Last Leg to Singapore

After escorting Kimberleigh down to her new local shops to meet Andy after work, off we went to the Airport. Only a 3 hour flight back to Penang but we arrive at midnight and get very efficiently taxi'd over to Old Penang Guest house where we stayed on our way up. Only time for a 5hour kip before getting picked up by a mini bus to get shuttled to the east coast of Malaysia and our port destination of Kuala Beshut. This little town is the gateway to the Perhentian islands a small cluster of tropical islands, and only one way in, speed boat... After a bumpy speedy cruise with 20 other tourists and luggage we land on Coral Bay, Cesil Island, no real way of booking in advance so off we go trundling down the beach. On the opposite side of the bay we found a nice basic hut on the rocks with a pretty great view, and didn’t really venture too far for the first couple of days.

Coral Bay

Yet again the beach destination meant that there were plenty of seafood bbq's available and Roti Chanai for Sian. The other side of the island was home to Long Beach which as it says on the tin is longer than coral bay and a lot more touristy so the prices go up. Funny really as you only have to walk 10mins from one to the other through a small patch of jungle! Half way through our stay we decided to move from the hut high on the rocks to a hut a bit more central on the beach (plus they had the electricity on for longer during the day!).

There were various little beaches along the coastal path on which we spent some time lazing in the sun and snorkelling a bit. Meurig took advantage of a snorkelling trip whilst Sian sun'd her self up on the beach, mistake!!! Never seen so many fish in one place before, and at shark bay I actually saw a black tip shark at least 15.m long and a huge see turtle too!!! So it's official the Perhentian islands are the best place to snorkel in SE Asia!

Our next destination was in land into central Malaysia to Taman Negara the country's largest nature reserve but first we had to get the boat back to the port and sit through another seven hour bus journey which as usual took longer than that! We arrived in the village of Kuala Tahan early evening and started to look for accommodation for the next three nights. We bagged a river view hut with en-suite (descriptions are deceiving as it was very basic!). The next task was finding food which we didn't think would be difficult as we looked down at three floating restaurants but little did we know that we had landed in Taman Negara during an Islamic religious holiday period! The only cafe/restaurant serving anyone not included in a organised tour was this nice rustic tin roofed floating shack not far down river from our hut, but as it was a limited buffet you served your self, it probably won't be going down as Sian's most glamorous birthday meal but at least the company was great! ( No Roti = :o( Sian )

The town/2 streets/ park gateway is located on the river one of the boundaries for the national park. A big brown river with dangling trees and muddy/sandy banks, with the occasional long wooden boat motoring up or down the river separated the village from the park. To enter the park and buy our 40p park licence you catch a little boat from a floating shack and take the 25m journey over to the other side. The park head quarters has a huge 4* chalet resort with lovely facilities, there are only less than a hand full of native villages in the park area, home also to wild elephants, tigers, monkeys, snakes and loads of colourful singing birdies. Within the park there is also the longest canopy walk in the world, so after a bit of wondering/trekking we planned to finish with a birds eye view of the forest. After a wonder up the banks of one of the smaller rivers and laying low in a hide out with no success, we avoided most of the wriggling leaches and took the direct trail in the direction of the the walkway. The limiting factor of a simple free photo copied map is that it doesn’t show contours or levels just highest points of hills, and as we were under the forest canopy you cant really judge how far up tracks are going. To Sian's enjoyment “Meurig's short cut” passed over the only proper hill in the vicinity and even though there were some steps it just kept going up and up and up, some bits even had ropes to help pull your way up. Sian can nearly laugh about it now, but there was a nice view at the top. Unfortunately due to the week long public holiday even the opening hours of the canopy walk were effected (usefully not advertised in the plush park offices) so by the time we arrived, slightly later than anticipated 4.30pm we had missed the closing time by about half hour. As you can imagine both of us were a bit annoyed, but Sian definitely wasn’t comforted by the fact we had to come back in to the forest the next day, ahhh well back to the hut for a lovely cold shower!!!

The next day was easy in comparison, just an hour trek to the canopy entrance, but so did quite a few others, quite a strange experience queuing in pristine rain forest. But the canopy walk was well worth the effort, at the highest point you're probably 20m up walking from tree to tree looking down over lots of foliage and plants. On the way back we even caught a sight of some wild monkeys, monkeying around in the canopy above the track. If Taman Negara national park wasn't there guaranteed the area would have been destroyed and cleared for palm oil trees like much of the rest of Malaysia!

We left Taman Negara & headed for the nearest train station in Jerantut to make it down to Singapore. To our amazement the ticket for the 7 hour journey was only £3 each, if only we'd known the trains we so cheap in Malaysia earlier. They even have a 30 minute stop for lunch and direct you to the nearest KFC (which was heaven after the very limited food over the last few days). So, back in Singapore 4 & half months after we started there & this time it was all a little easier. We recognised places, knew where we were going and enjoyed staying in Little India again. We decided on a different hostel this time, The Inn Crowd, which was in the thick of backpacker land & next door to The Prince of Wales where we had our first drink in SE Asia. We had a couple of days in Singapore before our flight left & it was mainly some time to visit/do the things we missed the first time.

So first stop was Sentosa Island which is kind of a holiday resort/ theme park and where we got to experience the luge. We'd seen a guy record himself going down the course on a discovery programme whilst somewhere in Asia and decided we had to give it a go once we got back to Singapore. It was good fun and you got to ride back to the starting point at the top of the hill on the cable car. Those little carts move pretty quickly once you get the hang of them and after some expert cornering by Sian, Meurig was soon knocked off his winners perch – who says women can't drive eh! But on the third run clear of traffic, Sian couldn’t handle pressure and lost on the final straight!!! The island also has some nice beaches and a little off shoot piece of land with a plaque telling you you're apparently standing on the most southerly point of mainland Asia. We found a Hawker food centre down next to the spiky theatre (esplanade) which was absolutely packed. Sian get some roti chanai and curry sauce probably for a long while! As we finished eating the Singapore light show began in the harbour & various buildings were flashing in lots of colours to music with water fountains! Probably not at spectacular as the Hong Kong light show and it definitely wasn't as packed but the lasers were better! Our final day in Singapore started with some retail therapy, even Meurig agreed as he needed new flip flops! There were signs & railings around town which meant the grand prix was coming to town and we headed down to see if we could get any closer to the pit stop area! Unfortunately they had fenced off the area and we had to have a look from a distance, shame we weren't in Singapore 2 weeks later! Finally we went to the massive sands resort hotel (the three towers with a surf board on top) and pretended to be guests because apparently if you follow guests into the lifts you can make it right to the top to floor 57 where they have bars & an infinity pool! It was totally nuts at the top, a massive swimming pool overlooking the rest of Singapore. Unfortunately our luck ran out when one of the hotel staff asked us for our residents card, oooops we must have forgotten it!!! So all we had to do then, was collects our bags and metro it to the airport to jump on the flight for the southern hemisphere. No free upgrades available :o(