Before Yagil and I visited the Batu caves, I had to go to the Myanmar embassy in Kuala Lumpur to make sure I would be let in to the country considering my flight was only 5 days away.
The embassy itself was quite hard to find but instantly recognizable by the hundreds of queuing Burmese people eagerly or desperately waiting to speak to a consul. Of course, being a white foreigner allows you to access another line which only requires waiting a few minutes before speaking to someone and filling in the necessary forms.
Despite the fact I had no idea about Mike and my itinerary, what we planned to do or see, or even what Myanmar had to offer; they still considered me a valid candidate and would have my visa ready for the following day.
Before picking up my passport, I made my way to Jalan Petaling, the heart of KL's Chinatown where you can find some of the most convincing knockoffs anywhere.
From there I walked to Merdeka square, where Malaysia's independence was proclaimed from Britain in 1957 and then admired some colonial architecture flanking this sprawling green space.
Since the embassy was located near Kuala Lumpur's golden triangle: KL's main business district; I decided what better time time to visit Malaysia's most famous landmark, the Petronas Towers.
The world's tallest skyscrapers until 2004, these futuristic towers set in a lovely urban park are really quite impressive and actually quite difficult to capture in their entirety without a wide angle lens.
When I finally found a good vantage point, I failed to find a suitable person to take a photo (Mike was still in Singapore partying it up with Loy), so I settled on a crooked photo taken by a spatially challenged Russian woman (at least she tried).
That evening I met up with a friend I had met while doing a day-trip to Jordan's Petra from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula in 2010. Huey lived in KL and is quite the photographer and also an avid traveller. We had a great Malaysian meal and discussed things I should do in Myanmar because she had already been there.
It is truly amazing that after only a brief meeting, we would meet again 3 years later in her hometown halfway across the world. Travelling is truly a gift!
Meanwhile, Mike had finished his stint in Singapore and we agreed to meet halfway on Palau Tioman, another one of Malaysia's terrific duty-free islands. I hopped on the earliest bus I could to Mersing, the jumping off point to Tioman, but for some reason I still managed to miss the last ferry over. I guess I was spending the night in Mersing!
For the rest of the day, I wandered around the scenic harbour and visited the town mosque perched on a hill providing lovely views over this fishing community.
Even though I was there unintentionally, it was still nice to get away from the tourist spots because the locals were very genuine and very happy to interact with a foreigner. After watching a lovely sunset on the beach I retired to my cheap guesthouse and called it a night.
The next morning I caught the first ferry and within a few hours found myself on Tioman. Mike and I had settled on Air Batang Beach or ABC as it's known to Malaysians. Even though I didn't know where Mike would be staying (there was no reliable wifi on Tioman), I still managed to find him within an hour.
After having found a dive shop to go with the following day, we decided to trek from Tekek, Tioman's main town, to Juara on the other side of the island. Our intention was to make it to a waterfall three quarters of the way there, but after several hours of sweating our asses off in the stifling humidity and being bitten by unrelenting bugs, we decided to turn back, go for a swim and have some duty-free beers at sunset corner bar instead.
The next day, we made our way to Blue Haven Divers, the Japanese-operated dive shop we chose to do our diving with. Since Mike and I were the only 2 divers with them that day, we got to choose where we wanted to go.
Our first two dives were at Pulau Tulai or Coral island and this name was not a sheer coincidence: the coral around this island was absolutely stunning. Our final dive was around Pulau Rengis and we definitely saved our best for last. The shallow 12m dive lasted nearly an hour and the whole time we were surrounded by massive turtles and close to a dozen black-tipped reef sharks!
All my previous bitching and moaning of not diving with sharks was finally put to rest. Not only did I see around a dozen, but some swam near metres from Mike and I! To make matters even more incredible, we had the whole dive site to ourselves!
Upon our return to KL , we revisited the Petronas Towers again and I finally got a straight picture in front of them.
I also gave Mike my camera so he could take pictures from atop the Menara KL, which is even higher than the observatory deck of the Petronas; because I was too cheap to go up myself.
Our next country is Myanmar or Burma as it is still known to many western nations. A country that has only recently opened itself up to the west, but everyone who has visited says it is a mystical and magical place not to be missed. As more major corporations and tourists slowly enter this former military dictatorship, it is likely to change dramatically in the next few years, so we wanted to visit before it became another Thailand (not that there is anything wrong with Thailand) and discover it for ourselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment