After transferring from the speed boat to a smaller taxi boat, we waded our way up to the beach in intense searing heat in search of a guest house.  We found ourselves a fan bungalow with a deck and a view of the beach and settled in.  We spent four nights on the Island and found the heat almost unbearable to sleep in.  Like most accommodation on the Island, we only had power late afternoon – mid morning, and the water in our cold water shower was so hot in the afternoon that we had to let it run for five minutes before we could stand under it.  Soon enough we discovered a resident in our bungalow walls – a rather large lizard had found itself a home, entertaining for us when it we would hear it scrambling and sliding down the walls when it slipped!  There really isn’t a lot to do on the island apart from the beach and snorkeling, so between the two of us we are slowly reading our way through the James Patterson and Jodi Picoult series’.

We booked ourselves in on a day long snorkeling trip, where we were ‘guaranteed to see sea turtles and sharks’ and headed out to the open sea.  I asked about the possibility of being nibbled on by the sharks but was assured by the guide that they (I kid you not) were ‘vegetarian.’  This did absolutely nothing to make me feel at ease.  The Wikipedia article on black and white tipped reef sharks however, did.

First stop was the middle of the sea where our boat driver searched us out some sea turtles, and we snorkeled with them.  They were huge, with shells about 1m diameter, they were scrounging algae off the barren sea floor (the water was about 10m deep).  They were amazing to see in the wild.  Matt swam down quite deep to touch one of their shells which were quite slimy, and they had a couple of fish swimming with them that feed of the algae on their shells.  It turns out that Sea Turtles are one of the only creatures in the world immune to jelly fish stings, and use this wee gem to their full advantage; they are number one predator of jelly fish.  A few jelly fish incurred blisters later, we decided that maybe we had had enough, but it was definitely worth it!

Next up was a stop at Coral Garden then onto Shark Point, where we were surrounded by about 100 other tourists out on snorkeling trips.  Our guide took us on a 20 minute swim around the reef where depths varied between 1-20m deep.  We swam with sharks up to about 1.2m – pretty neat experience.  They weren’t nearly as curious as what I though they would be, instead they were kind of skittish.  We managed to see lion fish (eek!) as well which was neat, although we had to be pretty careful with what we did with our feet!

Next up was a coral reef where we saw parrot fish, clown fish, swordfish and loads and loads of tropical fish.  I’m still convinced that this is where they filmed Finding Nemo – we saw the whole cast!

Then it was onto a beach where we saw a turtle-egg-laying conservation project.  It was a fantastic day and an absolute steal at NZD$20 each(!)

Now, back to relaxing at the beach…

We found ourselves a friendly guest house with a Pak n’ Save bag stuck on the foyer wall proclaiming ‘Everything we do, we do to save your money’ which was a nice touch, and had a look round town for a few days.  Matt managed to reach a new level of amazing-ness when he managed to knock out his faux front tooth ( http://mattandkylie.com/2008/10/21/yaaaarrrggghhh/ ) licking an icecream. Yep.  A quick ring to insurance to have a dentist recommended and he was back to his toothy self!

Asian Dentistry and Medical services:11  Matt: 0.

Putra Jaya was a strange place, soul less and empty, and as everything was purpose built, it all looked a little too perfect and a little eerie – it is kind of how we envisioned Dubai to be.  It is famous for its buildings – no two of the government ministries are built in the same fashion and there are nine bridges, all in different styles mimicking foreign bridges.

While we were there we saw a fish spa, similar to what we had a go at in China.  I jumped at the chance to have my feet gnawed at by the local fish, but strangely Matt passed up the chance to get his crusty toes nibbled at… something about being to ticklish… perhaps a good thing, the fish were still all alive when we left!

At the first chance, we changed guest houses and found ourselves a nice wee pad down the road with friendly owners and set out to explore the city.  We found that whoever designed the footpaths in KL detested pedestrians, but the malls were something else.  One mall, Times Square, featured a 50 lane bowling alley (we managed to squeeze in a couple of games), huge 10×10m monopoly and snakes and ladders boards, an IMAX movie theatre, normal movie theatre and an indoor amusement park complete with roller coaster, as you do.

