Holiday time! Travelling to Malaysia. Qatar airlines insist that a suitcase cannot be more than 23kg even if the other one is only 20kg. So we had to unpack and re-organise! Trolley chap was exceptionally helpful as was the wheelchair lady who got us thru Security quickly. Now James is eating bacon and eggs and I am enjoying chocolate cake and tea. Time to start relaxing now. CT - Doha - Kuala Lumpur. Then the adventure begins. New country, new scenery, new food.
Qatar Airways seems to be fond of changing planes and booked seats! Except for the bobotie served with the 1st dinner, the rest of the food was not great. No service during quiet time e g. Water or Juice. Row 16 with extra leg room was good. Doha from the air was very pretty in the dark. The airport is huge but I had wheelchair assistance (for my knee) so no stopping to see the gardens at the airport. We sort of got dumped in holding spots, waiting for our turn to get to the right gate. Both Doha and KL have very long runways - seems like going to JHB by road! The airports also seems be be 24/7 operations - very busy even at 2am in the morning. The wheelchair to the gate for Doha to KL went on forever with the driver shouting "excuse me", "excuse me" every few seconds!
The wheelchair assistance at KL was very good from the plane and thru immigration and luggage collection. The lady then left us to collect the car hire....really bad signage in KL airport. After asking 2 different people we eventually found the car rental. The car fitted all 3 suitcases plus the 2 hand luggage. Honda 1.5. So thankfully no extra charges. For any damages we need to report to local police. Hopefully 4 weeks stress-free! One needs a card for driving on the highways. Available at gas stations but then 2 of them could not activate the card! So we have an un-activated card.
We were delayed by 1 hr in Doha because of the current conflict between India and Pakistan. The delay was mainly due to increase airline traffic in the area.
The drive to Avani Sepang was quite tedious due to slow traffic. The surroundings are very green with hundreds of palm trees. Otherwise the drive was uneventful even though the road seems to go into a 1 lane like scenario at times. The buildings along this section remind me of India - very scruffy and with that black mould, reminiscent of Zanzibar.
Avani Sepang Gold Coast - we have a lovely 2 bed, 2 bathroom villa overlooking the water. Buggies have to take the luggage or us to restaurants etc as the complex is spread over such a huge area. Long distances!
We enjoyed supper at Sepoi - I had a chicken burger, James had spaghetti bolognaise. We both enjoyed the Kaffir Lime Cheesecake. The fire show is only held Friday and Sat and it was pretty cool.
We totally crashed after supper- between the really long flights, airport waits and the 6 hour time difference ( ahead of SA time) it was time to put our heads down.
Woke up quite late! Went for lunch - I had the watermelon and avocado salad - more green leaves than anything else. James enjoyed his first Malaysia dish - the Nasi Lemak. This is a traditional breakfast dish! Very spicy and messy but he survived. I again had the Kaffir Lime pie and James had a fruit platter with watermelon, apple, orange, Dragon Fruit. High plate and our first taste of Dragon Fruit! Fairly innocuous.
Then another rest to try and acclimating to the time difference. We do have In-Dining options so that's it for dinner tonight. Chicken pizza and a bucket of 6 Carlsberg beers. The beers do actually come in a bucket of ice so nice and cold! Sitting on the balcony, overlooking the sea is extremely relaxing.
