DAY 163 (Friday 30 December 2011)

Well today all I have really done is the rest of the washing that needed to be done as yesterday I didn’t have room on my washing line for the amount that needed to be and I made some Autumn Tomato Chutney.

Homemade Autumn Tomato Chutney

DAY 162 (Thursday 29 December 2011)

Today was our first day back home and it was started off with a bit of a decent lie in considering the noise my neighbours normally make.

To be honest all today really consisted off was getting the washing done, but not all of it has been due to the fact that we don’t have a very big washing line so the rest of it will have to get done tomorrow, going out and get the basics that we need in food shopping, but get this, even though I am on leave, both me and Charlie actually went to the gym for a bit of a work out, and I was pleasantly surprised as I weighed myself on the scales in the gym (I only use these ones) to find that I didn’t put on any weight, I was a little surprised, but in the end we did walk almost everywhere when we were on our holidays.

Well peeps that is it for today, so I shall catch you tomorrow.

DAY 160 & 161 (Tuesday 27 & Wednesday 28 December 2011)

HEADING BACK TO NEPAL

OMG where do I start with this journey, I shall tell you, it goes back to the before our holiday even started.  E-Bookers had been in touch to tell me that our original flight coming back from our holiday was no longer flying and that we would have to change our flight, they gave us the option for the flight that was to come back via MUMBIA, to cut this quick so I can carry on with the rest of the day a few emails went back and forth between me and E-Bookers, but by the time we actually went on our holiday they had not replied, so me being me was a little concerned about our return flight, anyway, during our holiday E-Bookers finally got back in touch, they didn’t actually say anything in their email, just the flight details, but looking at the flight details they were our original return flights, so with that we headed our to the KUALA LUMPUR INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT for the flight stated on this email, only to get to the airport check-in desk to be told that there was no record of our flight, well, after a bit of tooing and froing between flight desks and the MALAYSIA AIRLINE booking office, a very helpful checking-in clerk helped us, she called JET AIRWAYS (our flight was with them) and after a bit of digging around they confirmed that E-bookers had put us on the flight back to KATHMANDU via MUMBIA, but what they didn’t do was change the details in the email, just the ticket number, but like I said earlier, there was no reference to this in the actual email.

Anyway, we finally got checked in and had to wait around at the airport a bit longer than expected as our original flight was due to leave at 1515hrs but this one was due to leave at 2050hrs.  When we finally got on our flight it was pretty quiet so there was no one behind or in front of us to annoy us with their seats or the banging of ours,  We finally landed at MUMBIA at 2230hrs to be met by a flight representative to take us through the transit part of journey, however, that was more of a pain than it was worth, the flight representative took us then left us for half an hour in a waiting area, then she came back and took us through the security to the transit waiting area, this is where she asked for our passports so that she could go and get our onward tickets, I was far from happy to be letting her take my passport away, I even asked if I could go with her, but she said no and she would only be half an hour, well an hour and half later she still wasn’t back, so I was (I will admit) starting to fret as she had our passports, but then she eventually came back and gave us not only our passports, but also our boarding card, which we then had to go back to security to get stamped as proof that we had already been checked, I tell you, it would have been less hassle for us to have done it on our own, why we needed assistance to transit through I have no idea, but I do know one thing, I shall not be doing that again.

After we got everything sorted and were finally left to our own devices we went back to the seats we were sitting in as they were sort of like loungers where you were able to try and get a little more of a relaxed position for a bit of shut eye, which both me and Charlie tried to do, well as best as you can at an airport.

Finally it was the next day and we eventually took off an hour later than our original flight time to get back to KATHMANDU, in one hand I couldn’t wait for this journey to be over as the rest of the holiday had been amazing, only for it to be ruin by the travelling.  We actually landed in KATHMANDU about 10 minutes earlier than scheduled but at the end of the day it was still an hour later than it should have been for the delay in MUMBIA.

