PlanetRovers – Singapore/Malaysia

Singapore and Malaysia for the Holidays
Updated February 9th, 2001

Our Bali bellies began settling on the pleasant airplane flight to Singapore. We were in awe of the airport upon arrival. It was by far the cleanest and probably best organized airport we have seen. We arrived in the early evening and it was dark by the time we were in the city.

We made it to our desired guesthouse without getting lost or turned around only to find that it had been taken over by the neighboring place, Willies. We walked around the block to a second place only to be led through a few alleys right back to the first place. Although the room was a partitioned cube, it was cheap and clean. The unique feature of our accommodation was that the only way up to the second floor reception was through the kitchen and up the stairs of a streetfront restaurant. It was eye-opening to see all the chicken parts, squid and other unmentionables in the back of a Chinese kitchen.

We were feeling much better and decided to take our first whack at the local hawker stalls. For us, Singapore was the perfect place to get accustomed to ordering from these types of restaurants. The reason being that although the country is 78% Chinese, just about everyone speaks English and all signs are in English.

Eating at the stalls was an experience in itself. First, we had to master using our new utensils – chopsticks and a mini ladle. Essentially, you pick what you want from different vendors and scramble to find a seat while waiting for your meal to find you. It was quite common to have someone lingering, waiting for our seats, if we were nearly finished. All and all, the stalls were a cheap ($2-3 U.S.) and yummy option.

Singapore, being a degree above the equator, the temperature and humidity were are pretty high, even at Christmas time. Nonetheless, Christmas is still celebrated in grand style. Orchard Road, Singapore’s shopping and high-end hotel area, was fully decked out: a million white lights, carolers everywhere, Christmas trees and Santa Claus images adorning every hotel and store front. Most evenings, we found ourselves window shopping and enjoying the Chrstmas atmosphere.

We were fortunate to have mostly fine weather and days that were not too terribly hot. We spent one afternoon just walking the city. This tour took us to the top of the tallest hotel in the world (72 stories up – quite a view), around the very Chinese Chinatown, through the Financial District and to see our first Hindu temple – with a celebration in the midst.

Our other major outing was to the zoo, considered one of the world’s finest. The reasonable entry fee included half-hour monkey, snake, seal/sea lion and elephant shows. Before the heavy rains flooded the park, we did get to see swimming polar bears, kimodo dragons, tigers and tons of natural habitat monkeys.

For Christmas Eve, we planned a little splurge – Singapore Slings at the Raffles Hotel, one of the highlights of Singapore. The hotel is considered one of the world’s finest; we were more interested in the hotels’s Long Bar, where the Singapore Sling was invented nearly 100 years ago. For $US26 we had Slings in the very tropical, very old-fashioned, but also classy, bar. The ceiling has spade-shaped, wicker fans set in a row, which are drawn, ever so slowly, by a belt and pulley system. They even encourage tossing the peanut shells on the floor.

Since we had been roughing it in hostels, tents and bamboo bungalows for over five months, we decided to spend two nights in a flash four-star hotel for Christmas. With the Christmas present from Tracy’s Grandmom Bev, we spent Christmas Eve and Day enjoying CNN, tasty all-you-can-eat breakfasts, hot showers, newspapers and a comfy bed. (Thanks Grandmom!!)

Our last day in Singapore proved to be an adventure. December 26th was the last day of the Muslim fasting known as Ramadan or the holiday Hari Raya. The fact that we were heading to Malaysia, which has a huge Muslim population, meant that buses would be full. Unfortunately, we did not consider this until we turned up at the bus station around 1pm, ready to buy tickets for the 2pm bus, to be told that the next available bus to Melacca, Malaysia was not until 6:30 pm. So, we spent the afternoon in a cafe watching the torrential rain come and go.

The five hour bus ride to Melacca was absolutely freezing (A/C buses are usually freezing). We reached Melacca around 11:45pm and promptly grabbed a taxi to our hotel. Our second mistake of the day was that we did not convert any money before leaving Singapore. So, here we were in Malaysia, in the middle of the night, with no local currency. We figured it would not be a huge problem and asked the driver to swing by an ATM. We went to five or six ATMs, all of which would not accept any of our cards. After growing a little concerned, the driver told us that they shutdown all the ATMs at midnight.