We headed towards the (very anticipated) 451.9m, 88 story Petronas Towers where we lined up for 40 minutes to get tickets to the skybridge on the 41st floor.  The bridge stands 170m above the ground and they give away 1400 free tickets every day, first come first served.  All the information pointed to us being there as early as possible, so we along with a thousand odd others were there bright and early at 8am to do the tourist thing.  By the time we made it to the front of the queue, we had the choice of any time after 2pm – we picked 6pm (hoping to see a bit of dusk light action) and went to check out the Petronas educational centre and the Mall at the bottom of the towers where there was a leggo exhibition on, modeling leggo versions of the Petronas Towers, Rome’s Colosseum and India’s Taj Mahal.  We mozied past the ticket queue at 10am… turns out there was no need to be up at 6.30am in search of tickets…!

Once we had seen the promotional video, and had been segregated into groups, we made it to the skybridge via the super-speedy power lift, our ears popping all the way up.  Amazingly, even with 1400 visitors a day, they don’t clean the windows, but we managed to click off a few photos none the less(!)

After a couple of days, we met back up with Sam, Mok, Aux, Lissa and Ross, saw a couple of movies (depending on how new the movie is, at NZ$3-$5, it’s a bargain!), lost Matt in the mall (maybe someone needs to ask for directions when he decided he knows the way and tottles off on his own, becoming stranded on the 13th floor on their own while his 6 friends are looking at him from the 8th?) and hung out on the roof of their back packers.

As for food, we made ourselves quite at home at a local Indian place, Lebanese restaurant, Japanese restaurant and the food carts.  We discovered Rambly Burger, a precision outfit where they cooked to order.  The dude here had class – he would take a fresh meat pattie (chicken or beef), grill it on his clean grill, chop it in half length ways, grill the insides, add salt, pepper and soy sauce, crack open an egg and splay it out to fry it, whack a piece of cheese in the centre of the paddy and fold the whole paddy-cheese concoction up with egg (and more salt, pepper and soy sauce).  After toasting a couple of bread rolls, he carefully laid out cucumber, tomato, lettuce (more salt, pepper and soy sauce), and dolloped the egg/pattie/cheese lump with ketchup and mayonnaise.  All in front of you, made to order for NZ$2.  The good thing about the street stalls is that you can see the food being made in front of you – sometimes it is more hygienic than restaurant food, or at least so they say!

It was down to Sam, Matt and I once again for a day or two after the others had flown to Cambodia before Sam headed back to New Zealand.  So we made tracks to the National Museum (all about Malaysia’s history, economy, arts and crafts), out to Pura Jaya and up the 421m high Menara KL (a tower Auckland Sky Tower style).  We headed up at 7.30 pm for sunset, an amazing view at 276m and said goodbye to Sam who was returning home the next day.

We decided it was high time we did what we do best.  We picked up and high tailed it to Sunway Lagoon, an amusement park segregated into different parks – a standard roller coaster adventure park, a water park, an action park (think paint ball and crazy flying foxes) and a wildlife park.  We bought tickets to the Adventure and Water parks and headed in.  Our tickets were like watches that we strapped on, that you could pre-load money onto for food and drinks – quite cleaver.  The rides looked a little bit average but actually turned out to be really good fun – lots of water slides (not for the faint hearted!), a couple of roller coasters and a couple of others.  One of the roller coasters I managed to get Matt on three times (record!) it had us literally out of our seats (possibly not a good thing?).  On our final ride, Matt decided to take his camera with him – the ride gave the best view of the park, right before plunging into oblivion the photos came out quite well!

The water park featured a huge wave pool, a real sand beach and a massive bucket contraption that slowly filled up with water till it overflowed to all of us sitting underneath it – uber shower!  The funny thing that we found, was that the water was too warm to be refreshing… the swimming pools were like warm baths(!)  Still, really good fun!  On our way out we spotted the teaser to the animal park – the biggest anaconda snake ever – this thing looked like it could eat a person whole!  We left the park and headed through the Sunway Mall, complete with ice rink, and headed back to the hotel.

Our last few days in KL we spent meandering around the town, made our way to the Hard Rock (a swift 12 minute walk there, an hour roll home.  NB the Hard Rock ‘appetizer’ chicken breast = full size meal, and desert should be shared), meandered through China town, did the Merdeka Square walking tour, battled the fierce heat, saw the National Library and visited the Golden Bull – a monument to the Year of the Ox.

On our final night, we headed out to Krispie Kreme doughnuts as a goodbye toast to KL, where they happened to be giving out freebies to people in the queue(!)  We fare welled our our friendly guest house hosts, said goodbye to the friendly people at the Indian restaurant and made our way to the monorail system – we were in KL so long, it felt like we were saying goodbye to a wee community!

