Kilim River Cruise: Langkawi Day Two

The Kilim River Cruise is a much publicized tourist attraction, but one that is most definitely worth doing. I was thinking we're going to ride around in a boat, see some trees, animals, yada yada, but it was so much more.

We were picked up at our hotel and taken to the dock, where several different companies operate these tours. (FYI: We used Junglewalla.) Our guide met us and into the boat we went. What followed was a fascinating explanation of the ecosystem of the mangrove forest here; this is also a type of rainforest. Normally I'm not really interested in botany subjects, but this was truly riveting. The special root system of the trees was explained and the seed pods examined. Since they grow in dense mud (anaerobic), the roots grow up to allow gas exchange for the tree. Some roots never touch the ground at all. She also explained to us how the trees rid themselves of excess salt, being so close to the sea. The leaves grow in clusters, and one will be the designated 'salt catcher'; all the excess salt will be pushed to one leaf in each cluster until it dies and falls off. There's much more but I won't bore you with the rest!

close-up of the special root system

Another fascinating sight: the so called 'walking fish', though they are not fish. I had honestly never heard of these before, though the other people in the boat all had. They are also known as mudskipper. These creatures use their fins to walk; they do not have legs. They are amphibians and breathe through their skin and mucosa linings. They trap air inside their cheeks for their time underwater.

periopthalmus gracilis

We saw much more wildlife that day; monkeys, sea eagles soaring and diving, a cobra who had recently shed (he was still near his old skin), live bats at slumber, and stopped at a fish farm to pet and feed sting rays, along with several other fish.

brahminy kite, aka red-backed sea eagle

four in a row!

in the bat cave

baby sting ray

When we got back to the hotel, we interacted with some animals of the more domestic kind, and some not so domestic...

Very playful kitty, with very sharp claws!

It was a fantastic day, concluded with a sunset stroll on the beach.

Langkawi, Malaysia

We chose to spend four days in Langkawi as it was purported to be the best place for beaches, snorkeling, SCUBA, and the like. Well, the beaches are beautiful, but, like Penang, they were also home to jellyfish. BIG disappointment. The snorkeling was also disappointing because you had to take a boat to another small island and spend the entire day there. Since this is not practical with two small children, no snorkeling was done on this trip. We had to content ourselves with doing other touristy things.

We arrived at our hotel and checked into our cute little cabana. I, the idealistic romantic, thought this was going to be sweetly ideal. This proved to be oh so naive our first night. I heard this odd noise, like a duck being strangled, from the bathroom. A giant tokay gecko had invaded! (click on the link to listen to the call, and HERE for a picture) I spent the night being awakened every so often by this thing and terrified of what might crawl into bed with me. (I found out after we returned home that that particular gecko is known as the pitbull of geckos.) Plus, the unbelievably loud live band blasting till 1 AM did not help. The next morning we changed from a cabana to one of the villa rooms, which was inside a brick building and away from the music, and I slept much better the remaining nights.

cute cabana; not so cute invaders!

The next morning, after the room change, we drove over to Oriental Village, which is mostly a bunch of souvenir shops, but also has the Langkawi Cable Car, a highly recommended activity. On the way there, we passed by some natives and had a good long look! We saw many more around the island during our few days here.

sign about 50 feet past the monkeys

We arrived at the 'village' and purchased our tickets to go up. I've been on several cable cars, some quite long, but never one that has the incline this one did!

This was taken near the beginning of our ascent. We went straight up, then over left. You can squint and see the tiny specks just over the left edge of the mountain; those are cable cars!

There were great views of beautiful water and lush mountains from the top; my pictures just do not do it justice!

that tiny white speck is a boat

One of the coolest things we did: ride an elephant. I expected such a big animal to have a smoother ride, but it was rather jarring, and bony! I had to hold on very tight.

Lassa

They also have deer and rabbits we pet and fed, and even a tiger you can pet and feed! I really wanted to do that, but it cost a good deal of ringgit, so I had to pass.

We finished up our evening with a sunset dinner cruise on the river, perfected by the use of a hotel babysitter!

Island Life: Penang

Penang, an island vacation with a bit of history thrown in. The beaches here aren't the best that Malaysia has to offer, and since we found out first-hand that the waters are also infested with jellyfish, that part was a bit disappointing. However, there is a good bit of sight-seeing to be done in the island's largest town, George Town. According to Wikipedia, "It is officially recognized as having a unique architectural and cultural townscape without parallel anywhere in East and Southeast Asia." It's hard to describe the feeling of a town, but this place is different. It was founded by the East India Trading Company, so there was a lot of Western influence here, but being a trading hub brings many global influences, even way back then. It's not Asian, it's not Arabic, it's not Western, but it is some of all of the above.

As you can guess, the multi-cultural diversity seen in Kuala Lumpur continues in George Town. (For example, our taxi driver had an Irish mother, Afghan father, born in London, and lived in Malaysia.) This makes for a large variety of restaurants (and they were all delicious!). A note about the restaurants: every one we ate at was open air, more like a pavilion really. They are all close to the beach so you get a good breeze blowing through at all times. I really enjoyed that part, but, because of the openness, I also saw more than one rat. That did take a bit of my appetite. I had to block that part out.

