Visit Malaysia 2009

Last month Martha and I made a trip to Malaysia for about 2 weeks. I hadn't been back in quite a few years, and Martha had never been before. She only stayed for a few days though, before flying back to China to spend Chinese New Year with her family. Still, it was a good few days, and we saw quite a bit in that short time frame I think.

Among the things we did and saw:

• Jonker Street walk - a tourist-y night market in Melaka
• Menara Taming Sari - a 110m revolving tower in Melaka
• Port Dickson, including the amazing night market there
• Visited my grandmother, who appears to rather adore Martha - maybe because she can not only speak Chinese, but is from China!
• Met up with Nadiah in KL
• Did a fair bit of shopping in KL, including Midvalley, Sungai Wang Plaza, Pavillion etc
• Genting Highlands - both the Casino as well as the theme park

Did the Chinese New Year family gathering thing, and it was really good to catch up with all (well, the ones that were there) my cousins, aunts and uncles again. I hadn't seem quite a few of them in... almost 10 years?

After Martha had gone back to China my dad rented another Kawasaki Ninja 250, and we toured a bit between Melaka, Port Dickson, and all the way up to Ipoh and Cameron Highlands (route in green in the map above). Cameron Highlands has some of the most amazing roads I've ever ridden, big sweeping corners and well surfaced too. Some of the other roads were pretty shocking though. Not to mention the road users.

Road rules in Malaysia should really be called "Road Suggestions". On any given road you'd find people doing anywhere between half the speed limit to double the speed limit, and it's not uncommon to find someone doing much more than double the speed limit. Some of the roads that have been converted to one way (not even very recently - some at least a few months ago) still have the arrows and sign boards from when the road was a two way road. Stop signs, give way signs etc mean nothing to most, traffic lights are merely a suggestion and many motorcyclists don't follow them. There was one road we rode on, a dual carriageway road with an 80km/h speed limit, that had speed bumps on it in random spots. SPEED BUMPS! In more than one spot the lane markings don't make any sense, with lanes ending and merging randomly, and appearing randomly later on.

Motorcyclists in Malaysia are mad, and it's not surprising that there are so many deaths and injuries there. Virtually none wear any sort of protection apart from a helmet. Some don't wear a helmet. Most who do don't strap the helmet on. When I went to buy a helmet, I was told that "one size fits all". Everyone sells the same size, and I had to settle for a large sized helmet (and as a comparison, I wear XS in Australia). It was loose, but it did the job. Most motorcyclists don't check their mirrors, half of them don't even HAVE mirrors. They weave in and out of traffic, going the wrong way down one way streets, ignoring traffic lights, marked lanes, going around roundabouts the wrong way around, overtaking against oncoming traffic, it's just crazy. And then every once in awhile you get a car trying to do the same...

Also managed to catch up with some of my primary school friends that I hadn't seen in about 17 years, good times :)

And of course, there was the food. The absolutely without a doubt best thing about Malaysia, is the food. So much food. I can't even begin to name them, there was so much to be had, and for so little money, it was utterly a food heaven :)

All in all, I had a superb time in Malaysia, and I must say - it's been really hard getting back into the work spirit again after coming back!