Day 6 - 31.07.15 - "I'm not a huge fan of the ratio between days and monkey attacks"

Had a well deserved lie in today. Got up and had breakfast and then set out to Penang Hill. Penang Hill is covered in jungle and you get a tram up to the top to give panoramic views of Penang island. The girl in the hostel told us the wrong directions/we didn't listen properly so we got lost trying to find the bus stop. Starting to become a theme. After waiting for about an hour at the wrong bus stop we move on and eventually found the correct bus stop, only to just miss the bus. Whilst waiting for the other bus, locals decided it would be fun to take pictures of us 😡. 

The bus journey took about 40 mins as there was a lot of traffic. 

We took the team to the top and had.a look around bride having lunch and cream tea at a sky platform restaurants. 

We had been told that there was a nice walk through the jungle an botanical gardens which was 5km and took us down to the bottom of the hill. We were told if we didn't do that then we would miss out. 

Well they lied. Or they might not have done but we didn't make it down the hill to see. There was a sign saying 'beware of monkey'. I ignored it and told everyone that the monkeys would definitely be more scared of us than we were of them.... About 5 mins in we saw some monkeys and their babies playing in the road and climbing on the telegraph pole.

The next minute, the big male monkey took one look at us, gave us a very scary look and charged at us!! We ran away as quickly as possible (despite Sophie telling us to walk which was probably best). Eventually he stopped chasing us. Determined to walk down the hill we tried again. But he charged. One more try and then we gave up, and walked up the very steep hill back to the top. We are now all a little bit petrified and monkeys are definitely not as cute as everyone makes them out to be! This is now twice in less than a week that a monkey hasn't liked us!! We are not loving the monkeys any more. We decided to come down the hill on the team again and catch the bus back to the hostel. 

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 Had some Asian style street food soup for dinner which had pork, noodles and tofu in. It was really nice!! 

Day 5 - 30.07.15 - Goodbye KL, Hello Penang

At 10:30 this morning we caught a 4 and a half hour coach to Penang. The coach was very comfy and thankfully had airconditioning!! We were surrounded by rain forests and travelled through a thunderstorm! Had a short break about half way through. 

As per usual a befriended an old passenger. Who said we were very brave to go travelling on our own and that she was shocked our parents let us! 😝

We passed some floating houses too which was pretty cool. 

Eventually we arrived in Penang, then had to wait for the 401 to take us to Lebuh Chulia where we should of found the hostel. But we got lost. Of course. 

45 minutes later we found the hostel. We are staying at the House of Journey. 

We went to a Chinese/Indian around the corner for dinner. I had a chicken biryani. Tonight we going to find some things to do in Penang for the next 3 or 4 days.

 

Day 4 - 29.07.15 - Batu Caves

Today we visited Batu Caves. This is a Hindu temple situated in a cave and you have to walk up 272 steps in order to get inside.

We got a taxi to the caves, promised at 15RM. We didn't have the exact amount in change so we gave the taxi driver 50RM. He refused to give us change, claiming that we had misheard him and he had originally said 50 because he can't pick anyone up from the caves. Kelsey had clarified twice that he had said 1,5 before we got in the taxi, so he was obviously trying to scam us!! We put up a massive fight but he still refused so we gave up. To him it was a lot of money but to us it's only £3 each and really not worth the hassle! We will definitely be getting the train back home - only 2RM, and treating ourselves to a well deserved, stress-busting bev!!! The taxi driver drove off and picked someone up. 😡😤 it was probably going to happen at some point....

Determined not to let it ruin our day, we headed to Batu Caves. 

And climbs the 272 steps to the temple making friends with the monkeys as we went! 

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Tonight we went for dinner in Little India at a restaurant called ABC foods. We shared popadoms, a fish curry, a chicken curry and a lamb curry and two types of rice. Very tasty! 

Tomorrow we are catching a 4 and a 1/2 hour bus to our next destination, Penang. 

Day 3 - 28.07.15 - "is Europe's largest water park in Kuala Lumpur?"

Jet lag got the better of us last night and we played uno at 3am. 

For breakfast there was cereal and toast with a coconut and egg spread and some sort of fruit that tasted like a free flying bat cave at a safari park. Yum! 

We bought tickets for a hop-on-hop-off bus tour around Kuala Lumpur.

It took us to the Petronas towers, which are the largest towers in Kuala Lumpur and consists of shops and offices. You can travel in the lift to the top floor and viewing platform, but you had to buy tickets in advance so we are going this evening instead.

We got lost several times but eventually found our way to a cute underground food court. Kelsey had a very spicy curry, Sophie had some sort of meat and cabbage soup and I had a wok nasi goreng. 

It was very nice.

We then made our way back to the hostel through china town and bought some dragon fruit to try! We were unimpressed by the dragon fruit - it didn't taste of anything :( but we did get it all round our faces! 