Giving up on the machines, we went to the guesthouse, where we had made a reservation, to find that the doors were locked up. After banging on the door, the owner came around the street corner and ushered us to his sister’s guesthouse. We explained the ATM problem to the kind folks at the guesthouse and their idea was that the holiday had something to do with it. Regardless, the lady at the Pelican Guesthouse was kind enough to pay our taxi and spot us some cash to hold us over. The next morning we found a machine that would accept our card (and never had another ATM problem in Malaysia) and then headed out to see the town.

Melacca has a colored history. The Portugese, Dutch, British and the Chinese have all had a hand in its past. The buildings around the town center stand to verify the town’s history. We spent the next few days figuring out Malay food and visiting the few sights around town.

With New Year’s looming, we decided to head up to Kuala Lumpur (KL). The bus ride to KL was nice enough but seemed too short. In fact it was. Once again the Hari Raya holiday threw us a curve. Because of the holiday, KL’s bus station was moved outside the city proper. Fortunately, two Australians that we had met on the bus knew this and led us to the nearby subway station.

After getting turned around looking for a particular guesthouse that we never found, we settled into a little place in KL’s Chinatown. KL’s Chinatown was the best we had encountered. The streets were teeming with people and vendors of everything from watches to bootleg CDs to exotic fruits. The streets of Chinatown are so busy with people, hawker stalls and vendors that cars can barely crawl through.

One of the many dining pleasures we experienced was called a Chinese Fondue – a table with a sunken, boiling pot of water in the center and all around the table are skewers of all kinds of meats, fish, sauces and veggies. Each skewer can be cooked in the boiling water in one to two minutes. (There is a picture of our Chinese Fondue on the website)

We found KL to be just what it is, a big city. The few bits of charm that the city has can be seen in a few days. By far the city’s most impressive feature is the world’s tallest building(s), the Petronas Towers (made famous by the movie Entrapment). The twin towers are connected by a skywalk about 25-30 stories up. In normal times, one can go up and walk across the skywalk but, because of Hari Raya, the buildings were closed until the day after we left. Needless to say, we were dissapointed. Instead, we walked around the tower’s beautiful shopping mall and huge courtyard.

New Year’s Eve being a day away, we decided to comb the English language New Straits Times newspaper for possible events or celebrations. Bingo! Fifteen people, mostly Americans, were planning a base skydive jump from the top floors of the Petronas Towers.

On New Year’s Eve, we turned up at the Petronas early to have dinner and find a decent spot to watch the festivities. Around 11pm, we made our way to the courtyard to find 200,000 people. We fought our way through, even passing a mob surrounding the country’s Prime minister, to a comfy spot to watch the jump and ensuing fireworks. At the stroke of midnight, 15 parachutes appeared all over the sky.

Afterward we attempted to catch the subway under the towers but the 1,000’s of other people mobbing to do the same deterred us. Instead, we decided to walk down to the next station, avoiding the lines, and squeeze our skinny butts in the train. On the walk, we could hardly take a breath or hear due to the noise and fumes from the flag bearing motorbikes zooming through the streets.

On New Year’s Day, we left and headed to the Cameron Highlands, the jungle covered mountains of north-central Malaysia. The highlands offered us a nice break from the 90 degree plus days. The weather was mostly overcast and cool and evenings warranted a blanket.

One afternoon was spent on a self-guided jungle walk throught the inadequately marked trails. The muddy trails had few signs and even where there were signs, a fork in the path would usually follow. So, we picked our way through the semi-dense, mountainous jungle for three hours.

The next afternoon we visited the largest tea plantation in Malaysia. The 4,000 acre Boh Tea plantation was peacefuly beautiful. The lush, green hills/mountains were shrouded in a low ceiling of light rain clouds and a blanket of mist that rose of the maze-like design of the hills. Our very knowledgeable guide explained all about tea and the process of making tea.

After 2½ days of damp weather, we headed for our last stop in Malaysia, Penang. Penang, aka Georgetown, is a somewhat unimpressive large island off the Northwest coast of Malaysia. Besides the vibrant Chinatown, people come here to get to other islands or, as we planned, as a departure point for southern Thailand.

Although both Singapore and Malaysia are very rich culturally and historically, one would need to spend more time than we have to come away with a richer experience. We completely enjoyed our time in both countries and learned quite a bit about both cultures. Truthfully, Singapore was more of a destination and Malaysia became more of a segueway to Thailand, as the more naturally beautiful islands on the east side of Malaysia were experiencing the monsoon season. So, we zipped up the West side of the country instead. All and all it was good fun, and we would definitely recommend it to all those interested.

Posted in: Singapore