A quick trip to Malaysia

We were just a couple of days from finishing up the campervan conversion and very much looking forward to spending our first night in what we thought was going to be our Australian home for the next nine months. You can probably guess what happened next. An interesting boat popped up on the internet and instead of enjoying the fruits of our labour, we dashed off to Langkawi, Malaysia to look at the boat. There was some time pressure as the Swiss owners were at the boat, but, were leaving in a few days to go home without plans to return anytime soon. It's always better to be shown a boat by someone really familiar with it. There was also somebody else flying in the following week to have a look. It was a close enough match to our 'wish list' that we decided we just had to go and look at it, or, we might regret it. So, at considerable expense, that's what we did.

Malaysia isn't that far from Australia, but, we had to fly to Langkawi, a duty-free island federal territory of Malaysia, just off the northwest mainland coast. It also meant three flights, Brisbane-Sydney, Sydney-Kuala Lumpur (capital of Malaysia) and then a short hop to Langkawi. The routing was complicated and we ended up with a fourteen hour layover in Kuala Lumpur. We didn't mind as it gave us a day to explore this city, on our first visit to a Muslim country. Most people spoke English, so, it was easy to find out what bus to get on. Once in the city, we hopped on to a tour bus and took a lengthy tour. It was surprising. The city was much more bustling and prosperous-looking than I would have imagined.

The architecture was amazing and represented the blend of cultures in the country.

These are Kuala Lumpur's landmark twin towers, the Petronas building.

The people were interesting to look at as well, including the other tourists. I have no idea why this group is dressed alike, but, their colourful clothing caught my eye.

Even their bus was colourful. All the tour buses have very elaborate draperies at the windows.

Once we reached Langkawi, life became a little more rural.

Rice paddies and intriguing water buffalo were in evidence.

Our hotel looked modern and good from the outside, but, there were a few issues inside. It was probably one of the better places to stay though and we were generally happy with it. The best part, it had air conditioning!

The view out of our window at the back of the hotel was lovely.

One day we saw a group of around a dozen very large monkeys walking along the path behind the hotel. It was all very new and interesting.