Experiencing Malaysia in a week

Kuala Lumpur was not what I expected from Malaysia. A built up city with many shopping malls and good transport links, it was definitely the most developed city of anywhere I'd been in Asia so far.

             Street in KL

I did quite like KL however, and spent the day walking around the city with some girls I'd met in the hostel. For sunset we went up KL tower. At 420 meters tall, it's not quite as high as the Petronius Towers (which at 452m were the tallest building in the world until 2004) but gives you a great view of the whole city.

By the towers

Me by the towers

The Petronus Towers from KL Tower

After I'd climbed the 270 stairs to the Batu Caves the next day, and took the picture of the big statue, I met up with Laura and Rich, and we saw the towers at night and a fountain show. They look so much better at night- there's something quite captivating about them. The fountain show was really good as well- there were lots of multicoloured water jets.

The stairs to the Batur Caves

Me with the Towers at night

        The water fountain show

Having ticked most of the sights in KL off the list, we headed North to Penang. The city is well known for its street art. Laura and Rich, and me and Hannah, (who we'd met on the bus,) hired Tandem bikes to get around. While this was hilarious at first, they are so hard to ride and our bike kept breaking! 

    Riding around on a tandem bike! 

The street art was really good though it was more spread out then I'd hoped and it was hard to locate on the map. It's rainy season in Malaysia so the rain made us less motivated to explore more.

    Some of the street art in Penang

           More Penang street art

We got the boat the next day to Langkawi, in the very North of Malaysia. I was expected a small undeveloped island, but we discovered that not only was it the opposite but did not feel like an island at all. 

Main roads ran around the island, and it was considerably bigger than I'd expected- at least an hour drive!

           Langkawi sign

The beach in Langkawi is really nice and once the weather had cleared up, we got to check out the beach. Hannah, me and Beth and Gemma, (2 English girls we'd met,) hired a banana boat which was really fun- you sit on a banana and a boat pulls you along trying to throw you off! 

          Us on the banana boat

        Langkawi beach

We spent the next day at the cable car in Langkawi. It is the longest free span, single rope cable car in the world, covering a distance of 950 meters. 

     Riding the cable car up

The view at the top was amazing- we could see all round Langkawi as well as some neighbouring islands in Thailand. 

Us at the top (was very windy) with the view

I got a boat to Koh Lanta in Thailand the next day- I wanted to go there as we'd missed it last time I was in Thailand.