Fireflies, Melaka and Singapore

I'm still trying to collect some more pics for this post (Pieter and Vicki, put up some more pics so i can steal 'em!)


Back on our own again, Wales and I headed north to a small town known as Kuala Selangor. Our plan was to spend one night here and see a light show put on by the local fireflies and then head north to a small island for some chillaxing and hopefully, diving.

Unfortunately our dreams of lying around on the beach were cut short when the park manager told us there us there was no bus there from K. Selangor. We would have to go back to KL and then back up again. A trip of 6 hrs in the wrong direction. We decided against going back and headed back south to KL to goto Singapore.

Kuala Selangor was a nice, quaint, small town nestled along the coast. We arrived after 2 hrs on a local bus which was absolute hell. It wasn't the length (i've taken much, much longer before), it was the constant stopping to drop ppl off, pick ppl up, the hard turns and the poor Malaysian roads (they look nicely paved but for some reason they are soo damn bumpy).

Anyways, we took up residence in a nice little A-framed hut in the national park. Its was quite nice although we didn't really explore it much. There were monkeys running around everywhere which was cool at first. Up until one charged my friend while she was taking a picture of their babies (there were baby monkeys everywhere too, so cute).

When the sun dropped we headed out to look for some fireflies. We went to a local village which took us up a river in a rickety 4 person boat. At first my friend and I were just chatting about, looking around but not really paying attention. Then after my eyes adjusted, i realized that the bushes we were rowing past were all filled with fireflies! I wish i could have taken a picture of them but it was way too dark. The bushes all looked like xmas trees with tonnes of twinkling little lights everywhere. The fireflies blink about 3 times per sec and the males flash in unison. It looked really cool when you see all these flashing lights lighting up the bushes. Our boatman even took us into the bush a bit which was quite nice. At one point i was in the bushes surrounded by all these blinking lights. Quite a magical experience!

The only disappointing thing about the fireflies was that they only stayed in the bushes. If we had gone later they would have started to fly around, and THAT would have been a really neat thing to see as well. I guess it'll have to be next time!

The next morning, we got up and headed back to KL to transfer to another city known as Melaka. Not originally on my list of places to see but my friend need to kill sometime before her flight to Australia. Its a bit more of a historical town with old buildings and such. I was pleasantly surprised to see that our Dutch mate was also in the same hostel as us.

We hooked up for the evening and watched Rambo 4 (yeah really, Rambo. But hell, after traveling for so long and always taking things so seriously, its nice to turn your brain off and relax). Not the best movie by any means. But i enjoyed the mindless violence. And especially the edits that the Malay gov. has made to the film. All the super graphic parts were cut out. I guess people here just can't take it. Hahah.

Even though the movie was pretty mindless, it did hit a soft spot with me. The movie is set in the Burmese jungle with Rambo fighting the militia group during a 'fake' uprising. As the movie opened, there were scenes of Karen people being mascaraed and child soldiers being recruited. Now normally, this would have just been an exotic local with some far off conflict, that after the movie finished, i would have just went home. But with the recent events in Burma (Oct. 2007), and the release date of the movie (i'm sure they didn't do it on purpose), it all seemed too real. People are actually dying over there. Journalists are actually being shot at and killed. And children are being taken as soldiers. I wonder what the people here think about the movie. It was strange to watch a 'fictional' movie about real events happening just 5 hrs (by plane) away.

Back to Melaka. Dutchie left the next day for Singapore while we spent another day poking around town and doing some shopping. It was kinda hot and we really couldn't be bothered to walk around and look at stuff we really weren't interested in. I am glad however, that we dragged our asses out of bed and checked out chinatown that night(well, we kinda had too, there was construction next to our hostel so all we heard all day was drilling and pounding).

Chinatown in Melaka was really cool. Especially with all the chinese new year lanterns hanging along the road. I also never expected so many Mandarin speaking people. And they were the locals too! Not China tourists although i'm sure there were plenty. Food was average, most of it was over cooked. But then again, it was late and we didn't really look that hard. Either way, Melaka was ok. Good food, nice looking girls, cheap accommodations, and good company.

On to Singapore! Nothing beats having Singapore Slings in the Raffles Hotel in Singapore! They were pretty expensive though. Actually, not just pretty expensive, very expensive! 25 Singapore dollars! For a freaking cocktail! But whatever, it was a fantastic looking hotel. Not the greatest, but definitely very cool.

Mmmm, Singapore Sling

Leaving S'pore

Singapore itself is an amazing place. So clean and orderly, its an amazing contrast to life elsewhere in SE asia. But, unfortunately everything is expensive (i'm assuming that housing is very pricey too). The only cheap/decent thing here is the food which is fantastic. Its odd, but there are also lots of big bore bikes here. Lots of R1s, cbrs, etc. What are ppl doing with these bikes? I hesitate to call them squids and posers b/c i don't know them but really, where can you ride to in Singapore (but they all do look like d-bags, all in tshirt and shorts, and 3/4 helmets)? Its freaking island! Maybe they ride to Malaysia? Who knows.

Harbour front

And the number of malls here is INSANE! why does a small island need like 100+ malls? They really are everywhere! Good for me though since they all have good AC and its damn hot here.

Downtown

We met up with Dutchie in our hostel which was more like a mega dorm (at least its the biggest i've seen yet. Must have been like 40+ beds). And strange enough, while waiting for our bus to the night safari, we bumped into Andy as well. So, 4 of us back together (unfortunately the Swede was out to Aussie already), we took the tour to the world famous Night Zoo.

Cuppage?The famous waterfront

I was quite impressed with the zoo but no pics b/c again, it was too dark. The show that they had was alright. The animals were ok, nothing spectacular. But the main girl was absolutely hilarious so she really made up for everything. The wolf at the beginning was quiet funny though. Out of the back comes this menacing looking animal. But maybe it has stage fright or something b/c it looked really nervous. The funniest part was that this shy animal was trying to howl for us for a good 30 sec but it looked just too scared. Finally, it let out this pathetic little yelp and took off. It was quite silly.

The rest of my time there i just spent walking around and absorbing the atmosphere (oh and trying to get an indonesian visa, stupid idiots!). Singapore is like HK but its not. Its so much larger and less dense. Its much more comfortable when you can walk around and not have to fight off massive crowds. Oh, and of course the women. yes, all i have to say is 'very nice.' I think i could work here for a little bit but we'll have to see about that.

Amsterdam beer thats not found in Amsterdam? WTF?Can you really think of a better name than Maximator for a 11.6% beer?

Anyways, thats all i have to say about the last few days.