When checking in for my SG-KL flight, they told me the  flight was delayed. The new departure time was 9.25pm, which should still leave me enough time to switch airplanes. My flight from KL to Beijing was departing at 00.20am from the same airport KLIA (there is two airports in KL), with the check-in desks closing at 11.40pm. The lady from check-in changed my seat from the back to a seat on the first row of the economy class section, which would enable me to leave the plane faster in KL.

I tried to find a way to inform China Southern Airlines in KL of my late arrival, to make the switch at the transfers desk in KL a bit easier, though without success. The flight was not operated by China Southern but by Malaysia Airlines.  Gerry tried to call the China Southern Airlines office in Singapore and KL, though that did not bring anything either (thanks for calling though Gerry!).

Time went by, waiting in the international zone. At 9.25pm, the time we were supposed to leave, there was still no airplane. People kept on asking the ground staff for a new departure time, starting to run out of patience. I had a chat with one of the ground staff members too. She was working over hours because all Jetstar flights of that day were delayed a lot. I could imagine how fed up she was by everybody asking the same questions every minute… We talked about my connecting flight and she offered to me to write a letter, stating that it was Jetstar’s failure if I would miss my connecting flight. This way I would be able to make Jetstar pay for my new connecting flight (and yes, I was amazed to hear that the letter arrived at my parents place a few days ago).

9.35pm, 2 hours after the original departure time, the airplane finally arrived. We boarded at 9.55pm, departing at 10.25pm. In the airplane I was sitting next to a nice middle aged business guy who calmed me down a bit. We spoke about what I could do, arriving at KLIA at KL International Airport at 11.10pm.

I rushed to the transfers desk in the international zone where I picked up my boarding pass for my other flight. She told me to hurry up since I had to pick up my luggage and drop it again at check-in (no shit). I rushed through customs, the officer being helpful and processing me fast. At 11.20pm I was at the luggage belt where I had to wait 15 precious minutes for the first bags to arrive. I rushed out with my backpack, searching departures zone and the right check-in desk (damn the airport is big!).

I arrived at the departures desks at 11.42pm, finding them all closed. Luckily I found a guy from Malaysia Airlines who could still check-in my luggage. He gave me the sticker for my bag, ripping off the SG-KL sticker, and told me to bring my bag to oversize luggage. Through oversize luggage it takes only 20 minutes for it to arrive at the airplane. Through normal luggage check-in it would take too long which would mean that my bag would miss the airplane.

Ok, got my boarding pass, luggage checked in, now I could rush back through customs again, stamping out of Malaysia again, having been in the country for 20 minutes to drop my bag. Jeez, how much easier running is with only hand luggage instead of both hand luggage and backpack covered by a flight bag!

After going through customs I was running through the international zone, catching the attention of two security officers who stopped me and asked for my boarding pass and passport. They were obviously not in a good mood and really bored, not understanding the situation. Finally I got at the gate just in time. Boarding was already in progress.

At 00.20am we departed, arriving at Beijing Capital Airport at 6.15am, disembarking the airplane at 6.30, being welcomed by Micky at 6.50am. The flight was operated by Malaysia Airlines. The flight was great, we got food twice, and there were a gazillion rounds of drinks, including wine and beer. I managed to sleep about 2.5 hours of my 6 hours in the airplane. Thanks Malaysia Airlines for having such nice personnel on the ground as well as in the air!

Arriving in Beijing – China, different country, different language, different currency, different phone network, different bed,  the same Micky. Thanks for picking me up from the airport! :) Later more…

Do:
Leave enough time between flights when booking separate tickets yourself.

Don’t:
Run out of patience… :p

The bus from Malacca, Malaysia to Singapore took about 6 hours. Both immigration points went smooth. We could leave the luggage inside of the bus when going through Malaysian immigration. We had to carry our luggage through Singapore immigration for scanning. After immigration the bus driver asked me which if the two drop off points I wanted to be dropped off – I was the only western in the bus. Both names did not sound familiar at all. A English speaking girl from Malacca, working in Singapore, helped me out. We got dropped off somewhere in Singapore at a parking lot with no connection to the subway. The girl, her English name is Tiffany, helped me out again. We took a bus to the subway station where she bought a EZ-Link card for me: a card that can be used for all public transport. I thanked her and we parted ways, taking the subway line in to different directions.

