be in the area.

We were always warmly greeted with a “welcome back” to this very popular and incredibly well priced establishment. The food was so delicious I told them if I lived in KL I would never need to cook again.

We spent the rest of that day just checking out the local area on foot and planning our two days itinerary.

One disturbing feature was a homeless man obviously drug affected who sat on the side walk in the same spot the whole time we were there. His underwear was non existent and his trousers completely ripped from the front to the back fully displaying his genitals for everyone to see. I’m not sure what the go is but he seemed to be getting given food from someone.

We spent our first full day getting dropped off at Central market which from where we were able to walk and see lots of the sights. Temples, mosques, little India,Chinatown and the markets where the Muslim folk shop for clothes etc.

We visited a beautiful Hindu temple just as they were starting their prayers and were not hurried out, just allowed to observe quietly.

A huge downpour saw us huddling under an awning before getting a ride back to our hotel.

Our last day we took a grab to the Bantu caves where they have recently painted the stairs going up in bright colours making it a great photo opportunity for tourists and devotees as well.

The Bantu caves has Hindu temple inside and wonderful gold statue at the bottom of the stairs all adding to the charm.

There are monkeys there, a lot of monkeys and they work for peanuts! Had to say that as it’s what James quoted while we were there.

A lovely gentleman was selling bags of peanuts for five Malaysian ringette and was the best cheap entertainment ever.

The monkeys were very gentle on the whole and we had great fun feeding them one peanut at a time.

Actually we thought it was a highlight of our stay in KL.

From there we took a grab to Colmar Tropicale YES WELL let’s say it was a lovely drive in the countryside but the resort village of Colmar Tropicale was a HUGE overrated experience. At new it was probably a pretty place to wander and grab a meal but now it’s a pretty sad affair with most places shut or should be. We had a coffee and walked around and sad to say that took up half an hour and we were out of there.

Glad we hadn’t booked to go there on a tour! Fancy wasting several hours in a dilapidated ghost town with nothing to do.

Back to our favourite Fekka for late lunch and again for dinner.

Breakfast was included at The Park Royal suites but to be honest it was very ordinary.

We felt we could have spent more time in KL so will keep it on our stop over break list.

Next stop PENANG, MALAYSIA.

PHUKET, was the first of a few destinations we chose to spend our remaining time in Asia once we decided that we would go early to the UK to spend their summer there house sitting. The trip would be two weeks Phuket,3nights Kuala Lumpur then ten nights Penang Malaysia before heading back for two last nights in Singapore.

We got some great flights on Skyscanner covering this segment of our travels. All four flights for around $230 each.

We arrived at Phuket airport after paying to upgrade our seats for extra leg room at around 9:20 pm. The exit through was very quick and with quite a drive to Patong we were glad for that.

We have never been to Phuket before and hadn’t done a huge amount of research.

We chose to stay in Patong beach for our first three nights and then book on from there.

Hmmm. What can I say about Patong except it’s not really our scene.

Our hotel The Tropica bungalows when we arrived was right opposite the beach and in the hub, great we thought, lively surroundings for a few nights, until we were escorted to our very well appointed room where we couldn’t actually relax due to the throbbing thud thud loud music coming from the parallel Bangla road with its night clubs, bars and sex shows.

We were quickly back at reception and changing rooms and although smaller was a lot less noisy than the last one, the thud thud was NEARLY covered by the sound of our aircon and ceiling fan.

It’s a real shame as the hotel is lovely, great pool, great room amenities and the included breakfast buffet is excellent. Around $56 a night.

The first full day we spent walking the area and having one very expensive coffee at The Coffee Club, we worked out taking all into account the mug of flat white was around $10.

We ventured out after our first full day but our second night for about an hour but after being harassed a hundred times for ping pong ball and live sex shows decided we’d seen enough of Patong night life and headed home, only to be assaulted by the morons next door drinking outside and carrying on till 6am. At about 4:30 I had finally gone to sleep as the thump thump finishes at 4 am to be woken at 5am by morons singing take me home country road!

Our last day saw us very sleepy and not tooo motivated. After another excellent breakfast we rested in our room, swam in the pool, went out for another extortionate costing coffee before we found a local family mart that made a half decent one for 30 baht or around $1.50 .

We went out for an early dinner around 5 pm again as we had done the day before as again hadn’t eaten since breakfast and a nice meal on the beach with a glass of wine went down well. We watched the last of the days parasails as the sun set over the beach and by the time we arrived home the thump thump was just starting up as it was 7 pm.

