Kuala Lumper - The Green City

10th to 15th October - Kuala Lumper

For one of the first times we arrived at a location during day time, this gave us an advantage we’d normally never have on finding our accommodation. A good mile walk or so and we arrived at Oscar Guest House, its a decent little place with incredibly friendly staff which is usually all a place needs. Our evening was spent at Reggae Mansion, a cool bar that other travellers had previously told us about, costing about £3 per drink was the most expensive we’ve had but it was worth the rooftop bar looking over part of the city.   Only a few of us rose early the next morning and eager to see what the city had for us we set off and wondered the local China Town markets arguing prices with vendors and laughing at some of the bizarre designs printed on the fake t-shirts. Upside down Nike ticks etc. We rushed back to our hotel just in time for the arrival of Paul and Jenny, they’d decided to come and visit us out here for two weeks which was a breath of fresh air in the group, even if we were now eight! We set sail after some long needed reunions back into the depths of the city and ended up in the largest, most confusing mall in what i imagine, the world. Think of Ikea and the difficulty of leaving the store, multiply it by a rather large number and you’ve got this place. Adding to the confusing just after some brilliant food in the mall we stumbled upon this huge opening where you could see down several floors, looking up at first i believed to be seeing an orange, metal structure most likely for holding the building together, turns out it was a full sized roller coaster! It came with an entire loop and several massive drops. How is that even possible? None the less like kids we ran to the entrance to the ride where a security guy met us and shared the bad news. It was nearly £5 a ride, which in England i’d of laughed at and thrown my money to him, however out here thats a full days food budget! We found several other things to do in the mall and decided we’d come back for them another day as it was well into the evening. 

The next morning after far too much free toast and jam at the hotel we had arrived nice and early at Lagoon Theme Park which had a variety of different areas like water and theme parks along with what appeared to be a small but well looked after zoo. The whole day was really good with a few little roller coasters, a zip line and some decent water slides, especially this one where you would shoot down on a three man dingy into this huge, half-pipe shaped tube and with decent momentum you could fly up and down the sides reaching a good twenty or so feet. The day ended with a torrential downpour and the group got split up for some reason, luckily we found shelter and waited it out before leaving, i guess it is expected in rainy season, Paul and Jenny stood there amazed at the sheer amount the sky opened up, i guess me and the others have become desensitised to it now! 
     The day after delivered more fun, not just because we had a well earned lay in but we headed to the mall for a more relaxed day of clothes shopping where i finally bought a new top and shorts, bowling, which is always a good laugh with sliding shoes and we had also booked for something we had considered previously, The Escape Room. Its an elaborate series of rooms that you must solve puzzles to move forward. Each game has a theme and after reading the different synopsises we chose ‘The Art Gallery Heist”, armed with a simple torch, eight young, intelligent minds and 45 minutes to complete the challenge we entered the first room which was reasonably simple, finding clues behind paintings to open a padlocked, hidden door. Our second room took longer after going under and over a set of motion detectors and solving two more combination locks through finding hidden numbers both in paintings and on the walls. Robin at some point went through one of the motion detectors setting off a loud alarm, we’re all in panic thinking we’ve failed, but instead it was just a constant noise putting us off and making it a struggle to hear people! We finally got somewhere using the torches UV light which illuminated a secret code on the wall and we entered our final room. The clock was ticking and with quite a while left we settled our eyes on 12 different colour framed prints across the walls. They were different in many ways and at first we struggled to connect the dots. With our final five minutes we began struggling to decide what the final code for escape could be. Only moments were left and we threw several combinations in and crossed fingers. Boom. The alarm sounds and we’re busted. Turns out the correct code was much easier to find than we thought. With all of us thinking we’re masterminds we had over complicated the situation! Gutted but it was a great laugh and definitely something different. 