In Singapore I was going to “couch surf” at Ren’s place. Couchsurfing.org is a website where people offer their couch or spare bed/room to  other people registered on this website. Users can write references about fellow users, stating their experience with the other. Great concept (although the website looks a bit 1997 and it lacks 2010-ish features). I went to City Hall MRT station where I bought a local sim card and met up with Ren at starbucks. He was going to host a guy from Sweden too: Dan, who was going to stay for a couple of nights. Dan got dropped off at Starbucks by another Couchsurfing user: Salie. We went to Ren’s place where we had a beer.

The next day Ren had to work and Dan and me met Salie who was going to show us around. We walked from Orchard road to City hall, then to the massive Marina bay sands resort which has a Olympic size swimming pool on top of the hotel, shaped as a boat. On the way we tried to get up a random hotel to take some nice pictures from higher up, which we did not really succeed in: only till 4th floor. The Marina bay information center is located a five minute walk eastwards. It is just opened and there is lots of information available (digital media too) about the marina bay and Singapore itself: worth going here! After that we went to Chinatown, which is not really different from the Chinatowns I’ve been to in other countries, just more expensive. We ended up on Clark quay in the evening, sitting on a terrace, drinking a well deserved cold beer. I did not see Ren any more this day. He left for two nights to Ubud (Bali, Indonesia). He gave me the key of his flat, despite the fact that no one wrote a reference about me on the Couchsurfing website me yet.

The second full day I met up with Ili, another user of the website Couchsurfing.org, she took a friend with her: Tasnim, and later another friend of her joined: Bryan. We went to a lot of places, walking around. A few of the highlights of our walk: the exhibition of Oman, the art museum, up to the 70th floor of “The Stamford” hotel (Swissotel), and the war memorial. We ended our trip through the city at the start-finish line and pit lane of the Singapore formula 1 circuit. Tasnim told me that he was working as a fire fighter and that they were helping out at the Formula one grand prix. He promised me to arrange some tickets for the Formula 1 grand prix of next year! Yay, thanks Tasnim!

Dan wanted to upgrade the memory of his laptop so the next day we went to little India, where a big computer/electronics mall is located. We had lunch in one of the food courts. I kind of fell in love with the concept of food courts and hawker stalls. The concept is simple: a common eating area surrounded by lots of different food stalls offering different types of food, and one stall where you can get drinks. The basic difference between the two is that food courts are a bit fancier and air-conditioned, while hawker stalls vary from just street side places or non air-conditioned. It is cheaper to go eat at a hawker stall than cook at home yourself!

In the afternoon I met up with Gerry, another local. She invited me for a swim at her place in the evening. Next to being lazy around the swimming pool, we watched a whole season of the IT crowd. Whoa, she is the first girl I met who likes that TV show :p!

I did not see a lot of rain, though the next day, was very rainy. The weather made me lazy and I did not want to leave the house to eat so I ordered Mac Donalds delivery: that’s the first and the last time that I will do that, the French fries tasted horrible! Thought the double quarter pounder tasted still nice :p! When it got dry again we went to Orchard road and in the evening I spend some time blogging about Malaysia in the public library close to Ren’s place. I ended up at Ren’s place, socializing with him drinking a few beers.

Sentosa Island, once as a military fort but now transformed into a resort, was my next stop.  As the books say: Sentosa is the closest that Singapore gets to Disneyland, now with a dash of gambling and Universal Studios thrown in. Ah yes, Ren, my host, works at Universal Studios: He is Kung Fu Panda :D In sky train to  Sentosa Island I met a Singaporean guy showing a Japanese girl around. They supplied me with a map and we walked around a bit together. There is several beaches on the island, but coming from the south of Thailand, I was not interested in those at all (though it was pretty hot that day and all the beaches were crowded). Lots of people were being active, playing beach volleyball, soccer, basketball and throwing with their Frisbees wildly.

I have been looking in to the war history of every country I have been to, so that is what I was going to do in Singapore too. Sentosa was used as a military fort before, as described above. During World War II, the Imperial Japanese Army invaded Malaya, culminating in the Battle of Singapore. The British were defeated in six days, and surrendered the supposedly impregnable fortress to Japan on 15 February 1942. The surrender was described by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill as “the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history”. The Sook Ching massacre of ethnic Chinese after the fall of Singapore claimed between 5,000 and 25,000 lives Singapore was occupied by the Japanese until the British repossessed the island on 12 September 1945, a month after the Japanese surrender. The fort, located on the west end of the island, is now transformed into a war history museum. They did a great job, visiting recommended!