We are now sat in the coffee shop next door called LOKL. Sophie and I have ordered the local Kopi Susu coffee.

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Just got back from a lovely evening having dinner and visiting the Petronas towers. We got the train to KCLL which is right inside the Petronas Towers. Our scheduled time was 19:30 which would be perfect for a sunset view of Kuala Lumpur. However, they had overbooked so we got pushed back two slots to 20:00 meaning a night time view. Annoying but still beautiful! 

Afterward we walked to the Pavillion through a park with a Vagus style fountain show. 

We then went to Haagen-Dazs for our dinner! We had a ice cream fondue! It came with 4 scoops of choc chip ice cream, 4 of vanilla, 4 of chocolate, 4 of strawberry and strawberries, apples, banana, brownies and cookies, with a milk chocolate dip and chopped almonds!!!!! Super Yummy! Sophie definitely enjoyed it! 

We then made our way home on the train but got caught in a stampede of people as the train had been delayed and they all tried to get on it at once. 😐 Kelsey is adamant her arm has been chopped off. 

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SOPHIE'S BAG IS BACK

Day 2 - 27.07.15 - Where's Sophie's Bag?

We are now approximately 1 hour away from Kuala Lumpur and have been flying all day. Fair to say we all have very numb bums! And of course, I have made extensive use of the complimentary food and drink. Haven't managed to get much sleep as we have a very noisy sleeper sitting next to us - snoring and thrashing around every 5 minutes!! We did take a video but apparently you can't post videos on here. Had to keep reminding myself it's not acceptable to kick strangers on flights. The urge was almost irresistible. Think it's early nights for all of us! 

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Landed on time. Sailed through immigration to find that Lufthansa has lost Sophie's bag along the way. :( Sophie said before the flight that she always loses her baggage, and she's definitely lived up to it!! We are now on the KLIA express train to KL Central where we catch another train to the hostel - BackHome Kuala Lumpur. Apparently I look like a backpacker: 

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Our connecting train had broken down, so we queued for about an hour for a taxi to take us to our hostel. The taxi man thought Kelsey looks like Victoria Beckam and me an encyclopedia. Not sure if that's a complement or not. He taught us our first Malaysian word - Hello = abukarbu. (Phonetically). 

We dropped out bags off and headed out for some dinner. We found a small little corner shop that looked full. The waiter told us the best thing on the menu was a banana pratta (which we had no idea what this was) so we decided to give it a go. This is what arrived: 

A banana stuffed naan bread and some curry sauces! A cultural experience to say the least! 

Now we are just relaxing back at the hostel and getting ready for bed :) 

Day 1 - 26.07.15 - Cheese and Egg

I am writing this cruising at so many thousand feet over the Dutch air space :) We set off for Manchester airport at 12:00 GMT. Bit of traffic on the way up so travelling time took 2 and a half hours!! We had to drop our fallen comrade Alex off at her house in Manchester first and then headed to the airport. 

Getting out of the lift onto the wrong floor didn't bode well for the rest of our trip.  Check in went relatively smoothly apart from the massive trek to baggage inspection because apparently we looked very dodgy. 

Perhaps we do. 

Kelsey had very kindly booked us into the Escape VIP lounge at Manchester Terminal 1 so whilst waiting for our gate to open, we helped ourselves to unlimited food and drink!! We got lost on the way to the gate - outlook of making it home after 5 weeks looking even worse. We took off at about 17:55 GMT and are due to land at 20:25 German time. We have to get two flights in order to get to Kuala Lumpur so this first one goes to Frankfurt where we spend 2 hours before getting our next flight. On the flight there are complimentary sandwiches and drinks. However, the Germans thought cheese and egg would be a fantastic combination. We're not so sure. We are yet to try it and haven't got our heads around it!

I shall leave you with a picture of my view:

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Our first flight was delayed which meant a mad rush to get on our next flight... aka Me and Kelsey panicking and running to the gate, Sophie just calmly strolling. We are now waiting to take off from Frankfurt to Kuala Lumpur, due to land at 16:05 Malaysian time. 

Sophie's verdict on the sandwich - "it wasn't my favourite".

The Warm Up

On Friday, I picked Sophie, Kelsey and Alex up from Birmingham to have a weekend full of pampering before our long haul flight to Kuala Lumpur on Sunday. On Friday evening, we were joined by my auntie and uncle and had a curry feast for dinner before heading out into Worcester for the evening. (Photo left to right: Sophie, Me, Kelsey (below), Elizabeth and Alex).

Today we spent the day in the pool and hot tub relaxing and doing the final preparations for our trip. My nan and grandad joined us for a massive BBQ send off. We're all very excited for the flight tomorrow although sad that Alex won't be joining us. We'll be setting off for Manchester airport at 12 O'clock. (Photo left to right: me, Kelsey, Sophie).