16^th June, 1997

Two hours of flight later, we arrived at Changi Airport. In sharp contrast to the airports of Vietnam, everything was clean, modern and elegant. After clearing immigration, we passed some free telephones and decided to make some calls. First Matt phoned the airport hotel and altered the reservation for the American lady on the Mekong Delta tour. After this we called hotels to find a vacancy. Having stayed in Vietnam, we had difficulty acclimatising ourselves to the new price ranges so we made rather a lot of calls before agreeing to part with our money.

We eventually picked the City Mayfair hotel, which was fairly inexpensive despite its central location. We asked how to find it, and were informed it was near the Excelsior hotel. This is a top-class hotel, so on boarding the airport bus, Matt impressed the other passengers by announcing in a clear loud voice, "we would like to go to the EXCELSIOR HOTEL." Well, OK, he didn't do this, but it was certainly tempting.

During the bus ride we could see into people's cars from our elevated position. When we heard a large group of people giggling we turned our heads to see the cause. A man in an adjacent car was closely inspecting a women's underwear catalogue!

The cenotaph in the War Memorial Park

After setting down we commenced our sightseeing. Our first impressions of Singapore suggested a very clean and modern country. There are some similarities with Hong Kong, but it seemed less dense and crowded. The well-developed transport system was easily to use and there was no trouble in getting around without taxis. Our first visit was the War Memorial Park. It was a pleasant park with a tall concrete cenotaph. The memorial was dedicated to the civilians who lost their lives during the Japanese occupation in the Second World War. Nearby was St. Andrew’s Cathedral. Unfortunately we couldn’t go inside, but it made a nice setting for some pictures.

Matt, in front of St. Andrew's Cathedral

After a brief walk we found the statue of Sir Stamford Raffles, who was the founder of modern Singapore. A plaque underneath expounded his many virtues. His PR agent would have been very happy. Nearby was the "Merlion", the symbol of Singapore. Unfortunately there was a lot of construction underway in its vicinity, which conspired to spoil the scene. Some people asked us to take pictures for them, and seeing as this was a good spot for a photo together, we asked them to return the favour. This was our only photo together so we later decided to have extra large prints made.

For dinner we visited a food court and had Japanese cuisine. Matt found the food quite tasty, but reckoned the service and table was absolutely disgraceful. We ordered some sushi to try. I was careful to advise Matt not to use the wasabi served with the sushi – it’s really hot stuff! We headed for the MRT station and made our way to the Night Safari. The MRT in Singapore was as easy to use as the MTR in Hong Kong, but to Matt’s delight the fiddly ticket-holders, which had caused him much consternation in Hong Kong, were not provided in Singapore.

The Night Safari admission was not a bargain at S$18.45, although it did include a S$3 tram ride. It claimed to be world’s first and only night Safari. Their brochure said that over 90% of animals are nocturnal and the best time to see them would be at night. Somehow, we felt dubious about the benefits of seeing animals in the dark! The park was divided into three walking trails, with the tram ride covering mainly the first. There were lots of animals to see: leopards, tigers, giraffes, rhinoceroses, buffaloes, and hyenas. It was quite enjoyable, and we stayed there for almost two hours before we returning to our hotel. The shower in our room, incidentally, seemed to be lacking any form of hot water, but with the weather being so hot anyway, we weren’t overly distraught.

17^th June, 1997

As feared, our hotel had no catering facilities, so we broke our fast at a nearby street café around the corner. We had toast (which was served cut into "soldiers" and smeared with honey) and coffee (which seemed to contain a lot of sugar/ coffee/ milk "sludge" powder in the bottom of the cup!) We had spotted an interesting dinner cruise being advertised and stopped back at our hotel reception to book tickets.

While on our way to the bank to cash traveller’s cheques, we came across a chemist’s shop. Matt said he couldn’t cope without the deodorant that was confiscated in Vietnam, so he wanted to get a replacement. He didn’t want to get another aerosol spray (and risk further trouble) so he settled for some women’s perfume that came in a glass container. [Matt says: HEY! it was NOT women’s perfume! But I confess it was meant for women, although I didn’t discover this until we returned to the hotel. Oh dear!]

We went to the Arab district to see the Sultan Mosque. It was slightly disappointing so we quickly headed for the Changi Prison Chapel and Museum. I suppose people don’t usually visit prisons on a sightseeing trip (except maybe Alcatraz!), but this was quite fascinating. The chapel, with its thatched roof and outdoor pews, was a replica of the original built by Allied POWs in WWII. The museum showed the history of Singapore during the Japanese occupation, and the daily life of the prisoners. It also featured a pair of rail spikes from the notorious Burma railroad, which claimed thousands of lives. The visit had been enlightening.

Back in the city centre, we wanted lunch. We took the MRT to the Raffles Place station, the main business district. We had lunch in a noodle shop in a fast food court. It was extremely crowded owing to the time of day. We decided to skip seeing the Sri Mariamman temple, as there were lots of attractions at our next destination: Sentosa Island. To get there, we took a bus to the World Trade Centre, and then switched to cable car to get to the island. The island was a fortress in WWII, but now was a resort island. Although the ride was quite expensive (at S$6.9, return), it did offer a panoramic view of Singapore’s harbour. The car had a clear floor as well as sides, which enhanced the view. Matt was a little nervous because of the height, so of course, I calmed him by swinging the cable car. He he!