We got through the arrivals gate and saw one of the Mov Det people that assist us through the airport from our camp, they were actually there waiting for Mark Black, (he was on our flight) and as I had to cancel our airport assistance because of the trouble over our flights, we asked if we could jump on his transport back to camp, which was good.

As we were travelling back to camp it actually felt like we hadn’t been away, only because of the volume of traffic and the noise of the horns constantly on the go, but in some respects it was good to be back and to get home for a decent cup of coffee, also as we had no food in the house we went out for our evening meal as we were in no mood to go and do any shopping, especially with the lack of sleep that we have had. 

So we ended this journey as we had started it, being away for over 24 hours for each journey day, I hope never to have to go through that again.

DAY 159 (Monday 26 December 2011)

BOXING DAY

Today was again a lie in day and our last full day here in KUALA LUMPUR, we decided not to go down to breakfast today as we wanted to go and have something to eat at the KL TOWER

View of the KL Tower on our way up there

as we knew it would be a buffet, so what better way to have good food and see the sights of the city

View from the KL Tower Revolving Restaurant

There was lots of food to choose from and when you are seated your allotted time for being in the restaurant is 2 hours which is how long it takes for the restaurant to revolve from your start point to end.  Charlie made sure that he wasn’t going to miss out on the dessert station of the buffet as there were absolutely loads to choose from.

Charlie at the Dessert Station

The Dessert Station

After we finished there, we took a slow and I mean slow wander back into the City Centre so that we could pick up any last minute bits and pieces that we wanted as we wouldn’t really get the chance tomorrow.

Then it was back to the hotel for a bit of a rest as it was already very late in the afternoon and we still needed to decide where we were going to eat for tea tonight, to be honest I wasn’t really that hungry so a light snack would suffice.

As tomorrow is our travelling day, I probably won’t be writing anything until I get back to NEPAL, however I shall catch up as soon as I can and let you know how the flight back goes.

DAY 158 (Sunday 25 December 2011)

CHRISTMAS DAY

Well today was our trip to MELAKA, the transport was late in collecting us from the hotel, but we had a different place to go to to get on the coach that was to take us to MELAKA.

Charlie & Me on the coach to Melaka

When we got to MELAKA our first stop was at the PORTUGUESE SETTLEMENT which is situated next to the MELAKA STRAIGHTS, as we passed through there all the houses had ‘OPEN HOUSE’ with all the Christmas Decorations (a bit like some of the villages in the UK do with their gardens)

From there we went to the largest Chinese cemetery outside of China holding around 12000 graves, the picture below is the temple prior to entering the cemetery.

After leaving the Cemetery we headed for lunch at the KENG-DOM restaurant, the food was a set meal and was very nice.  On from there we headed to ST PAUL’S CHURCH which was at the top of a hill, within the walls of the old ST JOHN’S FORT.

Old Tombstones inside the ruined walls of St Paul’s Church

History behind St Paul’s Church

On from there we headed down the hill to the DUTCH SQUARE which is where the CHRIST CHURCH that was constructed in 1753 from pink bricks that were brought over from ZEELAND in HOLLAND. 

Christ Church with Queen Victoria’s Fountain

The fountain in the square has 4 images of a very young QUEEN VICTORIA face in profile; this fountain was erected in 1904 by the people of MELAKA in memory of QUEEN VICTORIA.

We eventually got to CHINA TOWN to do the walk down where there were some shops, the street is called

There were sides streets that you could go down to see more temples and other buildings, but as we were on a short time as we only had another hour to go before getting back on the bus for one final building to see, both Charlie and me just headed straight down JONKER WALK into CHINA TOWN to see what they had in the shops, we finally got back to the bus and the final stop was ST PETER’S CHURCH
 

St Peter’s Church

This is still the oldest functioning Catholic Church in MALAYSIA, this church was built in 1710 by early Portuguese settlers.  Inside the church there are stained glass windows

Now I am not really a church goer, but it was really nice to see inside this church, I only stayed long enough to take a couple of photos before heading back for the bus to come back to KUALA LUMPUR

We finally got back to KUALA LUMPUR just after 1900hrs, so it was a pretty long day as you can see by Charlie’s reaction to the coach trip home.

