Malaysia Christian

After Singapore I arrived in Malaysia

The first destination was Melaka. Here there is a lot of history from the Dutch, Portuguese and the British. It was a very important place for trading with Asian Countries. I didn't come to stay for long but in the end I was here for 6 days. I met nice people and ate very good food.

Chinatown

Chinese temple

I spoke to a couple of Malay people, they are very friendly and open minded about culture and religion.

It's definitely not the place for a beach holiday. The strait of Malacca is between Sumatra and Malaysia and the water is dirty.

I stayed in a big dorm but there were not many people.

Monkey head

I joined in a local hash run. I didn't know what this was before. U run through the jungle and follow the paper. Somebody did the trail before. Sometimes u have to search for the track because they try to make u loose the track. U can see that my shoes are very dirty, we were running through a swamp. In the end I was first. It's very fun!

The main thing in hash running is not the run, it's the drinking and food afterwards.

When u first join a hash run u have to do some traditional stupid things. I had to take this Buddhas dick in my mouth :-)

After the Buddha I had to sit in a basin filled with ice and had to drink a beer bottom up. 

After all this u go to a restaurant and eat a lot of local food and drink beer.

This guy was playing for the national soccer team Malaysia. He never got paid.

Drinking games

After this awesome time in Melaka I went to Kuala Lumpur.

The Petronas Towers are impressive.

The Petronas Towers from inside

The big Batu caves in KL

Lots of Monkeys around

Who is this? This morning I met my friends Rahel and Roman. We spent the whole day together. It was very nice to see them again before they take off back to Switzerland.

Very big shopping center

Inside the shopping center there is a roller coaster.

After KL I went to Taman Negara the National Park in central Peninsula Malaysia. Nicolas the French guy I met a week ago in Melaka and I want to hike the jungle.

Taman Negara, across the river there is the N.P. .We stay on this side in a hostel.

Floating restaurants. We only ate once here because it's too expensive and the food is not that good. So we went to places where the locals go.

On the second day we went for a short hike into the Park. It's very hot and humid!

On the third day we went for a 2 day hike into the park. We went without a guide to a hide where we can sleep and watch animals in the night.

Nicolas is fighting with the heat and the leeches on the ground. They are almost everywhere and just waiting for a tourist to suck blood.

We didn't expect this! It was hard to hike in the jungle.

Most important thing is a TV in the middle of nowhere!

For only 12km we had 6 hours to the hide.

The hide we slept in this night.

On the next day Nic is the first who to cross the river. There might be snakes in there!

After another 6 hours we arrived in our hostel. We had a lot of beer and whiskey with the local guys. It's not usual to drink alcohol in different places in Malaysia because they are Muslim. So we had to cover our beers. In the end all the locals were drunk but what from ;-)

We left Taman Negara the next day in a very old bus.

With the train for 6 hours through the jungle to Kotah Baru on the north eastern coast.

From there we went to the Perhentian Islands.

We found a nice Bungalow (or dog house) for cheap and direct on the beach. Nicolas is washing his clothes.

The sand there is nice and the water is unbelievable clear.

I went diving

It was a really nice dive till this Trigger fish was exactly like this in front of me and stared in my eyes. The teeth scared me. So I kept on moving away but then this bloody fish started to attack my fins. It was in a way scary but also very funny. I swam away as this fish started to attack the German girl behind me. In the end it was a very nice dive for 50 min and 20m deep.

Snorkeling trip

Big turtles were 6m deep swimming and eating. I was diving down to have little swim with them.

On Shark Point we snorkeled with Black tip sharks. Sometimes there were 3 around me. It was very good!

A stop by the lighthouse. I was jumping down from the top. It was circa 8m high.

In the morning there was a Gecko under my towel.

After a very good time on the Island, Nic and I went to Penang Island on the west coast. Georgetown is a very big city on the island with 1.5 million population.

In little India we found a very good Indian restaurant. Tandoori chicken with a garlic cheese naan bread.

Nic, Iris from Holland and I hired 2 motorbikes and drove around the island.

There was a fruit farm on the way

Yeah...

Snake Temple with real snakes inside.

View over Georgetown.

Big Buddha!

Update June 12, 2011: After almost 3 weeks in Malaysia I'm leaving to Thailand. Malaysia is a beautiful country. Roman is at home and I keep on going. Soon I will go to Cambodia and Vietnam. Nic is off to Sumatra, have fun!