Ten minutes or so later, we were at the island’s huge Merlion, a viewing tower in the shape of the famous symbol of Singapore, a fish-lion combo (hence the name). We decided to go up the Merlion tower first (another S$3 admission, Vietnam suddenly looked so much cheaper). We took a lift to the crown at the top. There were some signs telling people what they were seeing. A short distance across the sea we could see some oil tanks. To our surprise, the signs said that those tanks were actually on the Riau Archipelago, in Indonesia! We then went down to the viewing decks in the Merlion’s mouth. I took a picture of me standing in the Merlion’s mouth, expecting the mouth to provide an interesting "frame" for the photo. Unfortunately, the picture turned out to be rather dark.

After the Merlion tower, we went separate ways for a while. Matt wanted to see the Underwater World attraction, but I had seen big aquariums in Hong Kong before. [Matt says: it was a huge and impressive aquarium. The main tank was enormous and had a large Perspex tunnel running through it. Visitors stood on a conveyer belt and were moved through the tunnel automatically. It was a terrific way to see the fish – some of the big ones looked enormous when they swam nearby. There was a large group of Japanese visitors at the same time as me and I ended up taking a LOT of photographs for them. At the end where was a tank where visitors could actually touch the fish.]

Matt liked this fish, very much.

While Matt amused himself with slimy creatures, I decided to go to "Cinemania" for some virtual reality rides. The S$10 admission included two rides: the first one was a bit boring, but the second one was quite worthwhile. I still had some time left before meeting Matt so I took the (free) monorail to go to Central, a beach at the southern side of the island. The ride was really bright and pleasant and had some commentary. It was nice, slowly travelling across the island in a modern, clean train, on a high rail offering a good view of the coast. The monorail passed through the Fort Siloso: Singapore’s only preserved fort. After going across a suspension bridge, I arrived at the "Southern-most point of Asia continent", or so it claimed, although I wasn’t totally convinced. I took a couple of pictures for evidence, and then rushed back to the monorail station to meet Matt.

We noticed that our cable car ticket was valid to take us to Mount Faber before we returned to the city centre, so we took advantage of this opportunity. Here we got another nice panoramic view of the harbour, and then we returned to the World Trade Centre. We took a bus and rushed to Clifford Pier at Collyer Quay for our dinner cruise, arriving just five minutes before the junk’s departure.

A bonus of this cruise was that all drinks (except beer) were free. Singapore’s scorching heat had made us quite thirsty so this was good news for us. The commentary was live (and good), which seemed much nicer than a pre-recorded tape. We cruised through a few islands, the most famous one being the Kusu Island (Tortoise Island). Its origin was rumoured to be the result of a giant tortoise transforming itself into an island to provide sanctuary to two shipwrecked fishermen. The junk stopped near the island and we had our buffet dinner there. The junk then sailed back to the city centre, passing through Sentosa Island and Keppel Harbour, the second busiest port in the world (the first being Victoria Harbour of HK). The night time illumination of the city was quite spectacular, though not as good as HK, I felt!

The junk came back to the city centre before nine, and we decided to see "The Lost World". The admission was cheaper than cinemas in the UK and HK, and we were seeing the film before it was released in our countries, so we could boast to our friends about having seen it. Our cinema was called Capitol Theatre, and we had seats in the dress circle. Unfortunately, we found the movie a little boring, and we suspected that it had been edited, as the media is stringently censored in Singapore. We couldn’t imagine how it could make so much money all over the world, if it was this version that was shown internationally. We returned to our hotel for showers, again cold, of course!

18^th June, 1997

With our flight to Kuala Lumpur at noon, I was keen for more sightseeing before leaving Singapore. Matt preferred to have a bit more sleep. The National Museum was just the other side of the road of our hotel, so after breakfast, I went to have a look. Unfortunately, its opening time was 9:30am, which didn’t leave enough time for a visit. I went back to our room and we checked out together. We left the bags at the hotel while Matt had breakfast, and I went to the bookshop next to the hotel. Unfortunately, the bookshop’s opening time was 10am – this was not my lucky day! So, after Matt had his breakfast, we decided we might as well head out for the airport straight away. We went to the Excelsior to catch the airport bus. However, just as we were approaching the bus stop, our pattern of bad luck continued, and we saw the bus departing. We sat on a wall outside the hotel, where Matt determinedly wrote postcards. Incredibly, Matt was already finishing the last one just as the next bus was approaching. We had plenty of time at the airport so we found a post office to buy stamps, and changed our remaining Singapore dollars for Malaysian Ringgits.

Once again Matt was questioned about his spray cans by the airport security, although this time, he managed to get through without confiscation. We boarded the plane, and 50 minutes later, we were in Kuala Lumpur. We were a bit disappointed that they didn’t provide lunch on the plane, but the journey was probably too short. Matt couldn’t believe we took a flight to go to Malaysia from Singapore. [Matt says: by the time we cleared the runway in Singapore, it was almost time to start descending again.]

Continuing our "World Airport Tour", we judged the KL airport substantially poorer than Changi. A new airport was actually in construction, to be completed in time for the 1998 Commonwealth Games. After passing through the customs, we cashed some traveller’s cheque, and made some calls to hotels. Fortunately, accommodation was less expensive in Malaysia than in Singapore, and we could afford a better hotel, called "The Lodge".