Charlie on the bus back to Kuala Lumpur

Tomorrow is our final full day here in KUALA LUMPUR so we are off to the KL TOWER to get our lunch and have a look around before we do any last minute shopping before getting our flight back to NEPAL on Tuesday.

DAY 157 (Saturday 24 December 2011)

CHRISTMAS EVE

Today was our walking day, it was good to just get out and go and see another part of KUALA LUMPUR, it turned out when we got there that it didn’t look as if it was that far from our hotel as we could not only see the KL Tower, we could also see the PETRONAS TOWERS.

As is always normal for us, even though we had a guide book which we do try to follow we always go off the beaten track and sometimes this works in our favour as we get to see other parts of places we would probably never see if we were to follow the map.  Anyway, when we finally got back on track we went down LITTLE INDIA, basically I found that it was mainly shops that sold really beautiful material for the items of clothing that the Indian population wear and most tourists would pick up a bargain or two as there were ready made outfits (I however did not), when you go into the shops (yes they will follow you around) but to feel like they want to climb into your back pocket really puts me off so I just looked in the shops as I was passing. 

When we finished with LITTLE INDIA we got back to the start point and started out on the CHINA TOWN walk, there were a couple of markets that we went through, one was

And the other was

There were loads of different items from Nic Nacs to branded named items, but to be honest I don’t think they were originals, more knock offs if the truth be told.

When we left PETALING STREET market we headed down another road where there was the GUANDI TEMPLE, also known as the KWONG SIEW FREE SCHOOL which is a bright red building and on the inside there were loads of incense sticks including spiral ones.

Guandi Temple

On the other side of the street to the Temple there was this impressive 22 meter high gate tower to the SRI MAHAMARIAMMAN TEMPLE.

Sri Mahamariamman Temple

We didn’t realise but we had actually be out and about walking for a good 5 hours, so I was quite pleased when I got to sit down on the LRT heading back to KUALA LUMPUR CITY CENTRE (KLCC).  When we got back we went for a wander in the opposite direction to our hotel to see what was around and we found where we were going to go for our evening meal tonight, the MANHATTAN FISH MARKET; not like a fish market back in the UK but a restaurant that serves nothing but fish, prawns, scampi, etc.

We decided to head back to the hotel for a couple of hours just to rest up before tonight, however, when we got back to the hotel, we headed straight for the RAMAH TAMAH to have cake and coffee, Charlie had strawberry tart and I had Peanut Butter Cheesecake with a coffee, with it being Christmas not only did we get what we ordered a Christmas Candy Cane and 3 flower flumps came with our order too.

Peanut Butter Cheesecake & Coffee

The food at the

 that we went to was really nice.  We ordered a platter to share but looking at the picture you can see Charlie has other ideas

Charlie with his eye on the platter

On our way back from the restaurant we decided to go and see what the FOUNTAINS of SYMPHONY was going to be like, I thought it would have been something like the BELAGIO in LAS VEGAS, but I was a disappointed as there was no music to go with what the fountain was doing.

Fountain of Symphony

Oh well, let’s hope tomorrow is a good day as we are off to MELAKA.

DAY 156 (Friday 23 December 2011)

Today was Zoo day, we were picked up from our hotel just after 0900hrs and taken to the location to get on the bus to the Zoo, however, when we got to depot, we found that we were the only 2 people that were down for the Zoo.  Our mini bus driver was Timothy and he first took us to the ROYAL SELANGOR PEWTER FACTORY where we had a guided tour of the factory

One of the workers smoothing down a money tree

Yes there is such a thing as a money tree, not the sort you would wish for but this money tree is made with pewter coins attached which is then broken off to pay for any merchandise.

Charlie had a go at some of the work that gets done at this factory, however, the people that work there will be safe in the knowledge that he won’t be getting a job there anytime soon, me neither.

