Malaysia; Truly Asia

Malaysia is immediately a very different country to those we have previously visited. The multicultural society here is very obvious with malay, chinese and indian people rubbing shoulders at every corner. This mixture of cultures and how well it works is refreshing. Food is the one thing that stands out in malaysia, with a huge mix of smells and tastes on every street there is no chance of ever going hungry here. Although ironically it has been Ramadhan while we were here so a lot of stuff is closed during the day and of course people are very hungry..
The country itself is also extremely diverse. While here we have been to Penang (a food paradise). Then the perhentian island (literally paradise) where we went snorkelling and saw sharks, rays and giant turtles. From here we went through a very islamic town Kota Bharu and took the jungle train to Taman Negara, one of the worlds oldest rain forests. We did our own tailor made (easy) jungle trek and did the canopy walk. The Malaysia tourism board posters that are everywhere inspired us to do this.
We needed a city fix after getting covered in mud and sweating more than is believable, so headed to Kuala Lumpur (KL). There is a rollercoaster in one of the many shopping centres here. Ofcourse we had to visit the petronas towers as well.
Next up was the Cameron highlands, a very green and VERY cold area of tea plantations and strawberry farms. A long days walking came with the rewards of "tea Tarik " and strawberry cheesecake. Delicious.
So there was just one place left to go before returning to KL for malaysian independence day, this was Melaka. Both of us really enjoyed it here. The mixture of colonial architecture and old chinese houses was really charming. The busy night market was great too with drunk chinese dance groups spilling out on to the street at random intervals. By now we felt like we had seen everything Malaysia had to offer so decided to head back to KL for our last few days before heading in to Singapore.
photos of Malaysia