Outside the airport, we found a special taxi-booking booth. A coupon system was in use to prevent tourists being cheated. Passengers would state their destination and buy a coupon that covers the fare at a fixed rate. We bought the coupon, presented it to our driver, and half an hour later, we arrived at the Lodge. We had a standard room with air-conditioning and private bathrooms. The TV wasn’t working, though we didn’t come to Malaysia to watch TV so it wasn’t a disaster.

As we prepared to leave the hotel, disaster struck! Our spate of bad luck from the morning in Singapore was continuing! Somehow, Matt’s guidebook was nowhere to be found. Matt went back down the hotel reception and looked around but to no avail. We were actually a bit stuck because we didn’t know exactly where we were, and we spent quite a long time trying to wander towards the centre of town while looking for a bookstore. While we were looking at a map on a notice board a kind man stopped and asked us if we were lost.

When we ran out of energy we called into Super Sandwhich’s for lunch. We eventually got what we were looking for in a small shop in the lobby of the smart Istana Hotel. Matt bought a small Malaysia guidebook while I book a map of Kuala Lumpur. We later found that these were sold at inflated prices, but we needed to know our way about in a hurry. [Matt says: I had bought an expensive guidebook in the UK and lost it, before getting much use from it! What a shame! At least we managed to choose our first hotel from it.]

We made our way to the railway station because we wanted to get a train ticket to go to Penang. We weren’t sure whether we wanted an overnight train, so we wrote down the times to determine later. We had an extra difficulty, in that we couldn’t find Georgetown in Penang listed as a destination. Coincidentally the station was experiencing a power failure at the time of our visit, and the air-conditioning, and vending machines, among other things, were not working. The bathrooms were suffering from the same problem and candles were being used to light the way!

A travel agency outside the station had a brochure of tours which looked quite interesting, though a little pricey. We decided to take the "countryside" tour tomorrow and the Melacca tour the day after, so we called their office and made reservations.

At long last, it was time to begin our sightseeing. Our guidebook actually listed the railway station as an attraction in itself, because of its impressive architecture. We tried to take a picture, but the station was far too wide for a successful photo, even from the other side of the road.

The National Mosque

We then went to the National Mosque, which was actually built in quite a modern style, without domes. We decided against entering the mosque, as it would have been too much trouble to take off our shoes, and besides, we may have felt quite awkward disturbing all the people worshipping inside. We took a picture, and left for the National Museum.

On our way to the museum, we found a branch of the Tourism Board. We went in, collected a few leaflets, and asked the receptionist there if there were trains going to Georgetown. She told us that Penang was an island, and the train could only go as far as Butterworth, where we would have to take a ferry to go to Georgetown. No wonder we couldn’t find Georgetown on the timetable back at the railway station! After visiting the tourist office, we continued to walk and arrived at the museum just 40 minutes before it closed. Strangely, we couldn’t locate the entrance, and we were only able to find the exit. There were some guards (or museum officials) at this exit, and we expected we would be shown the real entrance; instead, they ignored us, so we just walked in! We hadn’t realised the museum actually had an admission fee and we were rather embarrassed when we realised we’d avoided paying Anyway, the museum was so big that we couldn’t really see much within 40 minutes. Among the interesting rooms were exhibits showing the traditional life of Malaysia, and replicas and stuffed animals depicting Malay wildlife. Surprisingly, there was also an exhibition on the return of Hong Kong to China! We were rather astounded to find a special exhibit on "Infidelity". An additional ticket was required for this display, and since we were running out of time anyway, we decided to give it a miss.

When it was time to leave, we were shocked because it had started to rain really heavily outside. It was a big thunderstorm and there was absolutely no way that we could leave. We waited for about 20 minutes until the rain softened a little. We made our way back to the railway station, cowering under umbrellas, to buy the train tickets to Butterworth. We had decided to go on an overnight train in a couple of day’s time. The power at the station had been restored, and the air conditioning and lighting helped to transform it into a much more pleasant place.

We took a taxi to go to the Sri Mariamman Temple. Unfortunately, it was being renovated and hence it was covered in wooden scaffolding. We went to the nearby Chinatown to have dinner. We passed by some shops selling Tamagotchi. I was so surprised when Matt told me he had been given one as a present before. Matt had thought that they were too annoying and time wasting, with their continual interruptions, and had removed the batteries to kill his electronic chicken! After dinner, we took a taxi to go back to our hotel. We took lots of taxis in Malaysia because they were cheap and plentiful, and also, there didn’t seem to be much of a viable alternative. It seemed we could wait just anywhere, and would never take more than a few minutes for a taxi would drive by, ready to be hailed down. Wonderful!

19^th June, 1997

After a good night’s sleep, we woke up feeling energetic and prepared for today’s countryside tour. Matt had some biscuits as breakfast so that he could have half an hour more sleep, while I headed for McDonalds to have something hot. Unfortunately, unlike McDonalds in HK or the UK, here in Malaysia they don’t serve breakfast. In fact, they don’t even open until 11 am, so I had an expensive breakfast in Super Sandwich’s. It’s a bit annoying with hotels that don’t have breakfast facilities, as you have to spend time looking around in the mornings.

