Monthly Archives: January 2014
PHOTOS with description.
Langkawi Photos
Langkawi cable car view of Sky Bridge, a man made walking platform on which you can get stunning views. Unfortunately this bridge has been under maintenance since 2011 and closed to the public.
View of Langkawi and smaller island from the Cable car mountain.
Sunset watching from the boat and a quick lovers posie.
Panoramic sunset from the boat after a few hours cruising the coast and mangrove routes.
Floating restaurant employee feeding the Sting Ray.
Bat cave.
Not a bad place to come for a coastal cruise. Many westerners cruise around the Asian peninsula’s and coastal islands as part of there round the world voyage or Asian sailaway.
Driving through crocodile cave in the mangrove route.
Female Macaque watching us pass through.
Brahminy Kite flying over and looking to dive for the kill, or in this case…feed.
Kids chilling out on the side of the night market.
Langkawi night market which is located in different areas of the island throughout the week.
Riding through the night market.
Langkawi fisherman turned tour boat driver preparing his boat for the next job.
Taking a break in between ferrying people around the island.
Stunning shot of Vanessa posing on a white powdered beach called Tanguh Rju.
38 degrees Celsius.
Lets go baby.
One of the many view whilst mopeding around.
Sunset beach babe.
Taking the observing to the water. Got to keep cool.
A local muslim family come to relax and observe the days beach activities, Cenang.
Couldn’t really ask for a better first sunset. The colours where unique.
Vanessa soaking it up both mentally and physically.
Sunset worshippers gathering around Pantai Tengah.
Beach bungalow, €18/night.
Penang Island Photos
Van nice and burnt.
Abandoned shack on the quiet beach outside the Penang National Park.
Ours for the day.
Not getting in today.
Search plan.
Skyscape view from Mount Penang just after sunset.
Vanessa stop motion.
Old Town street art not amused by Van.
The infamous work of art of the litter…..for no apparent reason, just good location.
And the milk will flow.
The piercing.
Delicate art.
Lets dance.
Light the way.
Cameron Highlands Photos
Vans fans. Friendly neighbourhood.
Homework.
Flora, one of many beauties in the garden below the mountain.
Failed jump
Accomplished jump.
Breathless photo… no literally.
The Highlands.
Mountain top view of the Highlands.
Trail 10
Human contamination of the water source.
The bliss
The future.
More destruction.
Please share.
Sad sight of a site.
Hostel garden.
View from the hostel garden.
Peecha plant.
Tea Tree!!
Plantation workers quarters.
Hard labour on the plantation.
BOH facts.
Mushroom
View of the plantation valley.
Van and Bella on our Tea Trail.
Fresh harvest.
BOH tea plantation and Indian temple.
BOH tea plantation.
One of our paths are cut short buy a mini land slide and fallen tree.
Van jungle training.
Van SLR training.
Indian family of the blackberry and strawberry farm. Mary with her most gorgeous dog and 5 week old pup.
Daily life in the Highlands.
Van being amused by the name of this church.
A cottage in the bush.
Family Richards from Father’s guesthouse and Gerard’s place.
The spectacular Petronas Towers seen here from one of the side streets after a rain.
Vanessa getting ready for her first proper hot Asian meal.
Chicken Maggi mmmmmmmmmm
View from the food stalls in Chow Kit, KL.
Days 6 – 9: Cameron Highlands
Our 5 day city adventure was thankfully over and it was a relief and a breath of fresh air (and I mean that both figuratively and literally) to be out of the city. Since, due to jetlag, Marc and I had gotten into the bad habit of sleeping late and waking up even later, it seemed like such a daunting task walking up at 7.30am to check out of our KL hostel and catch the bus to Cameron Highlands. In fact we were running so late that we had to sprint through the bus station and made it just in time for the 9am bus. Only later did we realise that Malaysians are about as punctual as Maltese, for the 9am bus actually ended up leaving at 9.30am. Never mind that though, our supposedly 4.5 hour bus ride took just over 3 hours. How is that possible? Simple. Our bus driver must have thought he was on some sort of F1 race track. Imagine an almost empty coach speeding through narrow, winding roads up and over hills, round and round, hooting constantly at every bend (which was about every 10 seconds) to warn any potential oncoming cars that he was coming round very fast. That’s when I realised the importance of those little pink plastic bags tucked into the pocket infront of each and every seat on the coach. Although I really felt the need to use one, luckily, both Marc and I survived the ride without them
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After this eventful journey we arrived at our destination which was a simple but sweet town surrounded by jungle and agricultural hillsides. Our guest house, which was one that Marc had stayed at during his previous visit two years ago, was extremely cosy, clean and comfortable.Â
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Cameron Highlands are basically hill stations famous for their tea plantations and colonial style architecture, as it was discovered by a British surveyor called Sir William Cameron during the British colonial period. With this information in mind I had pictured a boring few days of staring at the vast expanse of plantations and drinking tea. And I don’t even like tea. However, our 4 day stay here turned out to be much more fun and interesting than I had imagined it to be. I will always remember Cameron Highlands as the place where I experienced my first ever jungle trek, which was absolutely amazing. On our first day we trekked to a small waterfall which was quite a challenge as the terrain was extremely steep. The following day we visited the BOH tea plantation, which has 8000 acres planted with tea leaves, making it the largest tea plantation in South East Asia. We also visited the factory to witness how tea is produced and then tasted it for ourselves in a cafe overlooking the plantation site. It wasn’t so bad afterall. That day we also went up to a very high unique jungle called the Mossy Forest. Being so high up, the forest is literally almost always in the clouds, thus making the forest extremely moist and therefore covered in a lot of moss. The clouds also give the whole place even more of a misty and eerie vibe. On the last day we completed another trek up to the peak of a mountain where we had a beautiful view of the jungles and towns around the area.Â
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What made our stay in the Cameron Highlands even better was all the nice and interesting people we met along the way. At the hostel we met a Malaysian woman called Bella who was extremely knowledgable and gave us a lot of interesting information and advice on Malaysia. She was even nice enough to take us round with her car to the tea plantations and the Mossy Forest.
