6- Singapore: Singapore Slinging

For the next part of our trip, we hopped on a bus and crossed into Singapore for the weekend. Free accommodation and a catchup with friends being the incentive. We visited here four years ago on our way to Australia for the same reason and did a lot of the touristy items. So in other words Donagh is the bookends for our time in Australia.

Singapore’s a super clean, super efficient city. Very developed four years ago, even more developed now. Took a nice walk through the city, the highlight being the Marina Bay Sands hotel, which looks over one side of the city. To visit the top is $50 and to use the infinity pool at the top you need to stay the night which is ~$500, unfortunately not on our budget. Maybe on the next round the world trip!

As we commuted through Singapore we noticed that they now have loads of TVs in the carriages, most of which play bizarre cartoons with weird jingles on repeat for the journey. We were highly entertained by them but I’m sure if you had to listen to them a few times a day, the novelty would quickly wear off. On closer examination we realized that these cartoons and characters were created especially to teach Singaporeans how to behave on trains or in our terms, how to have manners! So without further ado, I present the stars of these cartoons

* Move in Martin (i.e. move further into the train to allow more passengers on)

* Bag Down Benny (i.e. put your bag down on the ground so you don’t hit anybody with it)

* Give Way Glenda (i.e. give way to passengers leaving the train)

* Stand up Stacey (i.e. stand up and give your seat to someone who needs it)

* Hush Hush Hannah (i.e. please shut those annoying cartoon characters up….. or maybe not!)

By luck or design our timing coincided with a Christmas party for Donagh, MF and their friends. Thankfully they had costumes ready for us so that we could partake. Lucky us! What lovely little elves we make.

As Singapore is so cosmopolitan it’s home to some more great food, fell off the travelling bandwagon in the company of Donagh and MF- beautiful steak on Friday night (budget, what budget!) and then on the Sunday at a famous Indian restaurant. No plates, just good food served to you on a banana leaf. Sure why not!

And so we leave Singapore after another too short trip and head for Japan to introduce ourselves to sumo, samurai and sake.

Click here to see a selection of photos from our Singapore trip

Our route: Bus from Melaka to Singapore, fly Singapore to Tokyo

5- Malaysia: No Malaise at all

Welcome to Malaysia. Another stop on our Asian adventure. This time we begin gently in the paradise island of Langkawi before we use public transport to get ourselves across the country and down to Singapore- no flashpacking with drivers here! 

Langkawi is a beautiful spot, white sandy beaches, turquoise water- you know yourself, the usual! Quite a relaxing few days with a bit of touristing thrown in. Did some island hopping between islands- there are 104 in the archipelago so got to see a bit of variety, similar views to Halong Bay in Vietnam, gorgeous. Another day we rented a car to drive around the island. Quick and easy way to do it, visited a few of the less built up areas, some waterfalls and even called into the hawker night market for dinner.

When we think of Malaysians we generally always think of the shawls they wear- it gives the women a very distinctive look. One of the things that really surprised us when we got to Georgetown in Penang was the lack of them around the place. When we read up on it, we discovered that it’s primarily Chinese in Penang- on enquiring further we found out that there are almost 7 million Chinese in Malaysia, an insane number and it can be clearly seen around the place- they really are taking over the world!

Georgetown was one of our favourite spots so far. I described it as Asia’s version of Melbourne- famous for their food, their street art and as mentioned above, has loads of Chinese! Since 2008 Georgetown has been a UNESCO world heritage city, one of the campaigns they have run in the last few years was to encourage artists to do street art around the city. There are now fifty plus pieces around the city and has become a bit of a tourist trail to go around and find as many of them as you can. As with all art, some of it is very cool and clever while others is…….. an acquired taste. Most of what we saw fell into the former category, really cool pieces with characters painted to interact with the buildings and objects around them. Hopefully the photos do them justice.

As I’m a married man now, I’m always trying to impress my wife by bringing her to nice restaurants in town and sampling the local cuisine- in Georgetown you can do just that all while spending very little. Over our three days, we spent a total of $24 on six meals out and the food was oh so good. Eating at markets or restaurants as recommended by the guesthouse turned into a goldmine of good food. 

To give you an idea, the map of Georgetown that we had, listed 109 recommended food outlets so we were not short of choices and thanks to the pricelist we were left with plenty of money left over- I’m sure we’ll spend it quickly in future destinations!

Bus trips between destinations in Asia are always entertaining, most countries have a network of tourist buses or minivans that go between the tourist destinations for a reasonable price. It doesn’t seem to matter which country you’re in- they always seem to find characters to drive the buses and all of these characters seem to abide by a bunch of unwritten rules to entertain or drive to despair the unwitting tourists! 

