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 Traveller's Tales: Advise for travellers in Malaysia
Heed our handy tips on safe travel in Malaysia. You may read about travel warnings, health, what to wear, travel with kids, travel with pets, local weather, local government, medical information and traffic information in the area.Also, you might want to read our
Kuala Lumpur city guide,
Langkawi city guide,
Melaka city guide,
and Penang city guide.
Pages (9 of 18):
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| B Turner |
14 February 2002 |
Stayed at Holiday Inn Resort Penang - Penang, Malaysia.
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Penang is nice but the brackish water is no where near the tropical blue we expected. Highly recommend walking up Penang Hill. But this is not for the faint hearted. The 1022 steps (and that is just the beginning!)are steep and are a combination of root footholds and dirt steps. After a time you come to a paved road which makes the going a bit easier. A good 1.5 hour hike will bring you to the halfway point which has a nice glimpse of Georgetown. We didn't get to the top because of the time. Bring flashlights if you get a late start because the stairs can be trecherous in the dark!
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| S Goh |
13 February 2002 |
Stayed at Swiss Garden Resort & Spa Damai Laut - Damai Laut - Lumut, Malaysia.
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If you are driving, beware that you have to drive through 4km of unpaved road in the middle of palm oil plantation (which probably belongs to the resort) after exiting from the main road. In the day, it is ok. But in the night, it becomes totally dark and secluded. My advice is to arrive before sunset, and unless you have a convoy of at least 2 cars, refrain from driving out for dinner or to the town.
Do spend at least one day at Pangkor Island. The resort provides a free shuttle to its private jetty so that you can take a ferry to Lumut, and from there, take another ferry to Pangkor. The journey is not long and the boat ride very comfortable. At Pangkor, just take a taxi van for a all-round island tour, and you will get to see all that you need to see in Pangkor Island.
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| B Turner |
11 February 2002 |
Stayed at Strawberry Park Resort - Cameron Highlands, Malaysia.
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We took 9 days to drive around Malaysia so we managed to get a really good feel for the place.
The best places to visit are KL: Chinatown for dinner and great night market; Cameron Highlands: Boh tea estate and great jungle treks that you can take without a guide; Penang: which is good but lacks the clear blue inviting waters of Langkawi or Phuket-Thailand but is very tourist friendly, also the hike up Penang Hill is invigorating (~1022 stairs)and worthwhile; Tasik Kenyir: a huge man-made lake, relatively unexplored for fishing, kayaking, jungle trekking and viewing waterfalls. Uncharacteristically clean for natural scenery in Asia!
We would not recommend Kota Bahru on the North Eastern coast where angry glares and facilities are not very inviting for tourists.
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| E Mironova |
14 January 2002 |
Stayed at Oriental Hotel Penang - Penang, Malaysia.
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Penang is great. Lots of sites to see. Peole are very friendly and supporting. However, if you want to stay in the city (Georgetown)you will have to take quite a long jorney to the sea (about 45 minutes to one hour by bus), which is tiresome and taxi is a bit expensive (about USA$5 to $7 one way). If you want to stay at the hotel by the sea you will have to take trips to the city since that's not much to be done in the hotel while in the city there are lots of things to do. So we decided to stay in the city and we missed the sea.
Taxi drivers in Penang are not friendly at all. They tend to overcharge. I had a terrible experience with taxi driver. Plate number 440. He drove me 200 meters far from the place I wanted to go and when I asked to take me where I wanted he refused because in that case he had to make a circle and offered me to walk with heavy luggage. When I asked him to help me with my luggage (he was extra payed for driving the luggage - it was within walking distance but because of the luggage we took a taxi) he refused, got angry, threw my suitcases out of the car on the street and even attempted to beat me with one of the suitcases. I was afraid to be late to the airport and therefore did not apply to authorities.
Anyway, he managed to spoil good impression of the country. Of course, not all taxi drivers are that bad but one bad example is enough. So, be careful with taxi drivers in Penang!