That evening we took Paul and Jenny to Reggae Mansion for a few drinks which ended in me having a good amount of gin, several games of pool later i ended up in Mc Donalds with everyone, but for some reason i was sat separately, across from what seemed to be a more drunk local who i think really wanted to have a staring match, harmless of course but none the less i tried to hold in the laughter awkwardly, ate my food and we set off back home. Obviously without my new and interesting friend. Our final day was quite relaxed, the main temple in Kuala Lumpur is Batu Caves which i really wanted to visit so we got there after a short drive in the afternoon, in all honesty we had fun just walking up the stairs due to the monkeys wondering around, nicking things from tourists, bottles of water, plastic bags, literally anything they took a fancy to. The caves themselves were quite impressive, huge colosseums of rock descended from the roof whilst the temple was a short walk inside. I’m glad i got to visit the temple and see the huge golden Buddha standing outside, the photographs don’t do it justice. Our time in the city had come to an end and i’d go as far as saying it was the most interesting city yet. It was surprisingly green in terms of trees and parks along with the people being very friendly and warming. Our next stop is Indonesia, one of the countries i’ve looked forward to the most for photographic opportunities. The landscapes are scattered with Volcanos and rice fields, hopefully i’ll at least capture a few!

Walking down near our hotel

 Off to the mall

 Some fruit please sir

 Rob and urm.. Ingham

 China Town during the day

 And at night

 Batu Caves statue

 Mother and baby monkey on our way up the stairs

 Group shot V1

 Group shot V2

Batu Cave temple

Food Critiques of Penang

4th to 9th October - Penang & Cameron Highlands

Our next stop off in Malaysia was Penang, a place i’d almost dropped from visiting as i knew very little about it, all i’d read online was the sheer quality of food and that, no surprise, interested me. Another boat and a good five hour minivan ride and we landed at our hotel where bags were dropped and we headed straight to a close by mall. After several months out here i’ve fairly mastered the whole ‘traveller’ appearance of sandals and no interest in shaving however within minutes i felt as out of place as i did when we first arrived in New Delhi! We walking around the mall looking for bits and bats and everyone was dressed up in jeans and shirts, not a sandal in sight! None the less it didn’t stop us from exploring the whole place and having an evening of normality. Our first full day was hilarious, hands down one of the funniest things we’ve done out here. We planned to walk around the streets of George Town to spot all the street art created by Ernest Zacharevic along with seeing some local temples. We walked past this side street that was renting out these colourful, six seater buggy type carts and we instantly got one for an hour. Driving around beeping these comical horns and peddling to the fastest the thing would go. Almost everyone we saw burst into laughter and started photographing us, six British guys on this thing causing mayhem of the busy roads. For further comical value i even filmed us pulling up to a petrol station and attempting to fill the buggy, the staff saw the funny side thankfully. We managed to see a lot more of the town which was great, until i jumped off for a quick photograph to find the guys had began peddling off and i ended up chasing them down Little India, one of the close by districts. 
     During the evening we managed to visit a Burmese temple, Dharmikarama. Fairly interesting as far as temples go with loads of interactive things to do. As mentioned earlier the food was incredible in Penang, there was two meals that stood out, firstly a lemon chicken dish served with rice and accompanied by a three layered ice tea. It was absolutely jaw dropping, i love the Chinese dish and it had blown any others out of the water by a mile. Secondly we read of trip advisor about a place down town that did the best roasted duck, they weren’t lying. Apart from the fact it was served quite cold (thats normal out here) it was brilliant. I think half a duck cost something silly like £4. On another day we got another few places we wanted to see out of the way, starting with The Snake Temple which Ingham had been to a few years back on a family holiday. Unfortunately there wasn’t as many snakes as expected and the place seemed very quiet, but none the less i’m glad we went. If we didn’t, i’d of been kicking myself thinking about how it could of been. Kek Lok Si was next on our agenda and after being dropped off by our taxi in the wrong place we walked through this market for a good 10 minutes before reaching the place, however we saw much more doing it this way including this pool with gigantic terrapins, never seen anything like it. I use to own a few when i was younger and they didn’t get to a 10th of the size. It was a huge temple with loads of complex architecture but absolutely no information that i could find, so because of that it wasn’t the best. 

