This is going to be hard: I have a lot of catching up to do! Now I am on the Perhentian Islands in Malaysia, but before I have been to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and the jungle in Taman Negara. I’ll take it one step at a time and just write about Singapore and KL (travelers – and perhaps locals as well? – tend to say KL as opposed to the full name).
In Singapore I met up with Eefke who I had met earlier on my way to the busstation in Bali. I stayed in a very nice hostel, where we also met Mel, who is from Hong Kong but just moved to Singapore for his job. With the three of us we spent three days exploring the city, as Mel had also not had a chance yet to do sightseeing.
Singapore was quite a change after Indonesia. I’d probably describe it as a very western city with a mainly Chinese population. Everything is extremely clean to the point that you nearly feel uncomfortable. It is then quite paradoxical to notice that it is extremely difficult to find a trash can anywhere. Especially in the metro (MRT) which is cleanest of all. They must have very good (stealth) cleaning crews, or people are just very good at keeping there trash with them. The food is good and varied as you can find Indian, Chinese, Indonesian, Malaysian and western food.
During these three days we visited Sentosa Island (really a family fun park), the Zoo, the Chinese Gardens, Little India,and the Marina. The zoo was definitely the highlight of my stay in Singapore as it was so big, had so many animals and seemed so animal friendly. Most of the animals live on large pieces of land containing their natural habitat. I remember visiting the San Diego zoo with Pieter, which boasted to have the worlds best zoo. Now I don’t really believe in ‘Worlds best’s but I am at least sure that the Singapore zoo is better in all respects! We saw all sorts of monkeys, white tigers and pygmy hippos just to name a few.
After 3 days I felt it was time to move on and decided to go to Taman Negara in Malaysia which is the worlds oldest jungle. I wanted to take the Jungle Train which roughly connects Singapore and Johor Bahru in the north of Malaysia, passing by Taman Negara in the middle. Sadly I found that all tickets for the entire week had been booked already due to Singaporeand Malaysias public holiday. A good reminder of the lesson that traveling means not planning and hoping too much as you never know what happens. So I decided that I would take the bus up to Kuala Lumpur, spend a night there and leave for the jungle the next day.
With business-class like seats in the bus the trip was quite comfortable and I arrived in KL in the afternoon. After arranging my trip to Taman Negara for the day after I walked around in the center for a bit. If 4 hours are enough to judge a city I would say: a lot less clean then Singapore (in a good way), good atmosphere, nice people and definitely a place to return to at some point.
That’s it for now: below you can find the pictures as always and soon more stories will follow about my adventures in the jungle and diving on Pulau Perhentian Kecil.