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| B Holder |
13 January 2002 |
Stayed at Pelangi Beach & Spa Resort - Langkawi, Malaysia.
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Taxis are very good value, drivers friendly and helpful. Kuah, the main city, is interesting and has good duty-free shops; Langkawi Fair is the best shopping complex. Remember to put in the decimal point when trying to get money from cash machines ie 200.00 ringits...we couldn't figure out why it wouldn't give us cash, but we were only tapping in 200.
A sunset cruise is a must, the Bon Ton restaurant five minutes from the hotel is excellent (with a very chic little shop), and golf on the Datai's course is expensive but breathtaking (carved out of rainforest). Pelangi will arrange your transport, and golf. We were told the craft centre was excellent, but did not have time to visit. Watch out for jellyfish in the water.
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| V Ng |
11 January 2002 |
Stayed at Capitol, Hotel - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
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Must go to Jalan Alor (just one street away fr Hotel Capitol) for food. Stretch of street all lined up with food stalls at reasonable prices. You may get around to places like KLCC and Chinatown by bus, bus stop is walking distance from hotel and bus journey is only abt 10-15mins. If you arrive in KL by coach, pls do not get cheated by "private" cab driver (ie cab do not go by meter charge and private car is used as cab)..these drivers would charge you RM20.00 to get to down when the fare by meter charge is merely RM5.00!!
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| C Mallet |
11 January 2002 |
Stayed at Pangkor Laut Resort - Pangkor Island, Malaysia.
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Very important: the bay hill villas are not safe for small children as they can easily fall through the cracks and fall very deep (life danger). The sea villas are obviously not safe for the same reason but the hotel never places families with children there. This should be extended to the bay hill villas.
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| D Brown |
01 January 2002 |
Stayed at Shangri-La's Golden Sands Resort - Penang, Malaysia.
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We organised a trip with their travel desk which they completely messed up. When they did get a car organised and we were on our way we found that he did not have any cash to pay for entry to parks etc. We had just brought enough for lunch etc as this was all to be covered in the price of the tour. We told the driver to just drop us in town and go back to sort it with the hotel but that we would not pay for the trip. They tried to charge us for a limousine into Georgetown. We were furious. They had wasted our day and then wanted to charge us for bringing us where we did not really want to go.
Penang is one long strip with a few resteraunts and no pubs. The road is difficult to cross. There are no pedestrian crossings and it is quite a busy road. In the evenings there are street stalls all along the road and you have to walk on the road if you have a baby buggy.
We ate at Marios restaraunt quite a bit. It had very good food and was quite reasonable.
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| J Kearney |
01 January 2002 |
Stayed at Heritage Hotel Cameron Highlands - Cameron Highlands, Malaysia.
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The CH were lovely, a cool respite from humid Singapore. The flora and vegetation were different, with ferns, roses, decidious trees, pointsetias etc.
Golf is great. The municipal course was only 40 Ringit for 18 holes.
The Boh tea plantations were very interesting, and the terraces very beautiful.
There's quite a few walking trails, but the ones that our group did, didn't seem to be very well maintained.
Ye Olde Smoke House is a very twee English-style country pub with a very typical English garden and red phone box. Inside there's real fires etc. It's a bit overdone, but definitely worth a look. The Devonshire tea was nice, but pricey. We didn't eat dinner as we were told by various people who had eaten there that the food was overpriced and poor, and that they paid for the ambience.
Bearing in mind the CH has a cool evening climate, it seemed a pity that there weren't more cosy restaurants and hotels with log fires. Most seemed to be fairly souless.
BEWARE of some of the cheaper restaurants in the "downtown" area of the CH. I ate at an Indian restaurant/bar and got very bad salmonella poisoning, and was sick for two days - literally throwing up for 24 hours.
We had a car, but it would be possible to get a taxi to the trails or tea plantations.
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| A Roderick |
31 December 2001 |
Stayed at Heritage Hotel Cameron Highlands - Cameron Highlands, Malaysia.
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A welcome retreat from the heat. Beware of the road though if you are driving up there. It's not for those with week stomachs.
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