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On our first trek we also came across a little house selling fresh jam and started chatting to the Indian family that lived there. Marc was quite intrigued by what the parents, Mary and Duss, were saying. They were explaining the medicinal uses of some of the plants found in that area. They also told us about the destruction of some parts of the jungle in that area that was happening due to housing developments. We even witnessed this first hand when one of the trails we took led to an opening and all you could see were houses and bulldozers and workmen. Such a pity.Â
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On a more positive note we did start chatting to a Pakistani, an Indian and a Tamil guy, which is an ethnic group found in India and Sri Lanka that have been fighting for independence. While cooking our meal in an Indian restaurant these three men started singing (and singing really well). It was great to see three men from 3 ethnicities that are known to have constant tension between them, working, laughing and singing peacefully together. Marc even managed to get them to sing infront of the camera so you should be able to see it in the next video.
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Camerons Highlands was definitely an unexpected adventure and we really hope we will have time to come back for a couple of days before leaving Malaysia. Having said that, it is now time for some fun in the sun as we head to our next destination.Â
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Until next time !
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– Vanessa –
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Full range of photos can be found on http://www.facebook.com/Casolani360TravelPhotography
KL Radio Tower
KL Radio Tower rotating restaurant, best dining ever.
Days 1- 5 : Kuala Lumpur
After the excitement of Christmas and the long preparation and anticipation of our trip, we set off on our journey on Monday with a smile on our face and – in my case- tears rolling down my eyes. I didn’t think I would be so emotional especially with all the excitement but it’s not an easy thing saying bye to your family knowing you might not see them for almost two years. Anyway, our flight was comfortable but long. During the first one to Dubai we were lucky enough to know one of the flight attendants and he spoiled us with some chocolates and champagne and a little Emirates goody bag. I watched the interesting yet a little bit dragging film on Diana while Marc played some games and watched the documentary Hunt vs Lauda. Our second one, being the middle of the night and with some lingering fatigue from our previous flight, seemed even longer but we managed to sleep through most of it. On the whole I must say Emirates was quite a pleasant experience.
Kuala Lumpur welcomed us with open arms and we caught our bus to the centre and then searched for the train station to get to the hostel for about 20 minutes in pouring rain and thunder. The one thing that immediately impressed me was the distinctive smell there was in the steet of dirt mixed with spices and the extremely friendly and helpful people around us. We arrived at our hostel dripping and tired and only to find out that my expectations of hostels were way too high. Although it is located very close to the train station, the area isn’t the nicest of places. However it is simple, clean (apart from the dead cockroach outside the lift that was there for 3 days) and has a friendly and cosy atmosphere and so I’ve come to really like this place.
The next 3 days were spent doing something I never thought I’d do while travelling: shopping. Kuala Lumpur boasts an extensive shopping scene however we only ventured into one part of it: the tech centre called Low Yat Plaza. 5 floors of mobile, laptop, camera and any other technology shop you can think of stacked one next to each other. Shops look exactly the same and some are even repeated (There were about 4 different Samsung shops on different levels). Marc was in photographer heaven and bought some equipment while I was also tempted into buying the tablet I’m currently writing on 🙂
The following day we finally settled in as tourists and decided to visit Batu Caves which are massive famous caves that Hindus often go to worship their gods. Quite a nice experience but it felt a bit commercially catered just for tourists. At night, Marc and I enjoyed an extremely luxurious buffet dinner in the revolving restaurant on top of the radio tower. First class service, breathtaking views of the city and delicious oriental food together with the most high tech toilet I’ve ever seen in my life, made for a really nice evening.
The next day we randomly came across a food market just down the road from the hostel. I can honestly say that this food market was a disgusting experience that contrasted sharply with the high class, chic experience of the previous night. About 5 or 6 rows of stalls just less than a metre apart selling all types of fruit, vegetables, meat and fish. Piles of dead fish, from big to small, some even still alive and wriggling around on the tables created a horrible stench. All types of meat from beef, including liver, full cow heads and cow skin hanging up, as well as full headless chickens thrown one of top of the other. One box of ginger even had several baby cockroaches running around in it. The floor was full of puddles of dirty water mixed with a little bit of blood from the meat. I walked through holding my nose, trying to avoid getting my feet wet which proved a bit challenging with flip flops. This is KL behind the modern, urban facade that is fed to tourists in a bid to make threm visit the city. For me (Marc wasn’t affected at all) this market was a dreadful place I look forward to hopefully never visiting again, but for these people this was their normal everyday life.
Anyway, on the whole KL is a modern lively city which, like almost every other city, has its rough area that is strikingly different and usually not the place tourists venture into. After 5 days in this city I think it’s time to move on to our next destination….
-Van-
Video: Marc and Van in Kuala Lumpur
Check out the link to view this week’s video.
Marc and Van Explore 