So without further ado, I give you "The anatomy of an Asian bus trip":

1- You will always receive a pickup time, the bus will never turn up at that time, usually allow 30-40 minutes after the suggested time. Don’t fret, this additional time is always included when they calculate the arrival time

2- Do not expect the driver to take a direct route when a circuitous route is far more efficient! When picking up fellow travellers from other guesthouses, arriving back at the same spot numerous times is to be expected

3- There will never be spare seats on the bus. It seems to be a rule with these companies that they somehow never manage to undersell a bus trip- it’s truly admirable!

4- Trips usually are accompanied by the musical symphonies of the native country blaring out

5- Expect to be amused/ bemused in equal measure

Our driver on our trip from Georgetown to Tanah Rata was not a let down and ticked all of the above boxes- our favourite incident was just after he went through a toll booth on a highway, he decided that was the perfect time to pull over and do some checks on his van! So fifty metres past the toll booth, he pulls over, lights up a cigarette, goes from tyre to tyre and gives each one a good violent kick to (presumably) check the pressure then decided to check the oil, sure what else would you do while smoking!? Thankfully all parts of the vehicle passed his examination- not sure what he would have done had it not passed but it was a perfect place to check anyway. Got to love Asia!

Next stop thanks to our wonderful bus driver was the Cameron Highlands, a pleasant change from the 100% humidity that welcomed us everywhere else- high up in the mountains so nice and cool, main peak we visited was over 2,000 metres above sea level. Nice couple of days seeing the countryside, beautiful tea plantations there, had a nice few cuppas for myself as my wife tried a variety of flavoured teas- word to the wise, there's a reason nobody sells chocolate tea anywhere!

So after ten days in Malaysia we finally got ourselves to KL for a look. Our first big city of the trip (neither Perth or Colombo are THAT big!). A nice city, very modern with a touch of old school thrown in- old temples, market stalls in some parts of city but overall its got more in common with Singapore then Colombo. Did a lot of exploring on foot, so a whole lot of walking, pretty tricky city to navigate through as (1) not very pedestrian friendly, (2) road layouts/ intersections aren't signed very well (3) 100% humidity, (4) I have no sense of direction whatsoever!

Thankfully Aoife is far better with a map and knowing her right from her left so we got around OK. Certainly made me miss Melbourne's lovely grid layout!

With any trip to Sydney we gravitated to the harbour to see the bridge and the opera house, in KL all roads seem to lead to the Petronas Towers. A fantastic set of buildings that tower over the city. At night especially they're an awesome site. They were the tallest building in the world until 2004. Currently the Burj Khalifa in Dubai is the tallest (almost double the height of the Petronas Towers!)- while the Burj Khalifa is an amazing site its kind of bizarre as the views from one side of it are mostly sand, it just doesn't really make any sense to have a building that tall there.  Contrary to that the Petronas towers fit in the middle of this big city and are surrounded by other skyscrapers also. It's got personality and personality goes a long way!

If you want a view of the Petronas Towers then you couldn’t beat having a drink in The Heli Bar Lounge- during the day it’s a helipad, at night it’s a bar! So you could say that at night it’s a Health & Safety nightmare- Oh but what a view. Fantastic having a beer and sitting ten metres from the edge of a 35 story building protected by the might that is a velvet rope- Stay safe everybody! Only in Asia could a place like this exist- could you imagine the paperwork and the laughter in the public servants office if you proposed a bar like this in the western world- we can only enjoy it while it lasts. Please note nobody was hurt in the taking of this photograph!

Anyone who’s been to KL knows that they could spend days thralling through the markets that are here embracing their inner consumer searching for real genuine Jimmy Choo shoes, Prada handbags, ray bans sunglasses, rolex watches etc. I reckon it’s a real indication of when a product has “made it” that suddenly it’s in these markets been hawked for ten percent (if you haggle!) of it’s western price. Since we were last in Asia four years ago, the big product that is now everywhere are Beats by Dre- fancy headphones by the rapper which retail at $400 but are available (if you haggle!) for $30! Out of curiosity I inspected the goods just to see what they were like- in summary the packaging was top notch but the contents of the boxes was chronic, so badly made, they would have fallen apart after a week if lucky, these were not the product that Apple would pay $3b for. You certainly have to give the salespeople credit pushing this as if it’s the real thing especially when everyone knows it’s only the handbags that are real!

Our final Malaysian stop before we head off to Singapore is Melaka, another UNESCO world heritage city (they applied with Georgetown on the one application, saves paperwork!)- a colonial city with Portuguese, Dutch and British influences. A lovely city to walk around but the real highlight comes not in the form of walking around and seeing the history, the temples and the lovely buildings but in the form of the souped up tricked out horror shows that are the trishaws that go around the city! Hilariously kitsch, wonderful eyesores that they are, they are all decked out in themes- “Hello Kitty”, “Frozen”, “Superman”, “Spongebob Squarepants” you name it. Flowers, dolls, sound systems, flashing lights, they go all out to haul you in!

