With a three-hour but very quiet ride on the speedboat, our first – with backpackers typically very popular – real island hopping begins. So far, we have always postponed it, simply because it usually involves a lot of time but also money, just to lie on the beach and snorkel a bit.

And after a short taxi ride and a bit of confusion until we checked in at the right hotel, we are now on the beach and it is the 24th of December, the Christmas Eve. If you have ever wondered where Christmas haters (to whom we * do not * count) can spend Christmas without the typical western total sonication of songs, consumption and lighting, we now have an answer. On an Asian island with mainly Muslim inhabitants and at that time mainly Asian tourists. Although not completely erased, the Christmas spirit is very discreet. The highest of the feelings is a “Merry XMas” sign in some boutiques and every 10th beach bar plays every now and then a Christmas song. And if that is still too much, then the “absurdity of the situation becomes aware of” Let it snow “in a beach bar at 35 ° C, at least we could not resist a spontaneous laughter

When we then have a 20-year-old veiled Muslim wants “Merry Christmas”, let’s remember how nice it is when religions just live together peacefully.

Langkawi itself is a very pleasant first island stop. Not too small to be able to do anything except the beach, but small enough that after three days you have seen the most interesting spots and can travel on with a clear conscience. We hire a scooter for two days and drive all over the island – finally real Asian feeling

. Our personal highlight is the ride on the scooter to the highest mountain of the island (823m) (Gunung Raya), because only very few tourists get lost here and there are tons of animals on the way, especially macaques and spectacles. Especially the latter with their huge eyes, we could probably watch for hours without getting bored. Besides some beaches and temples, we visit “the” tourist highlight of the island, the ride with a gondola to the so-called SkyBridge. Even if the weather lets us down a bit and it is very cloudy, the view of the island and its beaches is breathtaking. In addition, we manage by a stupid coincidence to overtake the entire queue in front of the gondola, which saves us 30 minutes waiting. The nice supervisors of the gondolas try this namely always as busy with 6 people and so it happens that we switch fast enough. One of the ladies walks with walkie-talkie and two raised fingers through the “Express-Line” we are passing, she grabs us and leads us past the queue to the gondola, where a 4-headed Indian family is standing we sit in it. If you know that before, you can probably handle this situation very well, because even at the later departure we see that happen several times.

After three days we have enough of the island, but also a bit of Malaysia, and we move a bit further to the open sea and especially to Thailand to our next island “Koh Lipe” …

Warten auf den Check-In, es gibt schlimmeres

Irre Farben beim Sonnenuntergang

 

 

Feuershow gefällig?

Die gabs jeden Abend am Strand

endlich wieder Asia-Like auf dem Roller unterwegs...

... hoch auf den Gunung Raya ...

... mit schönem Ausblick über die Insel...

The island of Penang just off the coast is actually only the starting point for the “real” islands. So as not to spend 8 hours in buses and ferries, we decided to stay one night in Penang to spend a leisurely afternoon in the small town of Georgetown and not take the ferry to our first island Langkawi until the next morning.

What to say … After the disappointment in Kuala Lumpur, Georgetown really blew us away. Small streets, everywhere dealers and stalls, artists, street art and locals and tourists of all backgrounds, religion and color, all together enjoy the warm weather and the flair of the city. The population is almost equally composed of Malaysians, Indians and Chinese, so the mosque is only a few meters from the Hindu temple and there are both Little China and Little India, the former partly built on a pier above the sea ,

We are almost sorry to have just one afternoon, but that’s enough to soak up the city’s flair. Although the island with more temples, beaches and a national park would have much more to offer, but we feel ripe for the Christmas season in the island paradise and take the next morning the first ferry at 8:30 clock in the direction of Langkawi. Bye, bye Penang, return not excluded

Georgetown City Hall

DIe Moschee

belebte Straßen

mit interessanter Straßenkunst

 

 

 

 

es ist nicht ganz klar ob die 3 Fahrradfahrer oder die Säule interessanter zu beobachten sind...

sorry, only google translate

In order to break up the route between Kuala Lumpur and the planned island hopping for the Christmas season, we decided to pay a visit to the Cameron Highlands. Our feelings in advance were mixed due to various travel reports (keyword: mass tourism), but we still did not want to miss out on the Malaysian high mountains a little under the microscope. The Cameron Highlands are located at about 1200m above sea level and are mainly due to the extensive tea plantations known, in fact here is due to the climate (humid and year-round between 20 and 30 ° C, only at night it cools partly to dingy 10-14 ° C ab) almost everything grown, which is only somehow suitable for consumption. So we came already on the bus ride past countless plantations, which later grew to the cultivation of strawberries, cabbage, potatoes, garlic and much more. turned out.