While we were out we booked our next three nights in Karon beach staying at The Baan Karonburi and another three nights at the Bandara Phuket beach resort. We’ll see how they go before booking on again, but want to spend our last night at least nearer the airport with our early morning flight to Kuala Lumpur on the 21st.

The weather gods haven’t really been favourable here so far. The first day had a lot of rain and the second day overcast with just a short shower in the afternoon.

Karon beach was sooo much nicer than Patong even though in distance it was really not far at all. It instantly felt more relaxed and the beach looked a lot more inviting with cleaner looking water and some waves.

We didn’t actually ever sit on the beach there or swim in the surf a closer look at the dirty water going in from storm water was enough to put me off and we actually hired a scooter for two days and went exploring more of Phuket.

We followed the coastline up towards Naithon on one of the days and decided that we would spend our last night here due to its proximity to the airport.

The other day we rode the coastline south and then across to the Big Buddha.

Here they have cleverly given free admission but you can buy a copper coloured leaf to write your name and date on and tie to one of the many trees covered in these thin metal leaves. There were literally thousands of them and looking at the dates they must clear them at the end of each year as they all had 2019 on them.

The views are awesome as expected as there is a view of The Big Buddha all around the island.

I’m so glad that James has ridden bikes most of his life as I would hate to be riding in Asia with no previous experience.

The one thing we noted was that a lot of the beaches and villages looked great from a distance but up closer are suffering from that lack of rubbish removal that you find in so much of Bali etc. a real shame. We were beginning to feel that this would likely be our only trip to Phuket as we were hoping to find something cleaner than Bali but with similar pricing. So far that wasn’t being the case.

We had booked three nights at Bandara Phuket beach resort after speaking to some fellow Aussies whom had just stayed over this way. Luckily for us we decided to check it out.

What a find. The area is more exclusive private villas than teeming with resorts and as it’s the off season fairly quiet anyway. The beach is clean and water a lovely turquoise and our hotel was excellent value. If only it had the great breakfast buffet of the hotel we had in Patong it would be perfect. Breakfast is included and there are choices just not as great as the other hotels we’ve stayed at.

We walked along the beach and quickly decided we would book another four nights and just take a day trip to Phi Phi Island.

We took the photo below as everywhere we go we seem to find a bar called The Ship Inn.

The food from the menu here has been great value and a good choice (unlike the breakfast) and with two drinks for price of one between 12-2 pm and again 5-7pm meaning $5 cocktails we’ve been happily going through the cocktail menu.

We again hired a scooter for a day and checked out a bit more of the area, not finding anything we liked better than where we are, so it’s kindles out and relaxing before we fly for three nights to Kuala Lumpur on the 21st May.

We did take a day trip to the Phi Phi Islands and great value too as it’s low season 2000 baht (around$100 Aus) each instead of 3200.

Transfer from hotel to port with coffee, tea and bikkies while we wait for all the transfers to arrive. Then onto the speedboat and away…..

Maya beach has been closed to tourists but they still take the boat in to have a quick look and photo opportunity along with Viking cave . A couple of really great snorkelling spots including two hours on an island and buffet lunch at Phi Phi Don complete a wonderful day and the weather played nice. It was a full boat of around 30 and James and I along with one other Australian couple were in a real mix of Asian tourists , USA and even the Bahamas was represented. One thing we’ve noticed in Phuket is the large contingent of Russian tourists.

Back to our hotel in time for happy hours 5-7pm and it was a three cocktail night Swith a spicy pasta for dinner ending a great day.

The photo below is the hotel at night and Anna the lovely waitress who was just delightful.

We spent our last two full days basically pool side. The Saturday was Australia’s Election Day and most of the Aussies here we’re keeping each other updated.

Outside the front of the hotel each evening they put on a bit of street food and music and two nights we’ve gone down to eat.election day was a Buddhist holy day and no alcohol sold at hotel or local family market so it was fruit juices and an alcohol free day, actually there were beers in the minibar in our room James thought about them just as we decided to go to bed…

WHAT WE’VE LEARNT ABOUT PHUKET.

It’s not as cheap as Bali.

It’s good to travel here early off season to get great hotel and tour deals.

Don’t stay at Patong… EVER

a scooter is a great way to get around as taxis are expensive here.

Research research research for the cleaner beaches.

Stay close to airport if you have an early flight.