Homeward Bound

Monday November 15^th

No, we’re not going to the disco – this is just on the way to breakfast!

We’ve spent our last few hours in Kuala Lumpur – and on holiday – exploring our own hotel and the shopping malls near us.

The hotel is vast  - a little different from the Swansea Marriott! - and is linked to the Ritz Carlton.

Also linked to the hotel is the Starhill gallery with boutiques, art galleries, restaurants and cafes, spas and every designer name you can think of. A watch containing actual material from the moon caught Paul’s eye, but at £38,000 he decided he didn’t need one.

What we find amazing are the very western images of Christmas everywhere – snow, reindeer, Christmas trees, assistants in Christmas hats and so on. In 30°+ heat and 80% humidity it seems quite strange. We forgot to mention the Christmas carols everywhere– including Andrea Bocelli singing “White Christmas”.  You’d get good odds against that happening out here!

So we’re back in the hotel now, writing our last piece for this blog and preparing ourselves for the long journey home. It’s now pouring with rain, so we hope Dave and Sue aren’t experiencing this weather on holiday a little way up the coast.

We’ve had an incredible time and seen and done so many amazing things, and met lots of great people, but we’re ready to come home and catch up with friends and family. We’re even more ready to stop living out of a suitcase!

Thanks to all who’ve kept in touch and followed our adventures. See you soon!

Kuala Lumpur - part 2, Gods and monkeys.

Sunday November 14^th

We’d arranged a taxi for this morning to take us to the Batu caves a little way outside the city in Selangor. Since some of the taxi drivers are a bit dodgy, we paid extra to have ours wait and drive us back.

The Batu caves are high up in a massive limestone rock. It is one of the most popular Hindu shrines outside India. To reach the main cave you pass an enormous statue of the Hindu deity, Murugan. This was impressive! Apparently it's the largest image of Murugan in the world.

We then took the next step – well actually there are 272 of them, and very steep they are too!

Alongside the steps sit numerous macaque monkeys, some with young and all on the lookout for snacks. They’re not averse to stealing whatever they can grab.

They also have enormous fangs and could inflict serious damage. We were half hoping they might teach a lesson or two to the idiots who teased them, or even hit out at them with umbrellas.

The caves open out into huge chambers where numerous small temples and shrines are situated.

The whole place is filled with the scent of incense and if you ignore the few stalls selling gaudy rubbish it’s a beautiful place.

If the steps going up were hard, going down was just as much a problem. Not only are they steep, but they’re shallow too, and the prospect of small monkeys leaping in front of you to trip you up is a little daunting.

Safely at the bottom, we admired the other shrines, temples, caves etc.

There are numerous effigies of the God Ganesh and one huge one of Lord Hanuman, the Monkey God.

Our driver took us back into the city, but we asked him to drop us at the butterfly gardens. He was quite keen to wait there and drive us round all day. It turned out it was his first day in the job. We hope he doesn’t expect them all to be like that!

The butterfly gardens are quite small but are beautifully landscaped and butterflies – some the size and colour of small tropical birds – flit past you constantly.

Trays of blossom are laid out every so often. These are sprayed with glucose and honey as there isn’t enough nectar in the flowers alone to keep all the butterflies fed.

From the butterfly garden we dodged the gauntlet of taxi drivers who assume everyone walking is insane. They may have a point.

We headed for the bird gardens but apart from using their toilets, gave them a miss. We’ve seen so much bird life in the wild, we didn’t really want to see them in captivity. Some are free to go where they want however, and a couple seen from outside were pretty impressive.

 

We were trying to find the Lake Gardens without much success and, ignoring suggestions to the contrary, Sherpa Margaret led us through Hibiscus and Orchid Gardens since the lakes had to be on the other side. The gardens were beautiful though.

Walking through a deer park (without any deer that we could see) we decided we might be going in the wrong direction and asked someone where the lakes were. A very short time later we bought a large bottle of water at the lakeside café.

We took our time walking through the Lake Gardens which are beautiful and very quiet, though thunder was rolling ominously in the distance.

Cash was a bit tight by now after paying our taxi fare so it was good that the water worked out at about 50p. Sherpa Margaret redeemed herself though by leading the way to the main railway station where there were sure to be ATMs – and she was right!

Now that we were loaded once more we decided to splash out on another taxi to get us back before the rain started.

At KL main station, there is an excellent system operating. You go to a counter and state your destination. You then pay the fare and are given a voucher. The taxi driver takes the voucher (to redeem later) and you’re taken were you want – however long it takes. This was brilliant for us as we hit rush hour traffic and getting to the hotel took ages. It cost us 13RM  - about £2.60!

Beer ‘clock again!

Kuala Lumpur - part 1.

Friday November 12th

We left  Australia very reluctantly today, having had an amazing time, but we’ll back for sure. Having said that, Melbourne airport leaves a lot to be desired. We thought there would be loads of shops and places to eat once through passport control. Not so. Fine if you want booze – in fact you could get nicely sozzled with all the freebies on offer!