As to why they look like they do, I can’t give you an answer, the only thing it reminded us was the classic Asian habit of follow the leader- our favorite example was when we were driving up the mountains to Kandy in Sri Lanka, one entrepreneurial local must have decided to start a car wash. In order to advertise his car wash he stuck a hose between two rocks, pointed it in the air and turned it on- genius, sure beats a billboard. On seeing the success he was having, all of the locals (we assume!) mimicked this tactic and as such you drive up the mountain passing hose after hose of water flying up in the air trying to get you into their “car washes”! No such thing as a unique idea here.

And if that doesn’t sum up how Asia works, then you definitely must visit to see it for yourself!

Click here to see a selection of photos from our Malaysian trip

Our route: Fly Colombo to Langkawi, Langkawi to Penang, Penang to Tanah Rata (Cameron Highlands), Tanah Rata to Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur to Melaka, Melaka to Singapore

4- Sri Lanka: the Spice is Right

Welcome to Sri Lanka. 

Two weeks here to see a country the same size as Ireland but with a population of 20 million, that's alot of people and a lot of traffic but let's see how we get on. Don’t know that many people who’ve been here but those that we spoke to loved it so very excited. On one of the first days, we overheard a tourist say to a waiter that Sri Lanka is very similar to India, without missing a beat, the waiter replied- “but Sri Lanka has big green parks and the people are happy!” We’ve never been to India so can’t confirm or deny that claim……

Arrived into Colombo on Saturday morning and have until Tuesday to explore the city.  As with lots of these Asian cities, the first impressions are drawn from the chaos on the roads. Such a shock from the peace of Perth! Buses careering down on your left, right and centre, tuk tuks disobeying every rule of the road, written and unwritten, pedestrians tentatively stepping onto the roads hoping to avoid being killed- OK that last part is just us, the locals just stick their arm out, walk across and the traffic seems to avoid them! It’s like a leap of faith. Well for now, I’ve no intention of putting my faith in the hands of these tuk tuk drivers, so I’ll take it one small careful step at a time!

The other way we like to get to know a country is by heading to its markets. Good to see if the chaos of the roads extends into the market place- we weren’t disappointed! Love these markets, so entertaining. Cardboard boxes of fish, huge bags of chilli’s, more pineapples then the man from Del Monte. Along the way, an old Sri Lankan fella started chatting to us, introduced himself as an engineer from the shipyards just out for a stroll on his day off. Nice chap full of information so we were happy for him to walk with us. We were skeptical as is our nature that he was trying to scam us in some way- the shield of the Western World was up in force! As he was a nice fella we looked past the spoofing and gaps in his knowledge:

Us: what religion is this church?

Him: Roman Catholic

Us: Really? Where’s Jesus?

Him: Eh, umm, eh, well I’m Buddhist so I don’t really know, let me ask someone else!

It was only when he suggested that he should bring us to a gem factory that the red alert went off fully- a classic scam to get tourists to buy cheap gems at high prices. We excused ourselves to go “meet friends”- it was then that he asked us for a tip for his services. What services we asked, aren’t you out for a Sunday stroll and work as an engineer? It was then that he demoted himself to being in the boiler room of the shipyards and introduced a sick grandchild. All fun and games. Eventually we parted with $10 for the two hours of “touring” to keep him happy and to shut him up- just a regular day at the markets really!

For us travel between cities in Asia has always been interesting, generally we’ve found it pretty reliable- trains through China, buses through Vietnam, very uncomfortable buses through Thailand (and a few boats too). From what we’d heard, the public transport option consists of spending mountainous amounts of time on terribly old buses that don’t necessarily get you to where you want to go and then leaving yourself at the hands of tuk tuk drivers to ferry you in between locations. As an example, we looked up how long it takes to get from Colombo airport to the city by bus in Lonely Planet. Their guideline was between 1 and 3 hours- when there’s 20 million people and the road network is mostly one lane each way, estimating traffic times is quite an imprecise occupation. In that regard, as we wanted to do things fairly efficiently and hassle free we decided against using the buses and instead gave ourselves a helping hand and far less headaches by flashpacking with our own driver for 5 days. So much easier! Here’s where I introduce our driver for the next five days, Nimal

So with our driver picking us up, it was time for us to explore outside of Colombo. Sri Lanka has a great variety of things to see and do- lots of historical sites and natural sites to view. Polonoruwa was one the first of the historical sites- it is like a smaller version of the Angkor Watt temples, some very cool old buildings, thousands of years old.

Of course to say that all we came across was statues and old buildings would be to gloss over the near death experience we had- the first chapter of that book will be called “The Attack of the Angry Monkey”- the second chapter will be called “What was I thinking snapping a photo in the face of that Angry Monkey?”. The second chapter reads “Not a notion”! 

