What to do in Malaysia?

First stop. Melaka, an old seaside town dating back to 1500s? It was under Dutch, Portuguese & British rule (Not exactly sure but it was colonised & gained independance shortly after the war) so the local architecture, culture & food is quite diverse. It has lost much lustre compared to it's old days as an important seaport now though the Straits of Malacca is still named because of it. Some tourist attraction especially in the old town area where the local authorities try to preserve the old buildings & streets. Several musuems, shops, restaurants etc & there's weekend night markets.

The Straits Chinese or Peranaka(also known as Nonya & Baba) culture here is strong which can only be found in Singapore, here, Penang & small parts of Indonesia. It's a marriage of immigrant Chinese who settled here in the 1800s & with local Malays. They were usually wealthy families, landowners & educated. So they mixed well with Europeans & have strong influence in businesses & politics in the old colonial days.

 

Arial view from the Equatorial Hotel. One of the few tall buildings in town.

Then a Nonya restaurant. Nice decor. Food & prices are reasonable but I'm sure there's better ones. Caters to tourists.

A typical street scene with the old shophouses.

Lastly, the Melaka beach. Has some old villas on the beach front area with some condominiums. You have to drive out of town to get here & there was a crazy traffic jam that day due to some road closures for an international cycling event. You can't really swim here as the water isn't very clear & no facilties to bathing. There's fishermen using a huge V-shaped net catching fishes near the shores & there's some hawkers & horse ridng as well. I found a new & very nice road from the area that leads to Alor Gajar, joining the upper part of the North South highway. Very light traffic & would be fantastic if you have a supercar here. I think it's just been built recently & stretches for more than 20 miles.
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Next stop. Quite a drive up north & had to pass by KL intersection which I almost got lost. There's a myriad of highway networks near the KL city & they are not exactly clearly indentified. You see the direction sign & after miles of driving, no more mention & then suddenly a sign appears within 1km/500m asking you to detour while you're on the 1st lane. To go up north, look for the Ipoh sign. Should have turned out after Sepang exit but I overshot & went towards city made a wrong turn, took quite a while to join back the highway then I think I exited on the which took several turns before joining back the NS again. Anyway, took about 3hrs+ before I reached the Tapar exit where you'll hit the toll & take the mountain road up to Cameron Highlands. There's a refueling station before the exit & you'd better fuel up before going up the mountains. I didn't & was freaked out as the journey took 1hr 45mins & seemingly endless turns with no civilisations in sight & the fuel gauge went to zero as the car tilts!

Anyway, I was quite lucky as there was little traffic going up on a Sat noon. So it was quite a breeze & challenging to drive up the winding roads which are no more than 4m across on a 2way road with the cliff just next to you! It was very scenic with occassional mini waterfalls & farmers' huts. The first refuelling station was almost 1hr+ later in a place called ringlet. A small town with Petronas & Shell fuel station. Some restaurants & small hotels. There are jeeps everywhere!

After few mins drive we arrive @ the hill top tea pavillon & had some hot tea.

About 20mins drive later we arrived @ the first major town called Tanah Rata where the local bus terminal is as well. We droe up again to reach another town called Bersing where a night market thrives & we stayed @ an apartment hotel. Just RM150 for a 2bed room apartment with kitchen, balcony etc. Proper 3-star-hotels charge about twice that. It took me 1hr 45mins to drive from ground to destination which is about 55kms & 5000ft high.

 

The tea pavillon & tea hills. Then, the main town Tanah Rata. The night market viewed from my hotel room. Strawberries farm. Flower & arts/craft market. One of the nicest hotel: Ye Olde Hotel sits between the two major towns. It's Tudor styled & has a beaututiful award winning English garden. The decor is very old English country style & I would love to stay there next time. A night is about RM$450/US$120. Basically, the Cameron Highlands was a mountain resort for the English & they built many villas there. It's famous for it's tea, vegetables, fruits & flowers. Day temperature is about 20 degress C & night falls to 10.
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We stayed just one night & visited some farms. Had the steamboat for dinner & Indian Roti Prata, Tandoori chicken & dorsae for breakfast & we head down hill. We took the northern exit towards Simpang Pulai which is very near to the highway. Was about 51kms down some very exciting hill road. This is a lot better, wider than the old road up from south. It was raining & I couldn't do past 4th gear or 70km/h & mostly around 50km/h. At times, we were even driving among rain cloud! It was a lot of fun overtaking slow vehicles & making turns while watching the valleys below. I would imagine a 4WD car like a Gallardo, 911, WRX or EVOs to handle this route well. Along the way, I saw quite a few vehicles parked by the side so the passengers can "throw out".