We made our way to the lobby of the Hilton Hotel, and waited for our tour guide. We were happy to be hanging around in a such a smart place, but were a bit annoyed that Hilton didn’t have any chairs in the lobby, and we were standing for 20 minutes because the guide was late. This place seemed to be a meeting point for a lot of tour companies and a great number of people were waiting: perhaps this explains the hotel’s apparent lack of hospitality. We were supposed to hold up the company’s brochure, to let the guide recognise us – but it made us feel a bit ridiculous!

Our tour guide was a Malaysian who spoke rather good English, although with a strange accent. Our first coach stop was a small rubber plantation where our tour guide demonstrated how rubber is collected. He used a knife to cut a V shape in a tree, and a trickle of sap flowed into a container. This sap can be used to form rubber when it hardens and has been a major industry in Malaysia.

The second stop was the famous Royal Selangor pewter factory (Matt has seen their products on sale in England). We had a tour of the facility and were shown various stages of pewter production. The factory was very large and it seemed to be a complicated process. Some of the final techniques for making the products seemed to require a great deal of skill and manual dexterity. Being a souvenir fanatic I found the factory shop to be a golden opportunity. This company operated a "fixed-price" policy all over Malaysia, allegedly to protect tourists from overcharging. However, we felt it was more like a "fixed-HIGH-price" policy to protect the company from skilful hagglers!

After browsing, I selected a 98 Commonwealth Games pewter cup. Unfortunately I was informed it had already sold out, and the assistant encouraged me to buy the same item but with a polished finish. I was quite reluctant as it cost a substantial 84 Ringgits (more than 20 pounds), but I gave in eventually. Outside the factory, they displayed the largest pewter beer mug in the world (it’s in the Guinness Books of Records), and it made an unusual setting for a picture.

We then visited a traditional Malay house . It was of wooden construction and built on stilts. We saw various rooms and pieces of traditional furniture. There was no guide but our tour guide had been giving explanations on the bus beforehand. Our tour costs supposedly included all admission fees, but at this free attraction, we were annoyingly pressed for a donation as we left.

Next, we went to a scorpion/butterfly factory. This place made souvenirs from dead insects. Some, using butterflies, were very beautiful, whereas others, using huge scorpions, were fear inducing! We had a brief tour of the factory, but the smells from the dead insects and the glues were really strong, and Matt had to leave. [Matt says: it was literally stomach turning! Several people had to leave.] My souvenir buying had gained momentum and I couldn’t stop myself from acquiring a scorpion key ring.

When our next attraction was a Batik cloth factory, we began to wonder if this was really a shopping tour! A woman demonstrated the way Batik decorations are applied to the material to us, and it was very interesting. A small can of hot wax was used to draw a pattern of wax lines on some cloth. There are some traditional patterns for Batik that can be quite complex. Afterwards an ink dropper is used to apply colour to the material. Cleverly, when an ink drop hits the material it quickly spreads out and colours a large area, but is constrained by any wax lines. So it looked as if she was doing "painting by numbers". The colouring process looked so fast and easy, it must have been lots of fun! I just couldn’t stop spending – this time I parted with another 45 Ringgits to buy a very loud, but smart (in Matt’s opinion) Batik shirt. Matt was interested in buying one but finally resisted the temptation, believing that he couldn’t possibly wear such a style in England.

The 272 steps leading to the Batu Caves

Finally, the guide brought us to the Batu Caves, the reason for joining this tour. To reach the cave, we first had to climb 272 steps, but it seemed like several million. By the time we reached the top, we were exhausted. Some members of the group seemed to have difficulty making the climb at all and took a long time to make it to the top. The were lots of monkeys around, and we had been told that we needed to be careful if we wanted to take pictures of them, as there was a remote possibility that they might snatch the camera! Matt somehow managed to get a picture of a monkey holding a flower in its mouth. The monkey didn’t seem interested in the camera – probably it was an old model! The long climb was worthwhile as the caves were quite picturesque. The area at the top of the steps seemed strangely silent and seemed to have a special "aura". Everyone was speaking quietly. The ceiling of the temple cave itself was 100m high. During the Hindu Thaipusam festival, 80,000 people come to this cave.

A monkey holding a flower in its mouth, in the Batu Caves

The tour was now over and the coach brought us back to the city centre. We got caught in terrible traffic congestion, which our guide attributed to the World Youth Cup game that being held that evening. Upon arrival we cashed some traveller’s cheques, and had a quick lunch at McDonalds. We made a couple of phone calls, first to Cathay Pacific to reconfirm our flight back to HK, then to the Katari Hotel where we intended to stay on our last night in KL before going back to HK.

We took a taxi to go to Masjid Jame. Unlike the National Mosque, this had traditional mosque architecture (Indian Muslim inspired style with onion shaped domes and numerous arched colonnades.) Next, we went to the Medreka Square, where Malaysia declared its independence. The square was formerly the Selangor Club, where cricket, hockey, tennis and rugby were played. There were lots of flags at the south end of the square, and Matt of course wanted to be photographed with the Malaysian flag. One flagpole was very tall, and later we found out that it’s the world’s tallest flagpole. We took a picture of the famous Sultan Abdul Samad Building, which was just across the road. It looked magnificent and it now housed the Supreme and the High Courts. After taking a look at the nearby St. Anne cathedral, we had already finished our list of major attractions we wanted to see in KL!

