This January/February, we had the opportunity to visit Malaysia. It was never somewhere that we had planned to go, however, we had a week long vacation and a friend who had recently moved there, so it seemed like the perfect excuse.
We decided take advantage of our friend’s car and Malaysian connections and turned the trip in to a road trip. We were going to cover some ground and see as much as we could in the time that we had scheduled.
First, we started in Kuala Lumpur.
We only spent one evening in KL. We visited the Petronas Towers, saw the light show and had dinner. I wish we could have spent a little more time here. However, coming from Seoul means that I wanted to escape the city for a while. So it was off to Kuantan, which is the capital city of Pahang!
On the road to Kuantan, we stopped at the Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary.
We eventually arrived in Kuantan and found our apartment.Word of advice, though, make sure you have asked enough questions of your host before hand. We were in the middle of nowhere and we had no wifi, hot water or air conditioning. We were told of this the morning that we set off on our trip. Sigh. It was fine, though, as we washed using a bucket of boiled water and had a fan on 24/7. I couldn’t even complain about it on Twitter.
We know, though, that travel is not plain sailing all of the time.
We did still have fun in Kuantan.We spent most of our time on the various beaches where we enjoyed a break from the sub-zero temperatures of South Korea.
First on the list of places to visit was Sungai Pandan Waterfall. This was a beautiful spot and a great place to spend an afternoon. I wasn’t as fond of the little fish nibbling on my toes the closer I got to the cascading water.
Later that day, we headed to the beach. The first beach we stopped at was Teluk Chempedak beach. This was really beautiful, it was white and sandy and was lined with pine trees. One other hidden attractions was the fact that we stumbled upon some (frankly terrifying) monkeys.
The Teuk Chempedak area was great for a casual evening. There are buskers, market stalls and lots of lively entertainment.
The next day, we headed to cherating beach. This was a little bit quieter but there was a really nice beach bar that was perfect when the sun went down.
The next day, we set off for the final place on our itinerary. We were off to the Cameron Highlands. This was my favourite place in Malaysia and somewhere that I had been desperate to see, when we had decided to come to this part of SEA. The photos don’t really do it justice but the green tea fields here were just out of this world. They even made up for the lack of hot water at the start of the trip.
The real highlight here is the tea fields (and the tea). Another fun thing we did to pass the time was to pick strawberries.
All in all, Malaysia was a great place to visit. There are some beautiful sights and the people are friendly and warm.
What wasn’t as fun was the 7 hour journey back to Seoul with the baby in the front screaming bloody murder.
Mightbeoversoon 