     I’d been looking forward to Cameron Highlands quite a lot ever since planning this trip to Asia, unfortunately it didn't live up to expectations, this could of been due to the weather, constantly throwing it down during mid-day or simply we struggled to find where the hikes began as there was no wifi at all! None the less we had several days of relaxing instead but still managed to go and see the most famous strawberry farm in the area. A waffle, cheese cake and milkshake later (of course everything was strawberry flavoured) definitely helped make my decision that the strawberries grown here were superb. We were happy to leave the area but also felt quite underwhelmed, i'm sure the areas great but unfortunately we didn't get the best of it! Onwards to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia where we couldn't wait to meet two more friends from home, Paul and Jenny.

 Lanterns going into a local temple in George Town

 One of my favourite street art pieces

Two more that can be seen around George Town

 Interesting architecture was everywhere

The guys in our six man speedster

 Rival speed squad...

One of the street vendors clocking me while i photograph him

 The best lemon chicken i've ever had!

 Dharmikarama temple. You had to throw coins into cups that read 'prosperity, health' etc.

 Ingham, Rob and Dan

 Taken from the bell tower at the temple

 One of the only snakes at snake temple!

 A farther and daughter feeding the terrapins

 I said there was quite a few of them!

 Kek Lok Si Temple

 Street vendor just across from our hostel at night

The view from our apartment in the Cameron Highlands

Our First Experience of The Capital

22nd to 24th July - New Delhi

It finally hit me waking up after the 12 hour flight from Brussels to New Delhi, we were almost landing and i looked out the window seeing a bustling city at night, only an orange haze could be seen across the horizon whilst listening to the weirdly calming classical music the airline played.

     Straight out from the airport we were hit by the boiling night time heat of 30c and instantly asked by several people to get into a taxi, luckily we got straight into what we believed to be the more ‘formal’ taxis and we were dragged around New Delhi for over 40 minutes with no luck, just being told that its EID and its a bad time to visit, the taxi drivers pointed out bike gangs left, right and centre that just drank and would not consider twice robbing you for what you possessed. Finally we arrived at a tourism office where we met the nicest guy so far! He helped ringing our hotel, which was originally booked online, only to find that they hadn’t kept our reservation and within 2 hours of being in New Delhi we had nowhere to stay and it was pushing on 1AM.. Thankfully our new friend took us to a local hotel, reasonably good price, just to put our head down for the night! We’re planning on heading back there tomorrow and asking for some more pointers of how we should exit New Delhi. So far.. It’s been a crazy few hours and its a far cry from safe out of the hotel at night time!
     After revisiting the tourism office we were still down on our luck, they offered us package holidays travelling the route we intended but for crazy prices which are well out of our budget. We’re finally settled into a different hotel for a single night, still a very worrying looking area filled with the expected city hustle and bustle. On the bright side we finally plucked up the courage to begin an exhibition to an ATM and i’ve finally got Indian Rupees! 

Ordered our first proper meal whilst in New Delhi, chicken chow mien.. Surprisingly great! Not quite the traditional indian cuisine but i’m still putting off the whole ‘too spicy’ situation. Been sat around in the hotel for most of the day, still trying to pull ourselves together and work out how to tackle the challenge that is this city. I’m opting that we visit the Lodi Gardens, a beautiful botanical garden which would give us some optimism for the week to follow. After this i believe we’re meeting Jess, Dan’s friend that has a house over here. Its a 40min drive out from our area of Karol Bagh which is fine, its just the fear of getting home safely when the night kicks in and the possibility of ‘bike gangs’ reappears.
     Just arrived back at our hotel in Karol Bagh after a night out 30 minutes away in the ‘real’ New Delhi, the place we originally planned to experience! The people, the streets, everything was exactly how i imagined. After meeting Jess and her dad, Nigel, we realised, up to now, we have been missing out and have decided to give Delhi another try after visiting Agra tomorrow. We visited an incredibly posh looking bar on the backstreets of a small village, it looked so out of place from what you would expect but yet for the first time since we stepped foot off the plane, we felt welcomed. Free pour cocktails are typically something you only wish for when drinking but this place was handing them out, concoctions were arriving in barrels, horns and with ice lollies. Three/four drinks later and the taxi drive home was much more interesting.. When we woke the driver up that waited outside for over three hours! We have also been invited by both Jess and Nigel to visit their farm house just out of the city centre and I’m genuinely excited, this emotion has been lost for the last few days and i’ve simply wanted to leave to our next country. We’ve been told about huge outdoor BBQ’s, swimming pools and the promise of a real shower! Sounds a little ‘typical’ holiday i know, however with this we’ve the correct platform to head out and really experience New Delhi, the culture that i’ve been craving since our arrival.