I'm glad I took it easy as I read that on Monday, a French man was killed in a Toyota Vios heading down hill which crashed into an opp vehicle. A passenger was killed while the other driver broke a leg & a lady passenger broke an arm. The cars ended in a ditch off the road! It's sad. So, you guys better take it easy when you come up here & don't get carried away.
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Heading North towards Penang. This is about 300kms up north from the exit point before Ipoh. Quite a nice drive & you'll see the Lime hills once within Ipoh area. There are two exits from the highway for Ipoh & they are about 20km from each other with the higher one known as Ipoh Utara (north in Malay). Then, you'll pass by a bridge which you'll see the Sungei Perak (Perak river). After which you'll drive through a tunnel about 1km long. Not far after exiting is this hair-raising part. The highway starts to climb up hill with steep angle & it starts to drop, forming sharp hairpin curves around the mountains with the wall & a steep valley next to you. Everybody slowed down, it was raining heavily, the sign says 60km/h but we were descending fast over 100km/h slowing to 90. It's very much like a highway roller-coaster ride & I hate it when it starts to curve left in a RHD car going downslope @ speed (the momentum seems to push you towards left) & I swear you can see the road in front cutting up your windscreen like a "V" shape. To make things worse, the road is tilted @ an angle towards the valley which makes you feel a little deja-vu. Strangely, I floored the accelerator to no effect (it happened on the return trip as well) the rpm & speed didn't move. It lasted for about 10mins before going back normal again.

Perhaps you guys see more interesting roads before but this is quite a freaking experience for me.
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Our last stop was Penang island. It was a long drive up north from Taiping & the road is quite good except occasional gradients, rain, sun & the rest of the drivers here are just doing little more than a hundred. There is just nothing except oil palm plantations that stretches as far right & left your eyes can see for miles. Very soon, we reach an "Auto City" on the left on a flyover & soon you'll see a lot of modern factories on both sides of the highway; very much like in Tuas of Singapore. The signboards will direct you to turn left towards "Jelutong", Georgetown & you'll see the Penang Bridge. The longest in SE Asia spanning 13.5km that was built in 1986. They are planning a second link! Toll charges again before going onto the bridge & traffic becomes heavy but smooth. Everybody's doing about 70-80km/h. We didn't book any hotels but I read about either the restored Peranakan house Cheong Fatt Zee or the fabulous E & O hotel (Eastern & Oriental). I didn't know how to get there but they are located in the old town known as Georgetown which is to turn right after crossing the bridge. The landmark in Penang Island is the "Komtar", an amazing 65-storey building surrounded by vintage two storey shophouses. If you're lost, use Komtar as the mark & drive towards it. The problem in Malaysia is that many of these old streets are so tight that they convert them to one-way streets & you'll find yourself being forced to a dead end or wrong way, sometimes taking long detours as there's no U-turns! The scooters dart out everywhere as well & locals don't quite bother about traffic lights. Very much like in Paris! The maps don't really reflect some changes & sometimes they would just block the street off! It'll be disastrous if I drive a non power steering F348 here.

Anyway, the traffic here is heavy during peak but slow. Everybody does about 30-40km/h & surprisingly, you don't hear any horns. People just give way to one another. Unlike in Singapore, people horn, stare & make signs @ you!
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Finally, we found our way & checked into E&O in the evening. I opted for the more expensive sea-view @ RM499/night for a basic Deluxe suite. A bargain considering it to be a five star hotel in a majestic old colonial white building built in the 19th century. I would rate it similar to Singapore's Raffles hotel. Surprisingly, it was fully booked due to Valentine's Day & we have to change hotel the next day & we found the Sheraton's for just RM220/night on 18th floor commanding a superb city, sea & mountain view. The room @ E&O is superb with at least 600 sqft, large toilet & a seperate living room, sofa & two TVs! The clashing of sea waves against the shore which is just few metres away from my room was calming & you can see occasional brightly lit cruise ships.
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Food! Yes, we came to Penang not just for the place but food. Penang's rich cultural history is famous for it's street hawker food. There's even a guide book complete with locations, operating hours & photos of the stalls for just RM$15.80? I didn't buy it as I wouldn't know the streets that well. Penang has a few major roads that'll lead you around the island & not too difficult to navigate. The hawkers @ the famous Gurney drive are gone as the local authorities wants to upgrade the area & provide facilities. We found several hawker centres along the way to Batu Ferringhi~beach area that's dotted with hotels & street stalls. To my dismay, Batu Ferringhi is very much like Thailand's Pattaya or typical beach front with hotels, seafood, tourguide, handicraft stalls. There's rental of sccoters & cars available here as well. But I guess business has been bad as they look quite quiet & many vacants. Perhaps not a peak season. Anyway it's about 11km from Georgetown & 15mins drive.

