Yesterday afternoon was when my flight to Bali was scheduled to leave. Instead of being on it, I was lying in bed, pondering about whether I should just hang on or go see a doctor at some point in the near future. By that time I had been down with rather bad diarrhoea for a day and a half, barely able to walk and only crouching out of bed to visit the loo.

I think I’m having a culture shock. Two days ago: Now: They seem to have every single overpriced brand in the world assembled here.

KL’s international airport is big. Walking from the gate to immigration takes something like 15 minutes. In the arrival hall, Christmas tunes are playing. F*** me sideways, isn’t this supposed to be a Muslim country?

This morning I decided to pamper myself and support the local economy by taking a taxi to Phaya Thai station. Yet when I stepped onto Silom, the whole road was jammed. Alas, once again I’m back to carrying my backs through the streets and crowded skytrains. The Bangkok Post recently reported about delays at the airport immigration, even causing passengers to miss flights. Thus I arrive a bit earlier than usual at check-in and am delighted to see that they have almost no queues.

After more than two splendid weeks, it was time to say goodbye to Malaysia. The country is a fierce contender for a top spot on my list of favourite countries. It is easy to travel in but is significantly less touristy than Thailand (at least concerning western tourists). The locals have been open and friendly and the food was as diverse as good. I wanted to spend the second half of my trip in Thailand and my stay in George Town was meant to be just a stop-over on the way there.

This place is a food Mecca. Chinese, Indians and Malays compete in dishing out the largest variety of delicacies and you can’t walk 100m without coming across something yummy. The streets are very busy but fortunately the place has a nicer flair than the really big cities. It reminds me of Melaka in several ways (including the ever-present open gutters, yuck). Yesterday evening two travellers from the hostel and me took the ferry over to the mainland for some sunset photography.

On my last day in Kota Bharu I spent a lot of time at the local franchise of a big international fast food chain, trying to use their internet for my travel plans. It was horribly slow though and the location rather noise, resulting in me deciding to leave the next day and doing the preparations elsewhere. In the afternoon Nik took me for a ride around town. We stopped at a Chinese temple that features one of the biggest Buddha statues I’ve seen so far.

Travel guides, either printed or online, pretty much agree that there is not much to see in Kota Bharu. And right they are. One of the few sights is the big central market, conveniently located near the hostel. I went there with two fellow backpackers I met at the hostel. The market is, compared to the one in Melaka, a dirty and smelly hole. One of the butchers had sense of humour though and handed me his axe to give chopping bones a crack.

Yesterday an 8h bus ride brought me to the north-eastern part of Malaysia. It was another of these really comfy buses, definitely not the worst way to travel and definitely better than any train I’ve seen in SEA. At a time the ride got a bit painful when they started playing some Malay pop music. Worse than anything the 90s ever brought forth. We stopped twice, once for lunch and once at at mosque.

Once the weather got better, my stay in Cherating improved as well. The beach, almost depressing on a wet overcast day, looked actually ok with a lot of sunshine. Still nothing to write home about but definitely ok. The whole beach was more crowded today, that was probably due to a combination of nice weather and weekend. The beach apparel is a bit different to what I’m used to. Not everybody is dressing like that though.

Coming to this remote place that doesn’t even have a proper bus stop, I expected peace and quiet. Just plain nothingness, no frills. Unfortunately the first night was anything else but quiet. A nearby bar played music/karaoke till the early morning and that crap pretty much kept me awake for hours. Today around noon the weather cleared up and I went for a little exploration on the beach. Like all beaches in SEA it suffers from pollution, people are just used to dropping their garbage where they stand.

After a hearty breakfast with toast and jam I checked out of the hostel and made my way to the PWTC station. It’s about 15 minutes on the LRT from Chinatown. From the station it’s another ten minutes walk to the Putra bus terminal where I got myself a ticket to Cherating via Kuantan (RM 24.60 with Utama Ekspres). The ticket shows Kemantan as destination but you can tell the driver to drop you off at Cherating.

Getting around in KL is pleasantly easy with trains connecting the major destinations and all signs printed in Latin alphabet. And unlike in Vietnam it is actually possible to pronounce the words here. Today I was somewhat busy with work but I had enough time for a visit to a nearby shopping district. It’s not a very touristy destination, more a place where locals go and get their stuff. A lot of people in the area are Muslim and countless shops cater for their special needs.

I spent my last evening in Melaka with local couchsurfer Ping, who introduced me to some more of the local cuisine. They have a restaurant here were people sit around a table with a pot of boiling chilli sauce in the middle. All the food comes on sticks and is boiled in the pot before being eaten. Very nice stuff. Ping, being Chinese, could also shed some light on the situation of the Chinese in Malaysia.

Always on the hunt for a local experience, I asked my host where the locals buy their fresh produce. Melaka Sentral wet market was his recommendation. The term wet market refers to the extensive use of water that is used to keep the merchandise fresh and the floor clean (usually resulting in a wet floor) and I have seen them all over SEA. The market in Melaka is of average size and seems to see few western visitors, as a fellow backpacker from the hostel and me were pretty much the centre of attention.

My home in Melaka was the Backpacker’s Freak Hostel. No idea how it got that name, nothing freaky about it really. The staff are extremely friendly and helpful and went out of their way to make my stay a nice one. Being somewhat on a tight budget at the time of my stay, I went for a bed in their only dorm, a 4-share. The room is one of the few (maybe the only?

Melaka River Dutch Heritage I hope She’s not a Bride Shopping Mall

My exploration of Melaka started, how else could it be, with a visit to a nearby restaurant. One of the local specialities is Asam Pedas, a soup-like dish that has a remote resemblance of curry. It is slightly sour and hot and usually served with fish. The friendly staff helped overcome the language barrier and I managed to order… something. Not sure about the details, I just said ok and nodded my head.

I spent my day in Singapore mostly with doing some work online and sampling the local Indian food. In the evening I met up with local couchsurfer Czharina. We had been in touch since my last visit to Singapore and had chatted a fair bit about her native country, the Philippines. Consequently we headed to a Philippine restaurant near the marina to give me an idea of what the country’s cuisine is like.