     We started our day with a mixture of confidence, ambition and all those other ‘feel good’ things.. After a slightly better breakfast at the terrace of our hotel we got ourselves packed and started our venture to see the real New Delhi! I’d like to think of myself as reasonably well travelled, i can typically spot a scam from a mile away, we jumped into our first ever tuk tuk and set sail for the Indian Gate, en route our driving persisted it was either closed, we had to pay to enter etc, obviously all fake! Just laugh it off and carry on moving i always think. Things began to take a turn for the worse when without even realising our tuk tuk driving arrived at the tourism office, which we later found out to be completely fraudulent and we have actually been on a two day binge of being rinsed for what ever they could! I headed inside the office to find the same guy from yesterday who offered us loads of information but inevitably tried to force us into booking a £500+ tour across North India, thank god we didn’t take it! He, out of nowhere decided that because our plan had changed over night that i was a lier, he accused me whilst walking me out telling me to leave. He then to my horror placed his hand on my shoulder and said.. “If you lie in Delhi, somebody will fuck you”, defending myself was useless as he shook his head angrily and walked off. First threat of the trip. The tuk tuk driving finally, after further persuasion took us to the Indian Gate, such an amazing piece of architecture and a for the remembrance of those lost in previous wars. A combined British and Indian flag fluttered in the mild wind whilst with our bags we walked around for a good 30 minutes in around 35c heat. This, combined with being asked by almost every person there if i want to buy random ‘tat’ led me to beginning to feel slightly sick and hazy, it was difficult and after our morning experiences we didn’t want to get any kind of transport anywhere. Another thing to add at this point was how popular we were with the Indian public when visiting the Gate, everybody wanted photographs with us, we felt like small time celebrities. This, even though feeling awful was possibly one of the first genuine smiles and laughs from today.

     Be it by a stroke of luck, right place right time, i don’t know, but we happened to start speaking to a genuinely friendly guy that informed us of a real tourism office that was ran by the government, my first thoughts were its obviously the same place and i didn’t want to show my face there ever again! We reluctantly agreed to be taken down the road to an ATM, we all needed cash at this point and our options were slim, as we set off our drivers brother jumped in, within minutes we realised these two were actually god sends, couldn’t of asked for more from them! They genuinely felt for us after explaining our few days visiting their city and they took us to the real, government ran tourism office. Here, we walked in and were greeted by a guy called John, given a sugary brew and placed in an air conditioned room, this helped me come back around and i finally started to feel better! After explaining our situation and the fairly bad days we have had so far we we’re told that John is literally here to help tourists, in its most simplistic form, its his job. We debated our options for India and what we could do within budget, the weather in south India, Goa was looking awful and after over an hour of discussion we opted to head North into the Himalayas on Monday, a few days from now and firstly heading towards Agra to see the Taj Mahal which so far this day we thought it would be impossible because of the lies almost everybody fed us. John got us some food, water and gave us wifi, all for completely free! After this we took his phone number and set off in a private car to Agra. I’m writing this whilst sat in that said car, our driver is brilliant, he’s funny, relaxed and even bought an AUX cable at a set of traffic lights so we could throw some music on for the four hour drive. We’re quite literally all, including our driving, raving to live sets of Daft Punk whilst driving down Indian motorways. Within a matter of hours our Indian experience has gone from in tatters to a hugely exciting visit North for mountain hiking, lake swimming and white water rafting! We’ve had a lot a bad luck so far, i’m really hoping this pulls through and happens. Our humble abode of choice is a boat house literally in a mountainous valley, as a photographer i crumbled at this option. I’m hoping for a nice hotel where we actually have three beds, not one (yes its literally been three in a bed since we arrived) and if i’m really lucky, a friendly bar selling cheap beer!

 First morning in Delhi - View from outside our window

Same thing, different window!

 India Gate - Looks much bigger in person

En route to Agra