In the evening, Filz, another local, invited me to her sister’s boss’ birthday party. He was born on the same day as his friend – who is a singer of the band performing weekly in club Indonchine on Clarck Quay – hence the birthday party was in this club. Later on the evening Ren texted me and Ili called me if I wanted to come to the bridge at Clark Quay, where they were hanging out together with Tasnim and other users of the Couchsurfing website. I joined them for a bit and took a cab home together with Ren later on, he was not feeling well and wanted to have a long session on his own trustworthy toilet :p.

It was a long time ago that I saw some “nature” so the next day Gerry invited me to go to the Botanical gardens. She picked me up with her car at Ren’s  place in the morning. It felt a bit odd to be driven around by a local again, after the car accident in Hong Kong, though Gerry is a much more confident driver :p. We chilled out in the park all afternoon, followed by eating (a lot) at several places. The evening was a lazy evening. Ah yes, the only thing worth mentioning is that I booked a airplane ticket (Jetstar, around $50-55 if I remember correctly) from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur that evening. I did not want to spend 9 hours in a bus there. I did not have my credit card reader with me but I could borrow Mickies credit card (thanks hon!). I would be arriving in Kuala Lumpur 4 hours before my flight from KL to Beijing would depart.

Having spend a full week in Singapore – much longer than I expected – I had seen all the sights worth seeing (except the Zoo because I could not be bothered to see another Zoo). I spend most of my last day in the public library where there is free Internet, sorting pictures I made in Malaysia and Singapore. I forgot to mention before: there is a gazillion hotspots on the airport and through the city, which can be used for free (after registering).

The last day I had early lunch with Ren, thanking him for making his place available to me and I went to the airport in the late afternoon.. More about that in my next post… Thanks for making me enjoy my stay in Singapore, Ren, Ili, Taz, Salie, Gerry, and Filz!

Do:
Use the subway, it’s clean and cheap
Visit Fort Siloso @ Sentosa
Visit the Marina bay information center
Visit the Formula 1 start-finish line and pit lane

Don’t:
Get wasted too much at Clark Quay, it is expensive comparing to any non-Muslim country in south east Asia :p

* Pictures in normal view
* Pictures displayed on Google maps
* Pictures in Google Earth

* Pictures in normal view
* Pictures displayed on Google maps
* Pictures in Google Earth

My so called super VIP bus from Penang to Malacca was very comfortable. Instead of 4 seats (2×2 seats) next to each other, it had wider seats: one on the left side of the walkway and two on the right side of the walkway. The only thing I could complain about was the temperature. The air-conditioning was on full power and I was freezing. I do not have jeans or a jumper with me any more so I used my towel as blanket.

At about 5 in the morning – 1.5 hours away from Malacca – we stranded on the highway. The bus broke down and the driver did not know how to fix it, so we needed to wait for a new bus. After a few hours waiting on the highway, our new bus finally arrived. Due to this – and the super-freezer air-conditioning – I did not catch a lot of sleep.

I arrived in the morning and was so tired that I just checked in to a random place in china town (Voyage, of the same owner as Sama Sama). I should not have done that. It was a big dorm containing 16 beds (I think), costing 15RM. I explored China Town where I met some people who were talking about bedbugs at the place I was staying so I went to Old Town Guest House which I emailed the day before. I thought it was far out of the center but it was still on walking distance. The owner remembered my e-mails from the day before though his place was full. He offered me to put a mattress in a corner of the living room, which I accepted.

In Old Town Guest House I met AJ – an Indian Englishmen – on his way home. He would be leaving Malacca on the same day as me, to take a flight home to London from Kuala Lumpur. I joined him for a walk around the east side of the city. We went to the Portuguese settlement and Square, there is nothing left really, just a parking lot, a few canons and a market place. Next stop was a shopping mall with a nice food court.

In the evening I went to the night market together with AJ and Douglas, another English guy staying in the same dorm at Old Town Guest House. He would be heading to Singapore the next day so I would move to his bed in the 4 bed fan dorm room (for 12 RM, 3 euro, which included free breakfast and water, coffee, tea during the day, and free wifi, great deal!).

The evening market is like any other Asian market, selling most of the same stuff they sell everywhere, though it’s a very good place to go for food. We were almost the only westerns here and there were several people who wanted to take pictures with Douglas or me, some were hilarious :p.

The day afterwards I had a day on my own with lots of walking. I walked around in the main ‘touristy’ area near the Dutch Square. It was very crowded because a lot of Singaporean tourists head to Malacca in the weekend. I Went into the church built by the Dutch, to the stadhuys and up the hill to the Dutch graveyard and St. Paul’s Church on the hill top. Remains of a fort are located on the other side of the hill. There is not really much to see any more. From here I went in to the big shopping mall they built to have lunch at their nice food court (Hokkien Mee).