With a little time on our hands, we decided to return to the National Museum, to visit its "Infidelity" exhibition. This time, we were careful to pay the admission charge! The exhibit recollected famous acts of infidelity in the history of mankind, in Bible and in Greek myths, and discussed their implications. In one culture, the punishment for an unfaithful husband included being XXXXXised with a radish!!! Inevitably we ran out of time again, and the museum guards were turning off the lights and closing doors behind us to try to force us to go away!

We still had plenty of time after leaving the museum, so we decided to go to Sogo to browse. Matt was quite amazed at how cheap clothes were. He really wanted to buy a pair of trousers but after trying on many many pairs, he still couldn’t find something suitable. Instead he bought a Van Heussen shirt which he claimed would have cost twice in the UK. [Matt says: when I later examined the shirt, I found it ironic that I had travelled to Asia, but bought a shirt whose label declared it to be part of the "EUROPA" range, and contained a tag saying, "By appointment to Her Majesty the Queen: the British Van Heussen Co. Ltd."]

After dinner, I wanted to go to the KL Tower, but Matt wanted to rest by now. I tried to go there myself, but the receptionist told me that the tower would close very soon, and I decided that a longer visit together tomorrow evening would be preferable. Matt had bought a set of playing cards last night, and we decided to play some card games. I taught Matt a very popular card game called "Big 2". Somehow he beat me comprehensively in our first game! Beginner's luck!

20^th June, 1997

Today was our day-trip to Malacca, organised with the same tour company. Once again Matt had biscuits for breakfast. This time, I was determined to eat more cheaply than Super Sandwich’s. Instead, I found a street stall selling ready-made sandwiches near our hotel. After breakfast, we went to the meeting place (Hilton Hotel), again. No chairs in the lobby, again.

Surprisingly we had the same tour guide as yesterday. I asked the guide why he went with the Malacca tour today but countryside tour the previous day, and he told me that he always accompanied the tour with the most people! I guess that means we had the top-guide both days. Marvellous!

Malacca is a very old place. It was founded in 1400 by an exiled prince. In 1511, it fell to the hands of the Portuguese followed by the Dutch in 1641. In 1795, it was given to the British to prevent it falling to the French when the Netherlands was captured during the French Revolution. It was later returned to the Dutch.

The first attraction, after a couple of hours on the coach, was the Butterfly Park. It was one of the world’s most comprehensive butterfly and insect parks. We saw some very interesting and special insects there. We were particularly impressed with the stick-insect which camouflaged itself so well with its tree it was a long time before we could distinguish it. Some of the butterflies were quite beautiful as well. We also saw some rather lazy crocodiles, which hardly moved at all. There were so many things to see in the park but we weren’t allowed much time and had to rush through the areas.

St. Peter's Church in Melacca

Next stop, we went to St. Peter’s Church. Its distinguishing feature was having a life-size alabaster statue of the dead Lord Before the Resurrection. It was built by the Portuguese in 1710 with its architectural style blending to that of Oriental and Occidental. We took a picture, then we went to the Portuguese Square. According to our guide, there were still some Portuguese descendants living there although nobody looked particularly Portuguese to me. We had a look around the square and the Portuguese settlement area. As we finished, it was time for lunch, and our guide took us to a Chinese restaurant. The people in the tour were divided into three groups, each occupying one table. We shared our table with a Cambodian couple, a few Japanese women, and an Australian guy with his mother. It turned out that the Australian was studying at Hainan Island, in China. I think he spoke better Mandarin than I do! The lunch was quite generous with six or seven dishes, and we were comfortably full afterwards. Afterwards we were taken to an antique shop nearby, but their merchandise seemed a little too expensive.

After lunch, we were given free time to have a look around the city. We first went to Cheng Hoon Teng’s Temple, which was the oldest Chinese temple in Malaysia. It was built in 1646 with materials shipped out of China. In the temple, Matt had an explanation of the Chinese art of fortune telling, in which you had to try to drop a stick into the ground from a container, then throw two stones, Yin and Yeng. If they matched, the stick was valid; otherwise, you had to repeat the process. Finally, you would have had to take the stick to an official in the temple to have the message interpreted.

We visited two temples in a row, because the next attraction was a temple of Indian descent: Sri Poyyatha Vinayagar Moorthi. Unfortunately, it didn’t look so interesting so we didn’t actually go inside. Apparently, Melacca is famous for antiques, and in Jonker Street the shops sell nothing else. We had a casual browse to see what was on offer but didn’t really want to buy. We walked back to the meeting point, Christ Church, which is a testimony to Dutch architectural ingenuity. We had to wait at the coach for quite a while because some Korean girls in our tour had not come back yet. Ten minutes after the meeting time, the tour guide asked the driver to start driving. We had thought they were looking for those girls, and luckily, they were coming out of a small antique shop when the coach drove by. It turned out that their English wasn’t so good and they didn’t understand the rendezvous arrangements. Later, Matt was surprised to learn from the guide they would have just been left behind, had they not been found on the first coach circuit of the city!

The final stop of the tour was the St. Paul’s Church. Built by a Portuguese captain Duarte Coelho, the Dutch turned the chapel into a burial ground for their noble dead and renamed it "St. Paul’s Church" from the Portuguese’s "Our Lady of the Hill". We noticed that we still had time after visiting St. Paul’s Church, so we decided to have a look around. There was a Sultanate Palace nearby with splendid architecture. It looked quite big and we didn’t really have enough time for a visit. Instead, we went to the Proclamation of Independence Memorial, where they had exhibits showing Malaysia’s progression to independence.

