About this holiday blog

This account of our August 2014 holiday to Melbourne, Singapore and Malaysia is written chronologically and appears in reverse order. To get the whole sequence, scroll to the end and read back. Or just scroll though and look at the photos, a small selection from the 1120 that I took during the past three weeks.

Wednesday 20 August - leaving Malaysia, Thursday 21 August, arriving home

A last look at the beach at Kuantan on the South China Sea

A very hot day in Kuantan on the east coast of Malaysia. At the Swiss Hotel I had muesli and fruit for breakfast, but when I asked for a hot plate for my fried eggs, they looked bemused. We struggled to finish off all the packing, and then checked out by 10 o'clock.

A last taste of Indian food - a veggie buffet

William wanted to take us to a local craft market but there were no stalls there. We did get a picture of the beach though. The road to Kuala Lumpur was quite busy, but we drove slowly. In the capital, William took us to another Indian restaurant with a buffet and we chose some vegetarian dishes. Quite tasty.

Our transport around Malaysia for the last 11 days

Then we drove to the airport, 45km. outside the city. We said goodbye to William, our driver for the past 11 days. We had a very long wait to check in our bags for the evening flight to Singapore and on to Zurich. A shipment of some of the remains of people killed on flight MH17 was expected at the airport that morning. Friday will be a day of mourning in Malaysia. I collected two newspapers.


The flight to Singapore was less than an hour, and we arrived there before midnight. The flight back to Zurich took 12 hours and was very uncomfortable. We arrived, 6 hours behind, at 8am on Thursday morning in temperatures of 9 degrees!

We got a taxi home, where all was well. Nice to be home.

Tuesday 19 August

The coast road to Kuantan

A bad night's sleep for me, Then we overslept. We had an average breakfast at Primula Beach, with rather poor service. We were just ready to leave when William arrived. We had a long drive ahead to Kuantan, down the coast road.



We passed fishing villages, crossed rivers and saw offshore islands. Highlight of the journey was a visit to a Turtle Sanctuary where we saw young Hawksbill, Ridley and Green turtles as well as newly hatched babies.

Baby turtles recently hatched at the turtle sanctuary

Then we had a Malay lunch of fish, squid, vegetables and white rice with water. We arrived at the Swiss Garden beach hotel soon afterwards. After resting, we went for a swim in the pool. As there were no restaurants nearby, we had dinner at the hotel bar - a tuna sandwich and chips with a glass of white wine - lovely! Asian food can get a bit sickly after a while.

The Swiss Garden Hotel had a lovely pool and beach

Monday 18 August

The Crystal Mosque - more a showcase than a place of worship

Nice breakfast at the hotel with friendly service. We enjoyed our short stay at the Renaissance Hotel, Kota Bharu. The fire evacuation routine didn't take place after all.

Set off with William in his bus southwards to Kuala Terengganu, another long drive. The scenery was varied and interesting, but he drove too fast for us to appreciate it. On arrival we stopped to visit the Crystal Mosque, built only recently in 2008. We took off shoes and donned chic brown robes to enter the mosque.

We had to wear long robes to enter the mosque

By then it was very sunny and hot again. We drove along the waterfront and through Chinatown, before visiting the National Museum featuring local crafts. Then we were dropped off at the Primula Beach Resort. We didn't feel like eating any lunch.


In the afternoon we rested, read our books, I wrote postcards and we decided to have dinner at the hotel bistro. We had two different versions of nasi goreng. The atmosphere was rather gloomy. Then we had coffee in the coffee lounge before going up to the lobby where a band was playing to an empty house.

Boatbuilding was also featured at the museum

Sunday 17 August

Misty heights on the way to the east coast

Today we are heading to Khota Baru on the east coast. There are no features on our itinerary. Breakfast was a bit disappointing - runny hard boiled eggs:-) And sweet cereal.

William showed us how rubber is tapped - traditionally

The car journey took about 4 hours. We went through high hills and lower areas of lush greenery. We stopped once to look at rubber trees and William demonstrated tapping for rubber with his knife.

Kota Bharu is a sprawling city on a river estuary, on the northeast coast. The water was very muddy. Instead of going straight to the hotel, our guide wanted to show us the Sultan's Palace or Istana Jahar, but we didn't go inside to the museum. We also looked at the market but it was closing. It was too hot for sightseeing at 1pm anyway.

We found an Indian restaurant and had rice with fish or chicken and pickles.Then we checked into the Renaissance Hotel - quite posh.

Chinese-style scallops with vegetables

We both had headaches. Richard went in search of a pharmacy. Later we both explored the hotel coffee bar, the pool and the nearby supermarket with its range of fresh fruit, veg and fish. Back at the hotel we went for a swim.

We decided to eat at the hotel and had Chinese-style fish and fried rice. No alcohol. We had a warning of an expected fire drill - worrying.

Saturday 16 August

View from the car ferry from Penang to the mainland

We made a lot of progress in our journey today. Had fresh scrambled eggs for breakfast and set off with William at 9am promptly. He surprised us by taking us onto a car ferry from Penang back to the mainland at Butterworth. We enjoyed the views from the boat.

Then we drove through lush greenery and sandy soil towards the east of the peninsula of Malaysia. The road took us quite close to the Thai border. Richard saw a group of monkeys by the roadside but we were going too fast to stop. We didn't stop until the small town of Gerit where we had a Chinese lunch of noodles and tofu, plus egg. William bought us four cans of beer for the next few days in the Malaysian rainforest.

On the ferry

We arrived at Belum Rainforest Resort on the island of Pulau Banding, which is in a man-made lake approached by bridge. Our room was up several sets of stairs but was very pleasant. At 3, we went along to the jetty to take an hour-long boat trip on the lake. Eerily, there were no birds or any other animal sounds. We had a guided tour from a young Muslim girl and a local Orang Asli boy drove the small boat.

Our boat pilot on the lake cruise

Dinner was a buffet in the Hornbill restaurant, which wasn't as nice as promised. In our room we could hear birds and insects screeching. It went on all night but we managed to sleep.

Friday 15 August

The pagoda of Rama VI

Roswitha's birthday. I'm missing her lunch.

There was torrential rain at breakfast today to add to the condensation here at the Holiday Inn in Penang. Breakfast wasn't great. There were many Muslim families here, holidaying after the end of Ramadan. William picked us up at 9.30, and I started coughing in his bus. We drove to Georgetown but he decided to skip Fort Cornwallis.

We first went to the Kek Lok Si temple with the pagoda of Rama VI. We climbed up some steps, through the lush gardens, then took the 'first inclined lift' in Malaysia to see the statue of Kuan Yin, goddess of mercy. All quite impressive.

The Thai temple - we didn't step inside

Then we drove to a Thai temple, the Wat Chayamangkalaram. We decided against removing our shoes to go inside but took a few photos outside in the rain. My camera card is nearly full up.

Thirdly we visited the Chinese temple and clan house of Khoo Kongsi in the centre of Georgetown.  We stepped inside the temple, and also went into the museum to read about the family history.

The Chinese temple was also a museum

Then we headed to another Indian restaurant, this time for mutton biryani. Quite tasty. We drove past Fort Cornwallis just to get a photo. Bit disappointing not to go inside as it was fine by now. We went back to the hotel, where they were still mopping up the water.

In the tropical spice gardens we saw many exotic plants

Later we took a taxi from the hotel to the nearby Tropical Spice Gardens. There we saw palms, bromeliads, heliconia, spice plants and coffee and cocoa plants. They also had a nice cafe and gift shop. A lovely place.




In the evening we found a very romantic place for dinner- Ferringhi Garden. They even had wine - Rosemount Chardonnay.