On my way home I passed the St. Francis Xavier Church where a Mass was starting. My grandma – who turned 90 in January – had a accident where she broke her arm and she was not eating and weak at that moment. I decided to make a detour and attend to the Mass for my grandma. I’ve never attended to an English Mass before. The structure was kind of the same, though much more refreshing than the ones in my little home town. The church was overloaded with people, there were lots of people standing on the sides of the benches, including me. That almost never happens in my home town.

In the evening I did not do that much, I went to the night market to grab some food where random people wanted to take pictures with me again :p

The next day I took a bus from Malacca Sentral to Singapore. When checking out at Old Town Guest House they did not charge me the night I slept in the living room. I paid 24 RM (6 euro) to sleep 3 nights there, including everything. I left at about 1.30pm with the same style of bus I had when arriving in Malacca. It cost me 21,60 RM (5,20 euro) and was supposed to take about 5 hours.

Do:
Visit at the weekend when there’s the night market (though the town is full of Singaporean tourists)
Stay at Old Town Guest House

Don’t:
Stay at Sama Sama or Voyage

Penang is known for its cuisine, reflecting the Chinese, Nyonya (descendants of late 15th and 16th-century Chinese immigrants), Malay and Indian ethnic mix of Malaysia. In addition to this, it is also influenced by the cuisine of Thailand to the north. On the left its me eating a local desert speciality: Ice Kachang.

I checked out of Blue Diamond the next morning – on my way to search a better place. I found a place called Red Inn. It is a fairly new guest house on “Love Lane”, one of the two backpacker streets in Georgetown. Here I booked a bed in their air-conditioned 4-bed dorm for RM28 (a bit less than 7 euro). This included breakfast, and free water, coffee, tea during the day. Francesco checked out too and moved to another guest house because RM28 was too expensive for him he said.

During that day I explored the city together with Francesco, seeing most of the tourist sights in town. This was the first time in a while that I had a tourist map of a town again. When walking through little India we came across a street food vendor where we tried lots of different Indian snacks: Samosa, which is a puffed fried pastry snack which can be filled with e.g. Chicken, Veggies, or Tuna. I tried all of them and liked the Tuna one the most. He was selling green bean and union balls too but they tasted a bit too dry.

In the evening I met up with Stephanie, she lives on Penang and I met her ages ago on a travel website. She took me around the north side of the island by car and we grabbed a white coffee at Old Town Coffee. I had one white coffee before. I really had to get used to its (weak) taste, especially after being used to the coffee in Vietnam, famous for its strength. The hazelnut white coffee I had was quite good though.

The morning afterwards I met two new guys in my dorm: Jan, a Dutch guy and Emrys from Australia. I showed them around, seeing all the tourist sights again, including a few new ones like the Jetty village (not really worth seeing, skip it if you do not have a lot of time).

In the evening Stephanie picked me up from the guesthouse and we went for dinner at some hawker stalls. Hawker stalls are the cheapest and easiest way to eat in Penang. There is loads of them, mostly on walking distance no matter where you are. We ate: koay teow, chee cheong fun, wan Tan Mee, and fried oyster. I liked the koay teow the most: it is a noodle dish, made up from flat rice noodles, whole prawns (and lots of other things..).

Jan left the next day, he was heading to the Perhentian Islands on the east side of the peninsular: a popular scuba diving destination. He will be in Kuala Lumpur around the same time as me so we will meet up again there. Emrys was checking out too: he was going to go couchsurfing (sleeping at a locals’ place) for his remaining stay in Penang. So that meant I had the whole dorm for myself.

That day was quite a lazy day at the guest house, sorted some pictures of Vietnam since I was still not finished with that. Here I met a girl from Germany, Laura, who was looking for a new place to stay. Spend the evening with her, drinking a few beers and walking around: there is not that much to do in Penang by night (just eat, as Stephanie said too :-p). I wanted to go to the national park for some light trekking and to see the turtles which were supposed to be there too. Laura decided to join me the next day.

