Alor Setar

I stayed in Alor Setar for a few days, it's the capital of Kedah. And I've just seen on wikipedia that it was called "Alor Star" for a while, no wonder it sounded like people were saying "Alistar", I thought I had it wrong.

The land here flattens out a bit and most of it is occupied by rice plantations. Makes a change from the Palm Plantations everywhere else (I'm looking at you, Johor). The weather cools off just a little here too, only a little bit, but it's noticeable on the bike. It's still very hot to stop anywhere in the bike jacket and pants.

Alor Setar is a noticeable improvement over the rest of the cities here too. It seems cleaner, like more money has been thrown at it and traffic isn't as nuts as everywhere else and the roads are decent quality. There didn't seem to be much of a Chinese or Indian presence there, I might have been in a mostly Malay area though.

I stayed in the Hotel ASRC which was the cheapest I could find online that also had somewhere to park my bike that was off the street. It turns out, this is the local swimming pool and recreation centre too. They let me park my bike in the locked pool area at night, but they said had also had some trouble in the carpark, but with broken english, so I'm not sure if that's a good thing... Anyway, big motel style room, extra chairs, air conditioned. Only problem was the toilet was running constantly.

Across the road from the Hotel was Spring's Leaf cafe which served some really good food (from what I sampled anyway). Here's what I ate last night:

Butter Chicken Something with special rice. It was very tasty good.  It was more texmex style than Indian butter chicken though, maybe I got the name wrong.

Now! Onto the sites of Alor Setar. First up...

Guning Keriang

Guning Keriang is a limestone hill that sticks out in the middle of all the flat land around it. I'd heard there were caves in there that you could explore, and the reason why I'm in Alor Setar! It took a while to find out where to go once I was there, but there was one sign near the main carpark with a cave looking picture and an arrow. I followed that trail between some houses and a graveyard. And now that I've looked at the site I linked above I see I found the trail to the summit instead. There was another sign in a different area that had a bit more detail, but all the text had faded so who knows what I was looking at. But I didn't find any caves, except to fall in to.

Little baby snail crawling on a rock.

It turns out, it's more of a climb than a walk. This is looking almost straight down.

This is the view from as far up as I got.

I got quite far up the side of the hill but I was still in my motorbike boots and pants, and now what I was wearing looked like I'd been swimming in it. There were steps but it was more of climb than anything. I got up to a point were there was a red X spray painted on a rock, and the trail leading off but down again. I decided I had enough climbing and didn't want to head down only to climb up again.

More of the trail. There were rocks placed over open shafts which you had to step on to get down.

More of the climb. The rocks were slippery too.

I think I got to the center of this photo. I'm not shure how much futher the trail went. So probably just over 100m up.

After that I had a quick look around the stalls selling crystals at the bottom. This place isn't a national park and there's no protection for what's there, so people go in and mine for crystals to sell in the stalls. And now they have apparently have mined almost all of it out. So the idea of owning a bit of rare crystal was appealing, but it's still a crystal of one of the most common elements on earth.


Bike Station

So I left and headed back to the hotel to sit in the air conditioning for a while, but on the way back I remembered I saw a big Suzuki place and needed to get spark plugs for my bike. They didn't have any but directed me to a place that might. I couldn't find the place they mentioned, but I found a place that had a bunch of KTMs sitting out the front, so they could probably help. The place is called Bike Station, and it's handy to know for servicing of your bike instead of going back to KL. The owner of the shop said that the Kuala Lumpur KTM shop gets a heap of overland travelers going through it, but I was the first one to turn up at this shop! And I was on a Suzuki :)