When we booked our train tickets from KL to Kota Bharu, due to the school holidays we could only get first class tickets  even ten days in advance (Oh the horror!)  So we bordered the first class train into our very own bunk-bed cabin with a basin and a TV… oh the high life!  We could get used to travelling first class… wonder if we could convince Qantas to upgrade us..?

The seven of us decided to stay at ABC (Air Batang) beach, caught an eighty minute ferry and arrived on the jetty of the primitive, but picturesque Island.  As it turns out, finding accommodation with enough room to house seven people in such a small place is rather unrealistic, so  Matt and I took a small fan bungalow with a private bathroom, veranda and giant mosquito net guarding the bed (and in turn blocking the fan wind) at one place, while Aux, Lissa and Sam shared another bungalow next to Mok and Ross at another guesthouse next door.  At 50 MYR (About NZD $25) we were pretty happy.

We spent three nights out on the intensely hot Island; it was duty free (meaning cheap beer – happy hour = 3 beers for about NZD$5) which kept everyone pretty happy.  Being a Muslim country, alcohol is generally not served in Muslim restaurants, and when it is served in for example Chinese Restaurants, it is pretty expensive.  Matt’s first night on the cheap booze ended in pure Matt style… I headed for bed at about midnight and was awoken by him bashing on the cabin door, looking mournful and helpless claiming he had stubbed his toe (quite badly) clambering over rocks on the beach in the dark.  We sorted that out fine, then the next night when he was in charge of dressing it, he appeared after dinner with it wrapped in silver duct tape.  Apparently a good way to keep sand out and the plaster on.  Note to self:  Do not leave Matt in charge of First Aid.

Our evenings were spent hanging out at a bar (shack on the beach surrounded by plastic chairs and hammocks).  We ate at restaurants over looking the sea and cantilevering over the sea.  One evening I was watching a couple of guys shimmying up a coconut tree to retrieve the goods for a minute, then turned around to take some photographs of the sunset over the sea.  The guy up the tree grabbed an English-speaking guy on a nearby building site and bought him over to me.  He told me that the coconut guy had got me a coconut.  With that coconut guy grinned, held out the coconut to me then scampered back off to get on with the job.  He had cut me a coconut off the tree, cut off the bottom (so I could put it down on a table) and cut off the top so I could drink it.  Made my day!  And was delicious!  I proudly marched it back to the bar where the bar staff gave me a straw and enjoyed it for the rest of the night.

We had been told to watch out for Monitor Lizard, apparently they are quite impressive.  Dear god.  They seriously, looked one generation away from being crocodiles.  Mok went out wondering one day and saw one that he swore was bigger than him, and at least 2m long(!)  We nicknamed him Jurassic, and went back to the little dam a couple of times to try and see him; we think we heard him thumping around in the scrub, but he turned out to be a bit of a shy fella. The funny thing was though, they seemed scared of people; if they were on the path and saw you coming, they would scamper off into the bushes.

The lizards I could quite happily deal with, it was the snakes that gave me the heebie jeebies.  We were having breakfast one day when Ross talked to the owner and produced a photo of a python and a cobra having a scrap on the beach.  Turns out the cobra was trying to bite the python who was immune to the venom.  After a while, tired of being bitten, they python wraps itself around the bigger cobra and starts to squeeze it. 

Cobra: 0.  Python: 1.  Kylie: early stages of hyperventilation. 

They tried to reassure me that this was ‘python country now,’ and the locals told me that pythons would, for the most part, leave you alone.  They then followed that up with ‘but be careful if you do see a cobra, they are very aggressive.’  Neat.  We found a couple of pythons in some trees above where Jurassic lived.  It became a ritual to go and see everyday if they had moved and where to.  You know, just to keep tabs and make sure they weren’t headed towards our bungalow.  Turns out I have a snake phobia. 

When the time to leave came, we were told by the locals that the boat would leave at 12 so we arrived a wee bit early just in case.  Nobody said these things were prompt, and it finally arrived at 2.30. In the meantime, Matt and Aux had time for a quick dip in the sea, jumping off the jetty and into the water for a quick snorkel.  The salt water did Matt’s stubbed toe the world of good and it healed up in the next few days.  We had a brilliant time with friends in a wee piece of paradise.

And thanks to Aux for the brilliant spider photo and the first two lizard photo’s below!