KL Tower, at night

Before we left Malacca, we were brought to a bonus attraction: a shop selling Malaysian foods. The shop actually allowed their customers to try the food first before buying so we could have fun tasting interesting things. We both bought something before getting back on the coach. The trip back to Kuala Lumpur took two hours or so. We had decided we would visit the KL Tower, so we made our way there. We would probably have dined in the revolving restaurant in the tower had they not required reservations a fortnight ahead – a little difficult for tourists like us! The viewing area was a little disappointing, as it was entirely enclosed, so there was no outside breeze and it was difficult to take pictures. Moreover, KL isn’t packed with interesting landmarks, save for the recently built twin towers.

The twin towers in Kuala Lumpur

Back at our hotel we had dinner and reclaimed our luggage. We took a taxi to the railway station and waited on the platform for our train to arrive. There were many people lining up with large piles of luggage, waiting for the same overnight train. Eventually it arrived and we were underway. We both had top bunks, facing each other, on each side of the carriage. I managed to persuade Matt to play a few rounds of card games before sleeping, which involved passing cards between our bunks when no one was walking by.

21^st June, 1997

After more than eight hours of travelling, we were finally arrived at Butterworth. This was actually the first time that I’d had a sleeper when I took an overnight train, so my sleep was better than expected. Matt was less fortunate: the man below him had quickly developed a loud snore, which persisted the whole night. He tried every way to get to sleep, including listening music on a Walkman at various volume levels, but without much success – just an hour’s sleep for the whole night. After the train arrived, we decided to stay in the station for a while to wait for the ticket office to open so that we could book the return ticket to Kuala Lumpur. Matt decided not to risk a further sleepless night: we would thus go on an afternoon train, instead of an overnight one. We had breakfast in a restaurant inside the station. The waiter was very cheerful and chatted with us for a while about our sightseeing plans. After breakfast and buying the return train tickets, we headed for the pier to take the ferry for Georgetown.

The ferry service was frequent and inexpensive, and fifteen minutes later, we set foot in Penang. We tried to make some calls to hotels, but it seemed either every phone was broken, or every hotel number in our guidebook was wrong. Georgetown had two main beaches, and initially, we decided to stay in a beach resort hotel rather than a central location. We got on the bus, on trying to pay were informed that this bus was headed for the other beach. We got off and waited for the correct bus. We stood for 10 minutes, but there was no sign of it. We therefore decided to cut our losses and try a downtown hotel instead. We read our guidebook and decided that the City Bayview should be worth a try. We tried to get a taxi but were horrified when to find they refused to charge by meter, and asked for 5 Ringgits for what we thought a short trip. A trishaw driver offered us the trip for 4 Ringgits after haggling, and so we used this interesting method of transportation instead. The driver actually had to do quite a lot of work as we had all the backpacks (laden with heavy souvenirs) on the trishaw as well. The trip was actually longer than we expected, and weren't given change when we paid with a 5 Ringgit note!

We checked in and were pleasantly surprised with our good deal. It was only 9am, but we were already allowed to check in, which meant we could have a shower and some sleep. Their rate was quite favourable, and with breakfast included, so we were quite satisfied. We even got a room with a balcony overlooking the sea! Two free cocktail welcome drinks were thrown in, along with a voucher to have (just) one shirt washed, but we didn’t use the voucher. After we settled down, I found out that the hotel had a swimming pool – finally I could use my swimming gear! Matt decided to sleep while I went swimming as he had very little sleep on the overnight train. I swam for about half an hour, then I had a shower again and I woke Matt up to go out.

We decided we would begin with some sightseeing and then had lunch. We had hardly walked out of the hotel when we realised that we hadn't got a hotel card (which had been useful in Vietnam when we got lost.) So, we went back to the hotel when we noticed that they had a "high noon" buffet starting at noon, at a very attractive price of 15 Ringgits per head. We therefore decided to eat there. It was good that we stayed in the hotel to eat, as I subsequently discovered that the hotel provided a free bus service to take their customers to their sister hotel at the beach, and that we were allowed to use all the facilities of that resort hotel. The bus would be leaving at 12:45pm and pick us up to take us back at 4pm, so we changed our plan and decided that we would go to the beach in the afternoon and sightsee in the evening and tomorrow morning.

We got on the mini-van as we finished our lunch. We couldn't believe it when a torrential downpour began five minutes into the trip. Matt was obviously displeased, as he had been looking forward to this beach relaxation! Fortunately, the rain had abated when we arrived at this resort hotel at the Tanjung Tokong beach. We got ourselves changed, and then headed for the sand. There was no sun initially, so we just found some chairs to sit down, relax and talk. The sun then came out and became very strong. Matt immediately put on some of his extra-strong sun-block lotion, but the sun went again very soon. We decided that it was time to go swim, but not in the sea, as the sign warned of stinging jellyfish. The hotel pool was really nearby, and looked rather good. It was much bigger than the one at our hotel, and it even had "massage springs" (jets of water). The rain began again during our swim, but Matt said it didn't matter, since we were rather wet anyway, so we continued swimming! As time went on, it rained increasingly heavily, and eventually we needed to have a shelter near the bar right at the middle of the pool. At that time, there were basically only three groups of people swimming in the pool: Matt and me, two American guys and three (or four) Australian girls. We were quite amused, watching the Americans trying to chat up the Australians without success!

