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| Singapore to Thailand |
And so the journey continues, I arrived in Singapore, rearing and ready to go! The route I was travelling was from Singapore, Benut, Batu Pahat, Malacca, Port Dickson, Kuala Lumour, Batu Caves, Kuala Selangor Sungai Besar, Marina Island, Lumut, Taiping and then on to Thailand.
Singapore is a big city, I did my best to navigate without GPS, but there are just too many highays, subways, and other ways to choose from, so I decided rather to buy a chip for my phone so I could find my way to Malaysia before next year ;)
One night I stayed at the
Wink Hostel, a nice Chinese area, with very good food, but way too expensive after Indonesia. There I met Beh Kong Wing and his friend, both from Malaysia and we had lots of fun together.
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| At Wink Hostel with Beh Kong Wing |
The news building in Singapore, a strange building but I like it.
After Singapore I crossed the border and headed into Malaysia - I got a very easy and quick visa without any difficulty. From there I started towards Benut about a 90km ride, but now also in the rainy season. Just before I got to Benut I stopped and asked a local if there were any hostels in Benut, but; "no sorry, not for another 45km". Then it started to rain, of course, so I stopped along the road and someone came to me and offered for me to stay in one of his rooms - my luck day! After a hot shower, he drove me to the nearest town for a meal, and in the morning at 7'o clock, he brought me breakfast - amazing!
From Benut it was another 350km to Kuala Lumpur, but before that Malacca. On the road I saw two signs commemorating the Malaysia airlines flights - the photos speak for themselves....
Malacca became my first Warmshowers address in Asia - I tried many times but had no luck until now. Howard has a hostel in the middle of Malacca, a wonderful old city. Full of bikes on the rooftop, there is a special room for the Warmshowers guests! I put my tent up and stayed there for 2 nights. Being an old city, even the Dutch were there for a while, after the Portuguese and before the British, but they have also a famous Arnold Schwarzenegger with his own statue and park.
With the canal, small streets, markets, and the bikers of the night, Malacca has a European atmosphere with lots of Chinese people.
Port Dickson was my next destination. Half way there I met a group of bikers “the Cayo group” who were touring Port Dickson and invited me to come with them. We biked to Port Dickson and camped on the beach. All the guys work in the same factory and cycle a couple times of the year for a weekend together. There was a lot of talking with our hands and feet, and we had great fun - thanks guys!
I had to visit Kuala Lumpur to get a visa for Thailand. At the border I only got a 2 week visa, and that is not enough to travel the 1400km to get to Cambodia! Kuala Lumpur is a nice city, with big roads and lots of traffic! But two days later I had a visa for 3 months and then headed off to Batu Caves. I did not know that the population of Malaysia is 40% Chinese, 20% Indian and the rest is Malay - that means that it is more multi-cultural than Indonesia. So everywhere you can find a Chinese or Indian temple beside mosques.
Along the road to Taiping I saw a lot of signs and thought it was a restaurant, I followed them and after 2km I ended up at a Chinese temple. They were finishing a celebration for one of their gods, I wanted to leave but they insisted that I stay and eat with them. They gave me lots of food and Jason Tan C Hong explained the whole ceremony to me from the last 3 days. He took a photo with me and put it on my FB Timeline and I was surprised how many likes he got - 73 in one day! There must be a lot of Chinese in Asia :)
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| A crafty street vendor :) at the night market |