Whatever I was thinking, it’s a great photo and thankfully a local intervened to shoo him off before he actually got any closer to us, although he was pretty fricking close! We don’t know what sparked him to go ape (!) at us, our driver told us they’re usually very calm but whatever annoyed him, we weren’t sticking around to find out if it was still annoying him. Next site please!

To distract us from the above we moved onto Sigiriya, where we climbed The Lions Rock which stands out over the skyline of the region. Mightily impressive in its own right but then once you climb it you find ancient paintings on the walls and the ruins of an old monastery on top of the rock. It most certainly was a place where you could find your inner peace. Views for miles all around.

Foodwise in Sri Lanka, mealtime is very much curry, curry, curry. It is served for breakfast, lunch and dinner if you so choose- “would you like it with noodles or rice?”, “Potato curry, pumpkin curry, chicken curry, fish curry?”. So many choices! When you do order rice and curry, it comes out with a huge array of accompaniments as pictured. Really gorgeous food…. but maybe not for every meal! 

Of course you can also vary it up by choosing to have fried rice/ biryani instead which was what we did one day in a local restaurant. When we looked around halfway through the meal we realized that we were the only ones given cutlery. Everyone else was scooping the rice off the plate with their hands and feeding themselves. Funny, they were surprisingly efficient at it, not sure it’d catch on at home though!

The next day we dragged ourselves our of bed at 2am to trek up Adams Peak, a pilgrimage the locals descend on the area to do each year, their Croagh Patrick I suppose, to view the sunrise. All going beautifully until about 5am when clouds descended and stayed surrounding the peak meaning that no photos of sunrise were taken, a few of clouds were taken but they’re not as good. Oh well, at least we got some exercise. On the way back down we did get some lovely pictures of the scenery and the peak so definitely not a morning wasted. 

Once we’d descended and got breakfast, we embarked on one of the highlights of our trip- a train journey from Hatton to Ella- second class tickets purchased as the windows (and doors) open so perfect for photography! Amazing views from the train over the four hours- all tea plantations along the way with rolling hills and valleys all around. Racked our brains and we couldn’t come up with scenery we’ve seen that compares to it. Spectacular. 

We did a train journey in Australia a few years back from Darwin to Alice Springs but as the windows didn’t open, you couldn’t photograph anything and it just dulled the whole experience. Where's the fun in a journey like that if you can’t stick your leg out the door and take lots of photos!?

Enough with the sites, next we moved onto animals and spent a day doing a safari in Yala National Park- neither of us had done a safari before, huge amount to see. Our guide came highly recommended as apparently he had a great eye for seeing animals- funny, as far as we could see his main attribute was having lots of contacts in his mobile phone, constantly making and receiving calls to find out where animals were and how he could find them. Not that we’re complaining, between him and his buddies we got to see all we wanted and more! Highlight was coming across two leopards chilling out in the morning sun high up in the trees. Scary creatures- you couldn’t outrun them, you couldn’t climb a tree to hide from them, not sure you could out anything them. Your best chance if being chased would be to be with someone that you could outrun! Thankfully it didn’t come to that. As well as observing the leopards we had close encounters with a few elephants, crocodiles, water buffalo and lots of others. After our earlier experience we stayed well clear of the monkeys!

So this is where we left our driver behind and went the public transport route for last 5 days. Tough times! So here we find ourselves in the beach area of the country down south. We stayed in Unawatuna one of the more developed areas- lovely spot, beach is beautiful, water is perfect. Good for a few days R&R. Spent one day in Mirissa another beach area 30 minutes down the road. If going again, would stay there, much less developed and peaceful and has the most incredible waves. Not good for peaceful swimming but great craic to play in!

Last two days in Sri Lanka were spent in a fort town called Galle. Fort built by the Dutch in the 1600's and the old town is all inside it. Lovely to walk around the entire Fort wall. Great views, very chilled out, lots of art galleries, cafes and things to see around the town. Our favourite town that we visited. Much more sedate then the majority of places where the traffic can just overwhelm. Interesting to read that when the tsunami hit in 2004, the old town (everything inside the 400 year old fort walls) was relatively unaffected but lots of people killed and buildings washed away outside the walls. The phrase they don't build them like they used to is so true its scary around here.

And so ends the Sri Lankan adventure, a great country, lovely people, delighted we visited. Next stop Malaysia.....

Click here to see a selection of photos from our Sri Lankan trip

Our route: Fly Perth to Colombo, Colombo to Kandy, Kandy to Sigriya (via Polonuruwa), Adams Peak, train Hatton to Ella, Tissa (Yalla National Park), Unawatuna, Galle, fly Colombo to Kuala Lumpar