Matt, by the beach

It was almost five when we came back to the hotel. We intended to visit the Penang Museum and Art G

allery, but they were already closed when we arrived. So instead we visited a Chinese temple (the Goddess of mercy Temple), the Sri Mariamman Temple, and a mosque (the Kapitan Keling Mosque). It seemed that in each place in Malaysia, there would be a mosque, a Chinese temple, a Christian church, and an Indian Sri Mariamman Temple. But by now we had visited enough of each and didn’t want to go out of our way to see more. So to make a change, we visited Fort Cornwallis, which was built on the site of Francis Light’s historic landing in 1786. Today, an open-air amphitheatre, a history gallery and handicraft and souvenir shops occupied the interior. It housed the famous Dutch cannon presented to the Sultan of Johor by the Dutch. It was later taken to Penang after being looted by the Portuguese. We took some pictures of the fort, as well as the city hall and the clock tower nearby.

Travelling back from the fort to the hotel, we were ready for our dinner but there weren’t any shops or restaurants in this neighbourhood. Consequently, we ate at our hotel once again. I was quite amused when my friend Jackson later told me that Penang was extremely famous for its food, and that it was ridiculous that we couldn’t find somewhere to eat. We chose a revolving restaurant at the top floor of the hotel. They were offering buffet dinner again and the revolving view made an interesting setting for our meal, but it turned out the food was almost the same as our lunch buffet, but at a higher price.

After dinner, we went to the smart bar on the ground floor to have our complimentary welcome drinks. We found a pool table in the bar as well, and decided to give it a try. I hadn’t really played pool before and I was, as expected, poor. Matt managed to beat me quite easily despite claiming ineptitude on his part. Because of our poor skill, our game lasted a quite a long time. Matt decided to play some arcade games, and it turned out that he was extremely good at Puzzle Bobble. Afterwards, we went back to our room, and had a few more rounds of card games before sleeping.

22^nd June, 1997

Perhaps our hotel should have been renamed the "Buffet Hotel", because we had buffet for breakfast once more! We had already eaten two buffets yesterday and concluded this was too many. After breakfast, Matt went for a swim. I was physically quite tired as I had swum quite a lot yesterday, so I decided to rest.

When Matt finished his swimming, we went to the Penang Museum. After failing to find an entrance we realised the museum was closed again, and we went back to our hotel. We had earlier decided to give the funicular ride a miss because it was quite distant. Matt decided to relax on the balcony in the sun. I had become very tanned so I decided to stay inside and relax in the air-conditioned room.

We checked out at noon. Matt liked the Bubble Puzzle game so much that he decided to play a couple more rounds before going. After a taxi and a ferry ride, we were back in Butterworth an hour before our train was due to depart. We had lunch in the same station restaurant before getting on the train. This time there were some French girls in the café and the talkative waiter all but ignored us in favour of them! He was being a bit cheeky and kept trying to shake their hands, to which the girls grudgingly consented after a lot of hesitation. Matt decided to read his Terry Pratchet book (which he eventually lost) on the train but I was so bored that I kept pestering Matt to play card games with me. An hour later, Matt gave in and played a few rounds of "Big 2". The train ride was a very long ride, and we passed through Ipoh about halfway through. We had initially planned to visit Ipoh but later decided to skip it, on account of the interesting things being more mosques, temples, churches, etc., etc.!

At about seven o’clock, we puled into Kuala Lumpur station. We got a taxi voucher to get to Hotel Katari. While queuing for the taxi, a British man approached us and asked if we knew any good places to stay. We told him where we were going and he asked to share our taxi ride. It turned out that this guy had been unlucky to follow our guidance. Our room was smaller and more expensive than the Lodge. Anyway, we were only staying for one night, so it didn’t matter much to us. After checking in, we went out to have dinner – we were relieved not to see that guy again, lest he should vent his anger at us for the poor recommendation! After dinner, we browsed around looking for interesting souvenirs. We checked a cinema to see what kinds of movie were being shown. Unfortunately, they were also showing "The Lost World", so we eventually went back to our room to sleep. Today had been a rather uneventful day.

23^rd June, 1997

The night before, we had arranged an 8 am morning call. Unfortunately, this stupid hotel managed to forget to call us and we slept rather late. We got up and went outside to find somewhere to have breakfast, the hotel’s buffet breakfast being rather expensive. A couple of streets from the hotel we found a local restaurant, selling sandwiches, so we had our breakfast there.

Time was already racing by when we finished our breakfast, so we didn’t want to venture too far. We paid a visit to the Central Market where we both bought some souvenirs. I bought a key ring, while Matt took advantage of some discounted T-shirts. They were such a bargain that Matt bought a couple! Next, we went to the post office where we sent our postcards, and I bought a few stamps for collection. When we finished this, there was not too much time left, so we went to the nearby Maybank Numismatic Museum. It housed a collection of local and regional coins and notes, some dating back to the Malacca Sultanate. We hadn’t expected to see much of interest, and this was just somewhere to kill a few spare minutes. But the exhibits proved to be quite interesting. It provided us an insight into some of the history of Malaysia, and some of the strange coins looked very funny as well.