Anyway, inside I mentioned I needed new spark plugs, then they told me to wait for the mechanic, I just wanted to know if they were in stock, but anyway, I'll wait. I saw him head out to my bike after a while so I went out to explain that the fuel tank probably needs to come off to get at them, he ignores me, then I tell him the exact type that I needed, and he's just ignores me again and pulls out one of the plugs and says the same model number I gave him... I'm a bit worried because he's just pulling parts off my bike without telling me what's going on. He wanders off and comes back with a helmet, I asked someone else what was going on and that I just needed to get the spark plugs and I can put them in myself. It takes me about five minutes to explain that I just wanted to know if they had stock, but in the meantime the mechanic has already ridden off somewhere to find new plugs for me. OK, looks like I'm committed to paying you now... Anyway, after about 15 minutes of talking to the owner about where I've been and where I'm going they say the new spark plugs are in. Interesting. In the end it costs me about $13AU, and these are the more expensive iridium types which would have cost closer to $50 in Australia. So it was cheaper, but I think they misinterpreted my original request.

Me, covered in sweat from climbing that hill.  The guy on the left works in the shop. The guy on the right just had his bike stolen and was getting a new motard, he also had lots to say about bikes, I listened for a long time...

Menara Alor Setar

After I got back to the hotel and sat in the air conditioning for a while I wasted time until it was closer to sunset to go to the tower in the middle of town.

Wasting time by investigating the interesting effects with the Variable ND filter. And then cleaning the lens and sensor...

The Menara Alor Setar is the second tallest communications tower in Malaysia at 165m (roughly the height of the observation deck of the Menara Kuala Lumpur). The observation deck in this tower is only at 88m but it only costs $3AU to to up, rather than $13 like in KL.

Looking north.

Rain passing by in the North East

Then I got set up and waited for sunset:

Almost everything, but I didn't bring the external shutter release.

The sun was covered up by clouds. This is the best that I could get.

Looking south.

Looking north, Gunung Keriang on the horizon. The taller building near the center of the photo is across the road from where I was staying.

From the ground, this is what the tower looks like. Although it's not on a lean like it is in this photo.

A few bonus photos from around Alor Setar:

Coffee machine tells the funniest joke ever.

Another desktop background picture for you! For FREE :D

Now I'm in Kuala Perlis for a couple of nights to plan my Thailand attack. I'll visit Langkawi Island while I'm here, the ferry leaves from across the road.

Sungai Sedim Tree Top Walk

I found out about this one in a random tourist pamphlet on the region. It's a 900andsomething meter walkway through the treetops around Sungai Sedim. It's a bit hard to find directions for it, so here's a map:


View Larger Map

Set your GPS to 5.413194,100.781021 and you'll find it. If you zoom in on the above map you can actually see parts of the platforms through the trees. I'm told there are camping areas throughout the park and it looks like other sorts of accommodation are available too. It's also a popular swimming spot as there were a large number of locals there.

It costs 1RM to park (more for a car) and 10RM to get on the walkway.

So on with the photos!

It's this stuff all the way along. This is only 5m up.

Walkway over the river.

The walkway itself. It moves about a little.

Looking up the river.

Looking over the edge. If only I had my tripod and ND filter...

The top of the rainforest!

More walkway.

Interesting tree.

Leaf macro. I've found my lens for some reason is focusing on things that are about 1cm in front of the lens.  The autofocus doesn't work this close, but I can manually focus it that close.

Droplet macro!

Another section over the river.

Oh, this is 26050mm off the ground!

The top and edge of the rainforest!

Looking downstream.

It's a little worrying to look down and see just water, 26000mm down, on a swaying bridge. 

This smelt like bubblegum flavour!

Another view across the river.

More rainforest!

In Taman Negara they treat the canopy walk like a ride, so you get rushed on through each section because it's only one person wide so it's really not worth it. This one however, is worth it. People can get by so you're not holding anyone up, you can see everything, and no one is rushing you through to the next tree.

On the way out two Malay girls (school age!) asked to have their photo taken with me. I said sure why not, I'm white, I'm going to be famous here! So now I'm probably on one of the muslim police watch lists. Or being made fun of on 4chan.

Tomorrows tasks: Caves, Menara Alor Setar, Sitting.

Bye Georgetown (Penang, not Queensland)

Here are a couple of pics left over from Georgetown:

Looking from the old section up towards all the new fancy places.