Today after our English High Tea and a pedi for me, we headed out. Everything here at Avani takes time as we have to wait for the buggy. And patience is, sadly, not one of my virtues. We were trying to find a fishing Harbour...but all the turn left, turn right, turn left etc. got us nowhere in the end. The other issue in Malaysia is that you need a card for the toll roads - highways. We managed to buy a card but then the fuel (Gas) stations either could not top up or only wanted cash. We stopped at about 4 before we found one with an ATM and then they could not load any data! Eish - a very frustrating exercise. We managed eventually. So best to buy the card from the Car Hire Company, have cash and the purchase from the closest gas station! So now we are safe if we hit a highway at some stage. Road signs are not in English in this part of Malaysia. Our drive was entertaining nonetheless. We saw a Hindu Temple, a Pentecostal Church, heard the call to prayer from a Mosque. Being Sunday most of the shops were shut. It is also Mothers Day here. Many of the restaurants are outdoors, under a canopy, with plastic tables and chairs. There are numerous fruit stalls along the roadside, one was offering a Dragon Fruit Smoothie. They appear to sell after dark as well as there are lights under their canvas "roof". The surroundings are full of palm trees, loads of ferns underneath and then Dragon Fruit Farms. The houses are spaced far apart down these side roads. We saw a scooter guy with a 9kg gas cylinder behind, another with a heavy bag! So they drive with 1 hand only. Mom and Pop may have helmets but the baby in front has zero protection. Traffic was heavy as it seems that the traffic lights take forever to change. Unfortunately I did not have my camera on my lap as we saw a huge "monitor" lizard crossing the road. At first we thought it was a croc! Most odd as it needed to cross 2 lanes to get back into the jungle. So, despite not getting to where we wanted to be, an interesting drive nonetheless.
The beautiful Palm trees are cultivated and can be seen from many of the roads. The British introduced them around the 1870's and today Malaysia has over 600 million stunning trees, producing Palm Oil.
On our travels today we were able to test out our "Touch and Go" Card on the highway toll station. The stations are not manned so you need the card! At the 2nd toll we came to we went into the Debit Card Lane in error - thankfully, there was no traffic behind us so that James could reverse and get into the correct lane. When the boom opens it also shows the balance available on the card so that's a major plus. The highway was excellent with very little traffic.
We stopped at the Blue Lagoon beach - rated 1 in Port Dixon. It was still low tide so the sea was far away. A young couple had written 500 Days in the sand and asked James to take a photo. Rather precious and we hope they make it much further than just 500 days!
The Jeti Delay and Kanpung Teluk Pelanduk offer a pretty Pier, a ramshackle "restaurant" and a small fishing village. Being low tide, the fisherman were repairing nets. Sadly, there were numerous cats lying on the benches on the Pier- looking very sad and neglected.
From this beach we could see some very interesting buildings along the shore. We discovered that this was the Lexis Hibiscus 5 star hotel. With 117 Tower rooms and 522 overwater villas, it looks amazing. Maybe even better than our villa at Avani Sepang Gold Coast Resort!
Finding a supermarket here is quite a mission and then the parking is even more so.
Driving has been 100% - no issues. Nobody hoots in this area - not sure about the major cities. Very different to the noise in India where drivers hoot every few seconds!
A fun drive anyway!
After seeing the young couple celebrating their 500 days together yesterday we thought that it would be an idea to visit the Lovers Bridge in Tanjung Sepak! This is a long, concrete Pier jutting out to sea. The fishing boats can anchor alongside at high tide but there were none today. This is obviously a tourist attraction but there is really no sign of romance - not even a tiny lock attached anywhere. It makes for a pleasant stroll and would perhaps be more interesting at high tide. As mentioned previously, the tide range between low and high is huge here.
The excitement for the day was being able snatch a few quick shots of a water monitor at the fishing village. These monitors can live 10 to 15 years in the wild. They do have venom but it is not fatal for humans. However, a bite from one of these creatures would not be fun. The monitor was not amused that we were standing on the bridge and James could hear it hissing at him! We watched it swim to the opossite bank and it still seemed to be annoyed! With a forked tongue, like a snake, it's a scary looking reptile! Being good swimmers they live around water. Having seen one crossing the road a few days ago we now know that we were not hallucinating - they are real and scary.
The fishing boats were all stacked up along the river due to the low tide. The mud flats were rather smelly.
The Malaysian roads have very many rumble trips in bright yellow plus speed humps. Everything is so green alongside the roads with Palms mainly, dragon Fruit Farms and the odd patch of something else.
Next Stop:
Cameron Highlands.....
For Accommodation Cape Town, South Africa