Back to diversity. There is a large population of Chinese living here; how many are immigrants and how many are "unmixed" descendants I can't say. Within short walking distance of each other there is a mosque, Hindu temple, and Chinese shrines. (There are also Christian churches as well, but these aren't tourist spots.) Our hotel was close by a mosque (not the one pictured), and that evening they broadcasted their evening prayers, as mosques do. This was quaint and an object of interest, as I've never experienced this before. However, the next morning at sunrise, not so interesting. So, unless you are a devout Muslim or a really early riser, do not book a hotel near a mosque.

Kapitan Keling mosque circa 1800

Sri Mariamman circa 1883

Yp Kongsi circa 1924

All attractive buildings, not much to write about. We also visited a large Chinese clan house, Khoo Khongsi, which is the most elaborate and intricately decorated place I've ever seen. Almost every inch of the outside, the walls, pillars, eaves, everything, is carved in some way. The roof ornaments on top are also elaborately adorned as well. I believe the family descendants still live in the surrounding houses.

rebuilt 1906

It may look like bare space, bu no - the carvings just aren't as prominent.

drive-by shot of Fort Cornwallis

After a full day of sight-seeing in George Town, it was time for some beach fun. Unfortunately, we were driven out of the water by jellyfish, so only sand fun could be had. The hotel had a kiddie pool that the girls were able to fully enjoy!

Our second day on Penang, we drove our rental car out to the Butterfly Farm. (For us Americans, they drive on the wrong side! This required some concentration when turning or pulling onto the road.) This was my first time at a butterfly farm and it was fabulous! They are fluttering everywhere, brushing by your cheek and making the greenhouse ceiling appear to have moving clouds.

my favorite one

After this, we took a looong drive around the island on the curvy, twisty road. (Imagine lots of letters 'S' and 'N' smushed together.) It was really quite beautiful (for about 20 minutes, then I just wanted to get out), and confirmed the fact that Penang is indeed a tropical island. We stopped several times to take pictures, and you can hear the sounds of the jungle all around you, as that part of the road was not highly travelled on. To be honest, it was kind of intimidating. I kept expecting a snake to come slithering up or a monkey to jump out at me!

More pool time and umbrella drinks and our time in Penang was over. Next stop, Langkawi!

Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur

We are back from a wonderful ten day vacation in Malaysia. We flew into Kuala Lumpur, the capital and biggest city in Malaysia. We chose to spend only one full day here, as the main attraction for us in this country was the seaside.

The first thing we had to get used to was the temperature. They have a "tropical rainforest climate" here, and you can tell that immediately upon stepping out of the plane! This was a dramatic difference from the place we flew out of. (Irony: When we landed in Seoul, the pilot announced current temperature of 32 Fahrenheit; upon landing in KL, the pilot announced the current temperature was 32 Celsius.) The country gets a lot of rain as well, but we were fortunate to not have too much during our trip. When it did rain, it was usually in the evening when we were finishing our day anyway, and it didn't last long.

The next adjustment was getting used to seeing all the headscarves. I was all prepped to answer questions about this form of dressing from the girls, but they never did ask. Malaysia is about 60% Muslim. People with Israeli passports are not allowed to enter the country. On the islands we visited there were also many newlywed Arabic/Muslim couples with the women dressed in the full burka. Refer to the paragraph above and you'll understand why I bore some sympathy toward them! My female American mind thought it hugely unfair that they had to wear all that while their husbands were in shorts and tank tops.

Kuala Lumpur is may be a large city, but it does not have a city like feel. Yes, it's dirty and crowded, but in a different way. It's dirty because it seems like it's always fighting to hold back the jungle creeping in everywhere and because it still seems like many of the people are still poor. They may have the second tallest buildings in the world, but they cast a dark shadow over the have-nots. I saw a lot of slummy looking living spaces during our short time here.

One thing KL does have is diversity. The population is mostly Malays, Chinese, and Indians, with a good sprinkling of other ethnicities as well. A walk down the street confirms that all these groups still hold on to their identity. The food court in the mall we went showed this as well:Matt had middle Eastern food, I ate Malay, and our daughter ate Mexican.

Of course I did some shopping. We went to the Central Market , where I experienced something unknown to me - pay for use toilets! Fortunately, Korea has taught me to carry tissue, so that proved to be a valuable lesson learned. The Market was very mall-like, and not a 'true' market, like Seomun Market here in Daegu. It was similar to the Silk Market in Beijing, though not nearly as crowded. Much too touristy, though that didn't prevent any shopping from getting done! We still did bargain for our purchase, and I love how dramatic she was. I almost laughed during the 'negotiation' because of her. After my shopping fix, we headed over to the biggest attraction in KL: the Petronas Towers. We weren't able to go to the observation deck or the bridge in the Petronas Towers, they only sell tickets on certain days and we weren't so lucky. We ended up in the basement, where there is an aquarium. In between the market and the towers, we stumbled across a Malaysian military day of some sort. It was some sort of national day, I'm not sure what though. It was directly across the street from this buidling:

The Sultan Abdul Samad Building. The field the military display was in is called Independence Square, or Dataran Merdeka.

at the aquarium

Petronas Twin Towers