Charlie attempting the hammer technique

Outside of the factory is the largest pewter tankard that actually made it into the Guinness Book of World Records back in 1985, lets just say it can hold a lot of beer.

After our tour of the pewter factory we were taken to a room called the Hard School of Knocks, here we were able to make our own bowls (to keep), we even got to keep the aprons that we were wearing and we given a certificate to show that we actually made the item.

Charlie with his bowl, certificate & apron

Me with my bowl, certificate & apron

After we left the factory we then drove on to the National Zoo (ZOO NEGARA), when we got there we were told by Timothy that we had to be back outside for 1330hrs, so that gave us just over 2 hours to go around the Zoo which we thought would have been impossible, but to be honest it wasn’t the biggest of Zoos.

There we got to see

Orangutans

Giraffes

Racoons

 Baby Otters

and a few other animals.

After we left the Zoo we got back to the hotel to get sorted out before heading out for some lunch, we decided on going to the KUALA LUMPUR TOWER however, when we got there we found that lunch had stopped serving at 1500hrs, so off we went again, we decided that now we know the timings for the KL Tower we will go there on Monday for our final lunch before we leave the next day.

So once we had something to eat is was back to the hotel for hopefully a quiet night, we have nothing to set the alarm for tomorrow as we are looking at doing the CHINA TOWN and LITTLE INDIA walk.  I shall let you know how we get on.

DAY 155 (Thursday 22 December 2011)

Today was a day for a little bit of a lie in, no alarm was set as we had nowhere to be in a hurry or any time limits today. 

We were going to the Bird Park today

The weather wasn’t that good today, it was overcast to start with but by the time we had got to the bird park it was that fine drizzling rain that gets you wet, but fortunately they had covers that sort of kept the rain from making you too wet.

Charlie & me with some of the birds

There were loads of different birds to see and there was also some unexpected non feathered creatures lurking about around the bird feeding tables

A non feathered creature

As the rain was getting a little harder, it turned out that the bird show that was due to happen at 1230hrs didn’t go ahead as it wouldn’t be fair on the birds, understandable, so here are a few of the other birds that we saw

Ring Necked Parakeet

Yellow Budgerigars

Toucan

Peacock

Sleeping Owl

Beautiful Parakeets

We eventually left the bird park to head back to cinema so that we could see what time the new Sherlock Holmes film was due to start, we found out, booked our tickets and then went for something to eat.  Once we watched the film both Charlie and me decided that the first film was better, after leaving the cinema it was time for something to eat for our evening meal as we didn’t realise what time it was when we left the cinema.

Anyway, we are now safely back to the hotel as tomorrow we have got a day trip to the NATIONAL ZOO & SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS (ROYAL SELANGOR PEWTER FACTORY).

See you tomorrow and I shall let you know how we get on at the Pewter Factory as we shall have a chance to make a pewter dish to keep.

DAY 154 (Wednesday 21 December 2011)

Today was the day that we went to the ELEPHANT ORPHANAGE SANTUARY.  We left the hotel at 0915hrs in the car that came to collect us to take us to the departure point for the coach to take us take us to the Sanctuary, as the activities for the Sanctuary didn’t start until 1400hrs we were taken to the JADI BATEK GALLERY where we were able to witness the art of BATIK,, BATIK is a form of painting on silk or a mixture of silk and cotton materials, it was actually quite amazing to see how the intricate work was done, I actually came away from there with a really nice dress.

After leaving there after being there for a good 40 minutes, we headed off to the next place which was to be our early lunch,

Our lunch stop

We were there for about another 40 minutes before we finally headed off to the Sanctuary that took about another hour to get there.  When we got there we were signed in and given a sticker to wear, not only was it to prove that we were part of the tour for that day it was also used for when we went on the Elephant ride.

Entrance to the Elephant Orphanage Sanctuary

Charlie & me on our Elephant ride

At the Sanctuary they had some orphaned baby elephants there, one was called SAMOM and she had no tail as it was eaten by a tiger when it attacked her, fortunately has you can see from the picture below she got away with her life.

