Malaysia - Part Two. Island Time, Langkawi...

So - this is where we stayed on Langkawi.  This place was bigger than our house! It is a 100 year old colonial home .  We got upgraded! Yipppppeee!  A bathroom each, a beautiful bedroom with mosquito net, I was Catherine de Neuve in Indochine (but I was at Temple Tree).

Every morning we would receive a beautiful breakfast with a surprise fruit and home baked cake - never two the same over 7 nights.

Malaysia has the softest green plalate going on...

 

This is Jay Jay - Temple Tree's Dog and, shared with neighbouring Bon Ton resort, Temple Tree's owner also has LASSie - a dog and cat shelter and clinic on the island - so you need to be down with the felines and canines to stay here! We took a couple of muts for a walk one day. They were totally cool dogs.  

Pool House

View down to the second pool - which sits alongside kitchen and bar

This is how I spent much of my time on the island behind Alistair on a motorbike!!!

 

...spotting things like this - real cashews (see it formed under the pear like fruit)?

Staple drink - lemon ice tea with ice and sugar syrup.

Classic eaterie, once you got out of the main tourist area.. All you can eat buffet costs $4 each.

Every meat bar pork that you could imagine - BBQd and spiced up with curry or sambal... I was surprised at how much tamarind and tumeric they use here.  

And as well as the freshest food ever and the most varied, the MAGIE noodle packs are never far, or the nestle ice coffee for that matter (which I have to say I did enjoy with the condensed milk 10 years on since I first tried it).  Its just so good!

Few chicken wings are going to get it!  Satay is also popular, but we didn't see it heaps in non tourist parts.

Back at Temple Tree - tea leaf choices at any time.

And down the road - roti - need I say more? I was a repeat customer here.

Good times on Langkawi.

(That's a lilly pond at Bon Ton's Stilt Bar).

Malaysia - Part One, KL

Just returned from our 'Asian Island Getaway'.  Did the job: restorative, warm and totally different!  Here are some views from our entry and exit stay overs in Kuala Lumpar.

The tallest 'twin towers' in the world (Petronas Towers) are 'jewelled' with light at night.  I fell in love with them.  They are just so 'Malaysia' and everyone is so proud of them.

 Hibiscus (the national flower of Malaysia) referenced everywhere.

 The best basement floor eating I've ever done in a mall. Chinese, Malay, Japanese, Taiwanese, Western, Indian, Thai.... We were pigs in mud and this is where we could be find most of the time...

We didn't have time for any purposeful cultural insights - and there wasn't much popping out on the streets - bar this light relief of a mural down a side street in a very trashy China Town. I like the cyclist.

The Islamic influences structure continues with so much of the architecture... This was in another shopping mall!

 Street scene looking down from Pavillions Mall (their most esteemed mall)!  

Tropical well planned urban spaces were few - but super good when they appeared!  We pretty much spent most of the time in airconditioned walkways to malls etc. Not much time - but great to be in a totally pumped city - making a go of everything, so much money, so much diversity, lots of ideas, kind of conservative and ordered for Asia, with no creepy crawlies (human or insect), yet full of 'Asia' including exotic food smells, the ever present sounds of scooters, phenomenal rain storms, traffic jams and that thick haze.  Asia is so good for the soul.  The everyday disorder makes Christchurch's post earthquake situation seem horribly dull and stagnant.  Maybe cities in the world are always changing like Christchurch currently is - but they do it daily - sans a disaster.  We're just not used to it, and haven't previously been forced to change with speed before? No population pressures, war or politics creating infrastructure issues here.   My brief impression reflected back home was this: we so have to get over ourselves and get on with trying some stuff.