As for Malaysia Airlines – less said the better. Everyone has sung their praises, but we’ve found the food exactly the same rubbish as any other airline – if not worse. We were given rolls – actually they were more or less thrown at us – but when asked what was in it, the stewardess couldn’t tell us.

Actually, the aircrew were probably the worst we’ve encountered. One in particular marched through the plane, barking orders at passengers – “Sit up! Fasten belts!” It would have been almost funny, but an Indian family with young children (who happened to board the plane a little late) were treated appallingly throughout the flight, to the extent that they ignored the little boy who was fast asleep and didn’t check his seatbelt was fastened for landing. No-one smiled at any passenger the whole 8 hours!

So endeth the rant!

Our driver in Kuala Lumpur to the hotel was the exact opposite. He laughed and giggled for the 1 hour journey and was full of helpful information. So we reached the Marriott in a much better mood – until we discovered that the room hadn’t been booked! This had been the responsibility of the special needs member of the party!

Not to worry – it all got sorted and it’s a great room. So at the Australian equivalent of 3 a.m. we finally got some sleep.

Saturday November 13^th

Great breakfast, incredible dining area (you can’t call it a room - photos later on). Marg had read about a craft complex near here and we thought we could see it from our window so we set off walking. Kuala Lumpur at the moment is a bit of a building site so at times we walked on the road or stepped over piles of sand and cement, but we found it.

Dodging children on their school trips, we enjoyed looking at the crafts inside and watching the craftsmen and women working outside in small units. Unfortunately you aren’t allowed to take photos of them, so this is the best we could do. We would have liked to buy loads of things from here but our cases were on the limit before we even got to Australia!

After the craft complex we headed for the Petronas Towers area. We were too late to get tickets for the Sky Bridge but we’d half expected this as you have to queue fairly early to get one of the limited tickets. Still, the buildings themselves are so impressive, we didn’t mind.

The lower floors are a giant shopping complex – very expensive! Passing quickly through we came to an area of park which is lovely. This is officially the city centre and we spent a while here enjoying the shade. Apparently the temperature wasn’t that high, but with 80% humidity, it felt it!

We braved the traffic and building works again to walk back to the hotel. Definitely beer o’clock!

Erskine Falls

Wednesday November 10^th

We retraced the steps we took last Sunday as far as Airey’s Inlet to see the lighthouse at Split Point. This is obviously where the flies and mosquitos also go on holiday! We’ve managed with only a couple of bites each so far – until today!

The area itself is worth visiting though. The lighthouse is only open to organised tours at set times, so we passed on that having been to the top of Cape Otway lighthouse.

The lookout points were well planned and there were yet more great views of rocks and sea.

I know one or two people back home who would have been more impressed with the bird we spotted on the cliffs.

Initial thoughts were that was a peregrine, but he was quite a long way distant and enlarging the photo showed him to be a brown falcon. *

* apparently it's a Nankeen Kestrel - thanks Keith





Leaving Airey’s Inlet we headed for the Erskine Falls, which are situated above the town of Lorne in the Great Otway National Park.

From the car park we were made to feel really welcome by this sign!

We could hear the sound of water as we approached the top viewing point, which was a welcome sound as  the falls can be occasionally little more than a trickle in dry spells. Luckily there had been rain so we weren’t disappointed.

The best viewing of the falls is from the bottom, down 200 or so fairly steep steps, but it’s worth it! It wouldn’t be hard to imagine Indiana Jones appearing from behind one of the tree ferns.

A little further downstream was a sign advising that only experienced bush walkers should go any further. Since Marg had her Dutch tourist trainers on we felt confident!

She even found some stepping stones which were another reminder of Ogmore.

The gorge is a beautiful place and, for a while, we were the only people there.

There were a few concerns that our little hire car wouldn’t make it up the steep incline from the car park, but we needn’t have worried and made it easily back to Lorne for a spot of lunch.

This is a pleasant seaside holiday spot, but apart from the beach, a quaint church, some cockatoos grazing on the prom and a lovely old hotel from Victorian times, there was nothing to make us wish we were staying there instead of Apollo Bay.

 We headed back to something we had seen on our journey last Sunday. This is a memorial to commemorate the building of the Great Ocean Road by 3000 Australian returned soldiers and sailors after the First World War.
The arch over the road is the fourth to stand there, as storm, road widening and the fires of 1983 took care of the other three.
The whole of the Great Ocean Road is seen as a memorial to the sacrifices made in WWI and is the largest enduring war memorial in the world.

Thursday November 11^th

Spent our last full day in Australia sorting a few things out, then going for a walk along the shore. A last paddle nearly turned into a last swim!

Apollo Bay has been a perfect way to end our Australian adventure, but we’re very aware that the atmosphere would be totally different in the height of summer. As it is – we’ve loved it!