Destination: Peninsular Malaysia - #KualaLumpur and the #Perhentian Islands
Activities: sightseeing, swimming, diving, beach life
Time needed: 7-8 days
Budget: £550
Route:
This is the second part of our journey through Malaysia. We flew in to Kuala Lumpur (KL) from Sandakan, Borneo. We wrote about that part of the trip here.
1.stop: Kuala Lumpur
It was an experience in itself to stay at the apartment we booked for those few days in KL. It was located in a tall serviced apartment building with a swimming pool on the 47th floor looking at the Petronas Towers, free for guests to use. Several apartments were rented out through AirbnB in the building, we booked this one for 4 nights. We paid £32/night, a bit more than we usually spend on accommodation, but hey; this place was so cool!
How to get around in KL:
We used Uber & Grab! a lot, it was cheap and easy and we also walked a lot every day. We didn't use public transport much.
Things we did while in KL:
The most obvious thing that everyone does in KL, see the #PetronasTowers.
We didn't go on the top as we found it too expensive, but we went inside and looked around the giant shopping mall.
Behind the Towers there is a well kept park with a peaceful atmosphere which is nice to chill out in and to take a break from the busy city.
Visit #ChinaTown
China Town is in the centre of KL. It has a huge market where you can get everything from clothes to souvenirs and fruits. It's best to go there on an empty stomach because you'll find some of the best food courts here with cuisines from all over the world. My favourite was anything Korean.
Visit #LittleIndia
A vibrant place, great for shopping (we didn't buy much, mostly just looked around and admired the amount of things here), many Indian temples and eateries. You'll find a lot of places that serve food on a banana leaf, which was very new for us and we enjoyed eating from this green plate a lot.
Food is cheap here, about £2-£3 for a meal and there is a lot of variety, you can spend your whole day eating (which I'm sure no one would want to) and eat something different and delicious every time.
2.stop: Perhentian Kecil
From KL we wanted to get to the Perhentian Islands and we booked our bus tickets through Perdana Express to get to Kuala Besut, we paid £8/person for them. It was a long journey, we started in the morning and got to Kuala Besut late in the evening. The boats to the islands don't operate after dark, so we spent the night in the village at this guesthouse.
There are two Perhentian islands, Besar (big) and Kecil (small). We decided for Kecil because we heard it was more chilled, cheaper and more backpacker-ish, as opposed to Besar, which was more expensive, posher and for honeymooners. We bought a return ticket for £13 and set off at 7am with the first boat. This way we avoided the National Park fee because the guards only started work at 8am.
We spent our first night on Perhentian at Oh Lala on Long Beach, paying £4/night.
It was a very chilled place with cool people but it was also right next to a place that played music late into the night so we moved out the next morning. We came back to dive with them though and we were very satisfied.
We stayed at Rock Garden Chalet for another 3 nights. We paid £18/night here.
Things we did on Perhentian Kecil:
Explore the other beaches. The island is small and easy to walk around, our favourite walk was across the forest to Coral Bay, where we spent a lot of time on the beach.
We also hang out at beach bars with a cocktail or two...
Many places offer accommodation in a package combined with a dive course, or just fun dives if you've got your diving cert already. We did one dive with Oh Lala for £16 (!). We saw a lot of colourful corals and sea creatures, and our dive instructors were highly professional.
Our favourite place to eat on the island was Ewan's Café and Restaurant. Clean, big place with a large choice of tasty and cheap meals, and working Wifi (most of the time).
We took a boat to the mainland after 4 days and got on the bus to Perlis, which is the gateway to Langkawi. We bought our bus tickets for this journey back on Perhentian at the internet café on Coral Bay, as the Wifi was very unreliable and slow on the island.
You'll find the first part of our trip on Borneo here:
https://steemit.com/travel/@peterveronika/travel-plan-malaysia-1st-part-malaysian-borneo
And this is the third part of the trip through Langkawi and Penang:
https://steemit.com/travel/@peterveronika/travel-plan-malaysia-3rd-part-langkawi-and-penang