We had dinner in a hawker centre & savoured some local food. Char Kway Teow, BBQ stingray, Pineapple rice etc. Actually they call their noodles as "Kway Teow, Char", "Hokkien, Char". "Char" means fried in Hokkien, a Chinese dialect. The BBQ Stingray in banana leaf uses different spices as the chilli sambal is not so "hot" & they added short beans, onions etc.

We headed for the local famous landmark, Kek Lok Si. One of the oldest Chinese temple in SE Asia with a pagoda & a recently added huge statue of Goddess of Mercy all built on a hill in AirHitam. North west of Georgetown. It was the last night of the Chinese lunar New Year with full moon & the entire temple was decorated like christmas tree! We could see it miles away & people from all over the island were firing fireworks into the night sky well into 3am! Quite a splendid evening. Unfortunately, thousands of people were heading the same direction & there was a massive jam around that area & we had to park hundreds of metres away & walked up & down hill to visit the temple!
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We stayed another day on Penang island as I figured we wouldn't visit it again soon. Found a new shopping Mall called Gurney Plaza, very modern & clean with a Parkson Grand emporium & several modern fashion shops including Versace, East India & AP/Omega watch boutique! Anyway, this eastern part of the island has many huge old colonial bungalows. Some of them has a garden as big as a full soccer field! Many new property developments as well. Medan, the 3rd largest Indonesia city is just 45mins by flight to this island so many wealthy Indonesians live here as well.

We found several more street hawkers & dig this, I saw our famous Geylang Claypot Frog porridge with a shop here! This road is Jalan Macalister, adjacent to Komtar shopping centre. The whole street comes alive @ night with many hawkers & food stalls. We had homemade CheeCheongFan, Penang curry noodles, wanton noodle, fried beancurds, Penang rojak & chendol + icekachang as desserts. BTW, the CharKwayTeow here is "white" & drier than ours. The rojak is different & has fruits such as "jamboo", guava, pineapple, mango.
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We also visited the Penang Hill, taking the century old tram up a railway system. It's 830m above sea level & you get a splendid view of the island, bridge & mainland. There's two hotels, Mosque, post office, several villas & restautrants here. The foot of the hill is near to the Kek Lok Si temple which is in Air-Hitam but you need to make a turn @ a circus run-about. The tram is slow & it took almost 30mins or more to reach the top including a change od train mid-way @ 300+m. Air is cool on top but going down wasn't a joy as the operators don't bother about safety & squeezed so many people into the train & we felt like sardines!
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One of the last landmark we visited was the local Peranakan musuem. Housed in a huge restored shophouse. It's now owned by a private investment company. It cost RM$3million just to restore the sprawling building excluding the more valuable contents of antiques. Entry fee is RM$10. I am a collector of Peranakan antiques & jewllery & what they have is quite amazing. I would rate it better than Singapore's Peranakan Musuem. The amount of collection is simply fantastic and better than any of the musuems & antique shops in Melaka.
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That's about it. After 5days we have to head south back to Singapore. I had to have a last local meal & drove around for hours before I found a "Bak Kut Teh" (Claypot pork cooked in braised tea) stall in the suburbs. A two person pot cost RM$12.00 & they have pork-meat balls as well. Most of the hawker dishes cost RM$3 (it was half that 16yrs ago!) Unfortunately, I didn't find the local Laksa which is more like a Thai TomYum soup.

It took me more than 7hrs of highway driving back which covered about 800+km of road. It was lucky that I knew the traffic police will be waiting out near the JB toll & I kept to the speed limit then. Few cars were stopped including all the usual Sing cars.

The car rental company has good service & got us a private taxi to send us back to Singapore for S$40/car.

Let me know if you guys are planning a trip like this again. I'll give whatever information I can.

 

Oh well, the traffic there is such that anybody can suddenly stop, turn left/right or from opp coming into your lane etc & they hardly signal (I think I'm the only one there & some foreign cars who signals!). So, you got to pay attention but since you're moving quite slow, it's fine. I guess it's the pace in lifestyle in smaller cities like anywhere else. People are more forgiving & taking it easy. We're just too "pressured" in Sing where everybody are rushing for time & buying the biggest car to flaunt who you are.

Anyway, I forgot to mention that I spotted some exotic bikes in Cameron highlands. There were several small groups of big bikes like BMW, Ducati & I even saw an MV Augusta F4 together with a big Yamaha!

 

Found these pictures in my hp. 1st pic is the sambal BBQ Stingray, 2nd is the Bah Kut Teh & last the coffeeshop. All in Penang with the last picture along Jln Kramat, a main city road that connects to centre from Georgetown.
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