SAMOM with Charlie

During this visit we also got a chance to feed the bigger Elephants which was before we went ahead and had our ride on them.

Feeding the Elephant

There was a chance to go and play and bath with the elephants in the water, I was all for doing that until I saw the state of the water and what the shower & changing facilities were like, so I just decided to stay on the side and watch the others that were there go and get wet and cold.

Baby Elephants being bathed

After our really enjoyable day at the Sanctuary it was time to head back to KUALA LUMPUR, as we had no time limit to get back for we actually got back in just about 1½ hrs, where the coach actually dropped us back at the hotel.

When we got back to the hotel we went to our room to find that the key cards didn’t work, I went to the Lobby to get the cards reset to find that they still didn’t work, so the security guy came up with the master keycard, turned out in the end that it was the battery in the card read of the door that had apparently run out, so we were let in by the main key.  Once we were sorted we went for a quick bite to eat before heading to the cinema where we watch PUS S IN BOOTS, which may I add I absolutely enjoyed, who said you need to have kids to go to the cinema to watch a kiddie movie, besides, I believe most of these so called kiddies movies are more for the grown ups, after when we finally got back to the hotel and to our room, guess what?, yep the key card didn’t work again, this time Charlie went down to the lobby, but instead of resetting our card they sent someone up to let us in again by a normal key and we ended up having to move rooms, so we were originally on the 8^th floor but have now moved to the 14^th floor, let’s hope no more problems occur.

So as that is all of my news for today, I shall now bid you a goodnight.

DAY 153 (Tuesday 20 December 2011)

MAYLASIA

Yay, we finally landed at just before 0500hrs, and it didn’t take us long to get through the terminal to the KUALA LUMPUR International Airport Express which was a 28 minute ride into KUALA LUMPUR City Centre, from there we walked to Hotel MAYA on the way to the hotel we actually passed the PETRONAS TOWERS, they were amazing to see with the lights on and they looked massive so close up (I did take a photo but it was dark and didn’t come out too well).  We weren’t supposed to book in until 1400hrs, but the guy on the reception was very kind and let us book in and have our rooms key, it was only 0700hrs, so by this time both Charlie and me had been up for over 24hrs. 

Once we got into the room, we went straight back down for breakfast, (a really nice buffet or fixed), then back to the room for a shower, we were going to go to bed for a couple of hours kip, but instead because the shower had refreshed us, we went for a wander to see what was around, we went back to have a look at the PETRONAS TOWERS to see if they did look different during the day and they did, they actually didn’t look that big.

 Petronas Towers

We also went and found a nice park to walk around, in there they have a lake with the FOUNTAINS of SYMPHONY, unfortunately they were being cleaned so I shall have to try and get a photo another time.  Whilst walking around the park you get a to see some really weird and wonderful plants, one that brought an interest to me was a bunch of trees that seemed to have their roots growing above the ground, they are known as BAYAN trees.

Bayan Trees

There was even bamboo growing but they had red coloured bamboo, it was really weird to see, here take a look for yourselves

Red Bamboo

After our walk out we decided to go back to the hotel for a bit of shut eye as the last days worth of travelling seemed to have caught up with both of us.  After a few hours, we got up to go for something to eat and we had a delicious meal in MADAM KWAN’S

This place is in one of the shopping malls here in Kuala Lumpur, which incidentally, whilst we were there we just had to have a look around, they have got some really nice Christmas Trees right down in middle of the Mall of the bottom floor.

View from the bottom floor

View from the top floor

Walking around the shopping mall today I have realised one thing, there are a lot of GOK WAN look-alikes over here, unfortunately I have not been able to get a picture to prove it.

Well that is it for today, tomorrow we are booked to go to the ELEPHANT ORPHANGE SANCTUARY, we are getting picked up at 0915hrs, we are looking forward to it, so as it’s an all day thing, I shall tell you all about it tomorrow night and hopefully will have some really good pictures.