Pulao Tioman & Singapore

After getting back to Shanghai from our trip, we had one bigger assignment to do that kept me from updating my blog for a while (but now I’ve time to write a few posts before leaving China and move back to Finland). So after the 4 days in KL we took a night bus to Mesring, a city on the east coast of Malaysia, where we arrived at 4.30am. We’d heard that the ferries don’t really have a schedule but luckily for us the next ferry was about to leave at 5am so we just made it on time for that one (the next one would’ve left at 2pm). The ferry did last about 2 hours and we arrived at the Tioman Islands at 7am and went straight to look for a bungalow to stay in for the next days. We found two 3-bed bungalows for us pretty easily.

After a short nap, we spent the first day on the beach enjoying the hot weather, sunshine and clear South-China Sea water. The Tioman Islands are listed as one of the paradise islands and the village where we stayed was very small and there weren’t that many tourists (which was a nice thing). We actually planned to stay there 3 nights but we delayed our stay by one night because we felt like staying there longer in stead of Singapore. During the days on the Island we did some snorkeling, canoeing, laying on the beach, swimming, eating really tasty barbeque and just relaxing. The weather was really gorgeous the whole time and the first raindrops fell in the morning we left the island for Singapore. Below are some pics.

We knew it would be a pretty long journey to Singapore, but it was surprisingly long. First we had to take the ferry back to Mesring and that took us over 3 hours this time for some reason. In Mesring we had to wait for about one hour for the bus to Singapore. We were told that it would be a 3-hour ride but after three hours we had to change busses in the last town on the Malaysian side. Before actually arriving in some random bus station in Singapore we had changed the bus twice again due to the border registration activities. Finally in Singapore, we had no clue where we were actually and no Singaporean dollars, so we started walking hoping to find a ATM somewhere to be able to get a taxi to our hostel.

In the first evening we headed to Clarke Quay, a riverside area full of restaurants and bars. One place there happened to have a Maifest-party (a German festival that takes place in May). The next days we spent walking around different areas of the city. We visited Little India and its super big shopping mall Mustafa, Chinatown (maybe we missed Shanghai already so much that we had to experience some China again J), the main shopping area of the city around Orchard Road and went to movies in Raffles City (yeah, the Avengers was really entertaining). Some other must-see places definitely were the Merlion statue, the whole neighborhood around Raffles Place with all the skyscrapers and 5-star hotels, as well as the Parliament and other governmental buildings. One evening we planned to go the Singapore Flyer but we were a little bit late and they didn’t take anymore people on board. However, we had a spectacular view of the city in the rooftop bar in Marina Bay Sands (that really tops the view from the Flyer). I’d also strongly recommend visiting the restaurant called Marche’s in Somerset! It’s a Swiss restaurant and the food is delicious. Unfortunately we didn’t have the opportunity to go to Sentosa (but maybe next time). One funny coincidence was the Changing of the Guard ceremony we just happened to walk by and stopped to watch it. It takes place only once a month at the main entrance of Istana.  

Batu Caves & City sightseeing in KL

 In total we spent 3 days in KL, though the first day was a bit affected by the arrival in the middle of the night. Before going to KL I’d heard from several people that you don’t need to spend many days there because there is not that much to see – and it was true. I’d say that 3 to 4 days are enough. In the first morning we planned to leave quite early but we all felt so tired that we didn’t manage to get up as planned. After we finally got up, we took the train to Batu Caves which is a monkey park with some bat caves. There were quite many tourists besides us. You could feed the monkeys there and they were completely free to play and jump around the area. After a tour in the monkey park, we took a 45-minute guided tour in the ‘Black Cave’ that was the biggest of the caves. The tour did cost 35 RMY (ca. 9€). The guide explained us about the cave’s history, bates living there and the very rare spider species you can find there too.

In the early evening we got back to KL and we went to take a look at the Petronas Towers. If you want to go to the observation area and visit the towers, you have to be there at 8.00am as they allow only a maximum of 1.000 people to visit the towers daily. However, to have a better view at the city I’d recommend to go to the KL Tower which is higher and provides a nice view at the Petronas Towers and the rest of the city.

On our last day we visited Chinatown shopping street called Petaling Street. It was funny since knowing the markets in Shanghai, they had pretty much exactly the same items on display in KL too.. And it seems to be in every Chinatown  market the same issue that if you want to buy something, you have to bargain unless you want to pay way too much. After eating in Chinatown we continued by walking to the Merdeka Square. On the way there wo shortly stopped at one Temple we had already walked by the other day but it was closed then. Around the square there are many of governmental buildings and on the one end of the square there was probably the world’s highest flagpole. We also visited the KL museum where you can see some pictures and stories of the city’s development. Before returning to the hostel, we walked across Little India. It was actually quite big in KL and had many small shops and restaurants. We spent our last evening at the hostel before taking the night bus to Mersing to catch the ferry to Tioman Islands.