We took local bus 101 for RM4 (1 euro) early in the morning, which dropped us off at the national park entrance after 1.5 hours. We registered as visitors at the office and we went in to the park without having to pay anything. I was a bit amazed that it was free because I expected to a pay admission free. After a sanitary stop at the office we set off in to the park. It took us a bit more than an hour to get to the west side of the park, where there is a meromictic lake: a lake with multiple layers of water which do not mix. The salty sea water, being more dense, remains at the lower level, while the less dense, fresh water will remain on top. The sea water remains warm while the fresh water remains cool. Pretty cool. It was low tide when we arrived which made the lake small.. and I wonder if there were still two layers of water, really.

Pantai Kerachut (also known as turtle beach) is a less than 10 minute walk away from the lake. It is a great place to see and relax at. There is practically no one. We saw a few local fishers and that is about it. There is a few little buildings near the beach. The one on the far end of the beach is used as a little museum. The gate was locked but the back entrance was opened so we walked in. In front of the building – behind the gate – there was a big box with a netted cover. Inside there were loads of little turtles trying to find their way out. I have got no idea how old they were, though they were really small. We read the documentation in the little museum which told that the mother turtles come at night to lay eggs on this beach. There is a possibility to stay overnight here but I did not have anything with me, just water and my camera, so we decided to go back to civilization: Georgetown. We hiked back, this time me chasing Laura, which made our pace way faster because I did not need to wait every time (:-p). Arriving back in the city we went to Little India to get some Samosa from the same stall since Laura never tried them before. In the evening I had Koay Teow soup, which is a very basic – but nice –  noodle soup served with fish balls in it.

Another day passed, being quite lazy, skyping home to my parents to see how my grandma was doing. She fell down and broke her arm and was being moved from hospital to elderly home to another place again. The moving was a bit too much for her. She had no appetite and was not eating, which made her even more weak. She turned 90 last January. Good to hear through Skype that she was doing a bit better now.

I walked around through the city and had a very nice Wan Tan Mee soup. The soup was much better than the dry version I had from the hawker stall the other day. Being a bit tired and lazy I was sitting on the sidewalk having a coke and looking at the map, trying to find a spot which I did not visit yet. A random old guy stopped to offer me help: he thought that I was lost. The people are so nice here and his English was so good.

Finding a spot on the map which I did not capture on a picture yet, made me take the bus to the east of the island where Penang Island is connected to Butterworth by a  13.5 kilometer long bridge. Here I chilled some with a cold drink in a tiny park next to the sea. After taking the pictures from the bridge I wanted – some including airplanes heading to the airport on the south of the island – I headed to Queensmall located just next to the tiny park where I was sitting. Stephanie is working close to that mall and I met her here for a coffee in her break. At 7pm she had to go back to work: welcome to the mess of working for a company operating in multiple time zones. I walked through the mall in the need for a few new shirts. I bought 3 shirts for RM50 (12 euro). A obviously gay guy was more than happy to help me in his shop.

Now I was already 5 full days in Penang and I saw everything interesting on the north side of the island. This made me decide to take a bus to the south of the island where the War Museum is located. The trip by bus took about 1.5 hours, starting from the bus station at Komtar. It started raining half way. When the driver dropped me off near the war museum it was pouring like crazy. I searched shelter at a house where I waited for the rain to stop.

While waiting for the rain to stop a lady from Hawaii came by. She was supposed to fly from Penang to Langkawi – an island close to the Thai border – but her airplane was not able to land here due to bad weather. They decided to fly back to Penang since it is close. I joined her for the museum. I can be short about it. It is quite a useless museum with too much literal descriptions (like the one on the picture). For this you have to pay RM30 which is so much more than the rest of the “attractions” on the island. I suppose they think that if you travelled all the way to the south of the island and walked up a little hill to get to the entrance, you will not decide to leave without visiting the museum, no matter what the price will be. On the way back I waited 45 minutes for the bus back. I was starving and there were no food stalls close by.

In the evening I joined a British guy –  Keith – currently living in Indonesia with his wife and kids for dinner. He was in the same dorm as me: a entertaining guy. He is living close to Lake Toba. With its length of 100 kilometers and width of 30 kilomethers, it is the largest volcanic lake in the world. and I will go and visit him in November when I am in Indonesia!

The next morning I booked my bus ticket (RM40, 10 euro) from Penang to Malacca, located in the south of Malaysia. My bus left a bit after 10pm on its 8 hour journey to Malacca.

Do:
Get some food flyers and try everything on there :p
Visit Penang National Park (and the turtle beach, Pantai Kerachut)

Don’t:
Go to the Penang War Museum
Stay at Blue Diamond Guest house (unless you really want to do it on a budget)

Ps. thanks for showing me around for a bit and nice to meet you Stephanie and see you again somewhere on this world. :p