After visiting this museum, we went back to our room to pack. As we checked out, we decided that we didn’t want to carry our luggage around while finding somewhere to have lunch, and opted to eat in the hotel restaurant to make life easy. It turned out to be a good decision as the food was quite good. When we finished our lunch, took a cab to the airport.

We arrived at the airport much earlier than we needed to - the check-in wouldn’t even start for another hour. Matt made good use of the time by writing more postcards. When we checked in, we were both quite surprised to see how much the weight of our luggage had grown. Both of our backpacks were a few kilograms heavier than when we left Hong Kong! The Cathay Pacific flight turned out to be quite good. We both had a small personal TV in front of our seats. Unfortunately (for me), the on-flight movie they showed was Dante’s Peak, which I had already seen a few months before. The food was also quite good, and they even gave us both a set of souvenir playing cards. Matt complained about "Murphy's Law", having just bought a deck of cards a few days before. Midway through the flight, a stewardess was asking a few passengers to complete forms to give opinions about the flight. Matt was one of those chosen to do so. The biggest complaint that Matt had was that there was not enough legroom. (I guess being short does have an advantage – the leg room problem wasn’t too serious for me.)

Three hours later, we were finally back in Hong Kong. Once again we took the airbus to go to Tsim Sha Tsui. As soon as we got off the bus, we were approached by someone to see if we needed accommodation, again. We couldn’t believe it when it turned out that the guy was working for the Lily’s Garden Guest House in the Mirador Mansion, again! Matt got a room at about the same price as last time, but this room was slightly larger than the previous one. After Matt settled down, we went out to do some shopping. Matt bought a pair of jeans at Giordano, to save finding a laundry. Then, we went to McDonalds to eat something, as we still had a space to fill after the food provided on the flight.

At the guesthouse, we decided that Matt should book his room for his next stay, which would be during the hand-over period, in case nothing was available. They asked us to pay the first night rent’s in advance (Matt would stay two nights) and they also almost doubled the price of rooms, to nearly HKD 400! We knew it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to find somewhere inexpensive to stay during the hand-over period, so Matt just had to pay.

24^th June, 1997

Our flight to Xi’an was due to depart at 6pm, so Matt decided he would check out early and came over to my apartment to put store his luggage for the day. We went to the Sogo department store in Causeway Bay. Earlier, Matt bought something in Sogo Kuala Lumpur, so I thought he would be interested in visit this bigger Sogo in Hong Kong as well. [Matt says: I’ve been to Sogo in many countries, but strangely, I’ve never been to the Sogo store in London!] Matt didn’t buy anything but he browsed at camcorders and the like. We took a tram to Central. The tram was a much cheaper form of transport than the MTR and definitely very nice, although very slow. When we arrived at Statue’s Square, Matt took quite a few pictures, including the Legislative Council, the Bank of China Tower, the Hongkong Bank tower, and the War Memorial.

The Legislative Council in Hong Kong

We took a ferry to cross the harbour. Almost all the travel books recommend tourists visiting Hong Kong to take it at least once, and there was no reason why Matt should miss it. I asked Matt whether he wanted to travel on first class or second class. First class means travelling on the upper deck and second means the lower. Since the first class only costs three pence more than the second, we took the first without hesitation! One can definitely have a good view of both sides of the harbour and Matt, of course, took a few pictures.

When we arrived at Tsim Sha Tsui, the other side of the harbour, we noticed that Swindon Bookshop was just nearby. We decided to go in and Matt made quite a few purchases. He got some very nice postcards (most were Hong Kong by night), and also two "Aiyaaa" comic books. I had sent Volume 1 of "Aiyaaa" to Matt the previous Christmas, as a present, and he enjoyed it so much that he decided to buy two more. Next, we went to China Travel Services where I had bought the air tickets to China. When I bought the tickets, I had wrongly thought that Matt’s middle name was Robert, instead of Richard. [Matt says: when Ken first said to me, "Your middle name is Robert, right?" I just laughed, as I assumed it was a funny joke.] We went there to try to correct my mistake. However, the man said it was too late to change any details, and we would just have to take our chances. Terrific! (NOT!)

Earlier in the day, Matt had told me the guesthouse had now asked him to pre-pay the second night’s stay (1^st July) – otherwise they wouldn’t reserve the room for him. We decided to pay up, to be safe, so we went back to the guesthouse. Our receipt was rather informal and we could only hope that things would work out OK. After leaving the guesthouse, I needed a cash point to replenish my wad and Matt half-jokingly asked if he had just wiped me out.

For lunch I decided to take Matt to a Chinese restaurant. A real one, not a fancy one specifically for tourists, but one that served dim sum and was frequented by locals. The restaurant of course didn’t have an English menu, so I did all of the ordering and talking. I got a few dishes of dim sum, which I think Matt enjoyed. Matt was actually quite pleased that we went to a local restaurant where he could appreciate the local way of life. After lunch, we intended to get our films developed, but we actually ran out of time and so we had to wait until our next return to Hong Kong to develop them.

We returned to my apartment, packed our stuff, and took a mini-van to get to the airport. Mini-van is a very special and convenient way to travel around in Hong Kong. To get off, you have to shout to the driver your intention of getting off a few hundred yards before. Matt said that he would never be able to take a min-van on his own. We made it to the check-in desk on time, but were a bit frustrated about having to pay departure tax again. Oh dear, Matt would have to pay yet another HKD100 airport tax when he returned to England!