Looking towards the docks at Butterworth. I had to step over a smelly  stream that came from the direction of the toilets to get down here.

Pondering spot.

Like everywhere else in Malaysia, parking is whatever... 

And some more parking stories here: It's nuts, people double and triple park people in. I've seen people stop on the edge of a very busy road in what is actually a lane, and I've seen it on both edges of a one way three lane road. When they do manage to get the cars off the road they end up in a way so that the only way to walk round is to jump into traffic. I saw two traffic police ticking one car for parking in a lane on a busy three way road, then they pack up get on their bikes and just as they are about to leave, another car stops right in front of them! They were in uniform, how do you miss that! They honked a few times but the car didn't move, I hope they wrote a ticket.

Anyway.

There wasn't a lot to take photos of in Georgetown. Well, there probably is, but I just didn't see anything I wanted to take a photo of. On the noeth west section of the island there are better beaches but getting near them is a problem. I didn't get round to the south west.

But I did a LOT of walking in Georgetown. Shortest day was 6km, longest was around 14km I think.

Food there is awesome! I only had one meal which was 'meh' because they didn't give me enough chilli! The Claypot Chicken Rice from Northam Beach Cafe was the best though. And the Nasi Goreng Padprik from next to Fort Cornwallis was the hottest thing I've eaten in Malaysia.

Georgetown, Penang

Georgetown is far more populated than I thought it would be. It's like a mini singapore I guess. 

Here are a few more photos from around Georgetown:

The esplanade.

Typical footpath. I'm not sure which came first, the bricks or the trees.

City Hall.

And Fort Cornwallis:

Seri Rambai Cannon

Another cannon! BAM!

An old cannon! waBAM!

KABOOM CANNON!

THREE! THREE CANNONS! AH AH AH!

Looks like little grave stones, I think they were markers of some sort.

This was in the back of the church inside the fort....

Penangs Christian Cemetery. This looked really creepy from the road, so I went and took some photos!:

The path through the cemetery.

Some of the larger graves.

More graves.

Creepy graves.

More creepy graves.

This one was for an infant.

Playing with the film simulation in my editing program

There were three pairs of shoes left near a tree in this cemetery, which was weird... And over one of the graves there were some clothes covering it, new clothes, which was weird again. 

Mangroves and Orangutans!

Today I'm in Taiping. Today I went to....

Matang Mangrove Forest Reserve

Just to the west of Taiping is (a bit of) the Matang Mangrove Forest Reserve, the brochures say it's the best managed mangrove forest in the world.

The mangroves!

Looking up

Oh... When I got there I found this instead of the boardwalk...  Down this path there are chalets to stay in too, but not right now obviously.

Looking downstream

The colour of the water, it's two colours! mixed! Or clear and a colour... or a hue, or a tint...

Looking upstream, still a bit smoggy up there.

Since the boardwalk being closed kinda ruined my mangrove plans, I headed to my next destination:

Orang Utan Island

Orang Utan Island is part of the Bukit Merah resort. There's also paintball, and a waterpark, and an ecopark, and accomodation, but I was just there for the orangutans. They rehabilitate sick or orphaned orangutans that have been abandoned in Borneo, get them all better, and then after years of this they take them back to live in their native forests again. When you get to the island they take you through a 100m cage where you can see the older orangutans, you're in the cage, not the orangutans. The oldest there was Mike, the 27 year old, he was quite lazy though and didn't want to come over and say hello. A few of the younger ones came over towards the cage but I didn't get any good photos because the fence obstructed too much. They then take you over to where the younger orangutans are learning to survive.

This is one of the two babies they had in a special area. 

I keep laughing at this photo! This was the next step after they leave the first area, learning basic survival skills like climbing and foraging.

This one was focused on the camera, wouldn't look at me.

Ponderin.

 And that's it for today. I got rained on making my way back to the hotel, also saw a car that had run off the expressway (not surprised), police and ambulance there. All the accidents I've seen on the road have been in this part of the country... Tomorrow, Georgetown!