The search for suitable activities was a bit more difficult, because most tours have set themselves the goal of transporting as many tourists as possible through as many different plantations as possible including factory outlet (in Chinese, the strawberry farms are probably very high in the race … ). The alternative, to hike on your own through the plantations and the surrounding jungle, seemed to us much more attractive, but because of the sometimes several kilometers distance between the starting points of the hikes logistically somewhat complicated. Since v.a. In Malaysia, the driving license controls are a bit stricter than in other countries of Southeast Asia, de lending a scooter also fell into the water. Finally, we found a tour that combined both the tea plantations and a guided jungle walk for a whopping € 20. And that should turn out to be a real lucky hit …

After a very delicious breakfast with our hostess, we were picked up by our Indian guide Satya and it went directly into the montane rainforest “Mossy Forest” declared only a few months ago. Along the way, we learned that Satya has been fighting with some of our fellow combatants for 15 years to protect this area. Accordingly, his inexhaustible knowledge of the park and all 400 animal, 600 insect and 8000 plant species that are in it, which he readily shared with us. In addition to the tours, Satya is also a passionate and professional wildlife photographer, spending several months each year in jungles or other inadequate areas, always looking for a specific animal. Among other things, two trips for a total of 4 months for a photo of a snow leopard to Nepal. Some photos of him are also in “National Geographic” to see.

A small section of the Mossy Forest is open for tourist groups only for an hour each day. This is of course great for nature conservation! However, we would find a footwear control much more effective, because on the really extremely muddy ground through the rain, we discovered everything from hiking boots to ballerinas really everything. Satya has probably even discovered a lady in high heels.

Anyway, after the really nice walk with lots of information through the forest we went back through the beautiful lush green tea plantations to a (very unspectacular) tea factory, which we also visited briefly. Here and on the way back to the lunch break we experienced the much-quoted mass tourism with miles of traffic jams to the tea plantation. After lunch we hiked for 2 hours through the jungle, unfortunately not as in Sumatra with exciting animal sightings, but Satya showed us many original plants (several sorts of ginger, pepper, cinnamon, banana trees, etc.) and like these of the remaining ones Native people are used. In addition, he showed us many of his really impressive photos of unfortunately mostly nocturnal animals, who feel at home in this forest. Et al Here lives the Fleckenmusang, a wildcat species that became famous mainly because of the half-digested coffee beans it caused. The resulting “cat coffee” is sinfully expensive.

All in all a very successful day, especially with the really excellent tour, perfectly rounded off by a really delicious Indian food in a small restaurant in a side street.

Morgendlicher Nebel der auch den Mossy Forest speißt

Rein in den Mossy Forest

und ein paar Impressionen...

 

 

 

Insektenfressende Blume

Oben angekommen belohnt der Anblick über das Tal

Und bergab geht's wieder in der Karawane

We arrive in Kuala Lumpur in the late afternoon – or in the Bukit Bintang district, where our inn is – and are pleased to see that we have hit it completely in the black. Not only is the famous night food market just a 5-minute walk away, but the large shopping malls (for example the pavilion) with their invigorating nightlife and the famous as well as quite spectacular Petronas Towers are just a short walk away.

But that was already positive impressions, because the following two days turned out to be absolutely unspectacular. Because if you are not necessarily interested in wild parties, sinfully expensive hotels with rooftop infinity pools, extravagant shopping trips or glass viewing platforms on TV towers, then Kuala Lumpur does not have much to offer. During our rambles through the neighborhoods, we missed all the joie de vivre we are used to from other major cities. Public parks are virtually extinct (or completely closed), sidewalks virtually do not exist, one is permanently surrounded by traffic noise and public transport is in fact unusable. So it comes that we needed for a distance of about 1km as the crow flies over an hour, just because between us and our destination is a main artery and a muddy river. And so, halfway through the first day, we feel like we’ve seen everything. If we had not already organized the onward journey, we probably would have left the city the next day, so we use it but to plan a little and to stray even further through the city (and the seller of our SIM card over your ear let that be part of a classic Asia vacation as well).

But Kuala Lumpur had a small highlight ready for us. On the basis of a documentation at Arte, we became aware of Kampung Baru, a small, inconspicuous and typically Asian village in the middle of the skyscrapers of the metropolis virtually next to the Petronas Towers. We also got an idea of ​​how a mainly Muslim country in Asia is pre-Christmas. All department stores are full of cheesy exhibits (on the other hand, the windows of Lafayette’s in Paris are a joke) and the kids are happy about “snow” made of foam cannons. Just wonderful to look at and it makes us turn the city at least with a smile!

Petronas Towers

Masjid Jamek - Die älteste Moschee Kuala Lumpurs

Central Market

Die Skyline vom botanischen Garten

Kampung Baru mit den Petronas Towers im Hintergrund

Der wohl hässlichste Weihnachtsbaum aller Zeit

Weihnachten auf asiatisch 🙂