Southern Ridges Walk made a good end to the vacation

Seems we get bored quite easily of strolling through a city, and Singapore was no exception. There are the obvious tourist places, like Chinatown and Marina Bay, the big malls, the zoo.. All full of people, MRT full of people.. We decided for the last day to do a bit of a nature walk, even if only through parks. The southern ridges walk is an easy walk through connected routes from one park to another, combining canopy walk, and forest walks with walks on asphalt alleys and stairs. The nature around it was very nice, and made it easy to forget we were in the heart of such a busy city. In other places, the sky scrapers were peeking from behind the lush green trees, making a nice contrast.

There is a rich variety of flora and fauna, but I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t see any monkeys.

Different signs in the forest warn people to clean up after their dogs, threatening with a fine of 2000 dollars. They should implement that in Finland too, all the spring poop would be history. Also signs pointing to MRT station, or warning that out in the fores,t branches may fall. Actually we did see a tree falling and it was scary.

Some more local food and some packing, and off to the airport. So many parts of the town are under construction, they tear down old and not so tall buildings, and build up new office and condo flats, like the one we were staying in. I checked Google street view for our accommodation before coming, and the place was under construction when Google was passing by 🙂

Changi airport has lots of entertainment possibilities, and there’s even a mall with food court full of locals, before any check in. Nicely organized and clean, something I cannot say about Paris CDG 🙂

Funny thing, our bags are still the same size, no need to check in any, and this time there is a rice cooker hidden in one if them. The security check guy at Changi didn’t even blink at it, he recognized easily what it was. Now we are in Paris waiting for the connecting flight, and here I had to open completely the bags. Good thing is they didn’t complain after they saw it. Operation rice cooker is a success. Guess what we eat for dinner 🙂

Bits and pieces

This morning when the alarm went off, the weather didn’t look very friendly. We were planning to go to some nature reserve, but the clouds plus the laziness won. We slept a bit more then headed to town to see few bits and pieces that were left.

First stop Little India for breakfast and a visit to Sim Lim Tower, then Arab street. At Sim Lim there was this grandpa selling something that I decided I would try, and it turned out to be an ice cream sandwich with some fluffy bread. Very tasty. Got the yam one, not enough brave for durian flavored.

It started raining very badly so all we could do is hide under some balcony and wait for the rain to go away. I was very glad we didn’t go to the 11 km nature trail 🙂

Seems the spot we found to hide from the rain was a very popular shelter, the money exchange office on the same corner had a side business selling umbrellas.

The rain didn’t really stop, but the pour down was over so we trotted our day through cloudy Singapore to the Gardens by the Bay and Marina Bay for the music and light show. Crazy things in the garden, steel trees with a treetop walk, for which you have to pay 5 dollars. Well worth spending.

Few random things:

Bikes are expensive.

Chinese traditional medicine is at every corner and looks very much like biology class to me.

Over packaging is the norm.

I have no idea what PoPo balls are but I ate them in a jelly dessert.

40 h per week is part time.

Life here has some interesting aspects. Rent for a 70 square meters flat in this building is 3500 dollars a month. That would be a bit over 2100 Eur. A 100 sqm flat in the same building is for sale for 2 million dollars. A sales assistant job payment is 1300. For 400 dollars (250eur) a month you can hire a maid (most likely indonesian) that will clean, cook, take care of kids and elderly,  24h a day, requiring 4 days off per month. This is crazy. And this is normal life.

I’m ready to go home.

Another day full of activities

Today was the zoo day. We woke up earlier than we would have wanted to, cause the place is quite far from the city, and it takes about one hour to get there. The zoo is indeed very nice, mostly no cages, at least no visible ones. Very discreet landscaping with water ditches and electric fences to keep animals confined. The not so dangerous ones were hanging around freely,  monkeys were all over the trees and over our heads.

It’s hot to be outside all day, so we came back to the flat too cool down before heading to Orchard for shopping, like everyone else. We finally decided on the rice cooker and bought one of the hundreds of available models. Now planning how we squeeze it in the luggage.
It’s quite strange traveling by metro, people here don’t look around or at other people. Who said Finns were not social 🙂  Here everyone is looking down. Either at their phone/tablet, chatting or playing or reading, or if not, then snoozing between stops. But never looking at other people.

I’m totally fed up with Chinese food. Seems to me most of the food places around here are Chinese and I simply had enough. Fatty minced pork in the dim sum at breakfast, roasted chicken hanging with heads bended at all stalls, slimy noodles that I wouldn’t call fried.. Yuk. Enough. I almost ate pizza for dinner 🙂 Tomorrow we need to look for some Indians.

However the Singapore laksa was much nicer than Penang laksa, and cendol was more sweet than the one I ate in Penang. And the noodles in it were very green. But OK, these are not Chinese.

We saw a lovely couple eating durian at a stall, with plastic gloves. Professionals. The old man was selling durian with 10 dollars per tray, and those two had an entire durian on their table. I have to say it again. Professionals.

And now few photos from the zoo.

A day at Jurong bird park

Trying to squeeze in as much as possible in the days left, I woke up at 8 to go swimming. The pool is longer than the Hervanta pool.. I was swimming and thinking oh man, this is good life. We could live here. For a while 🙂

After a hearty breakfast at the local Chinese hawker joint, we embarked on a one hour trip with train and bus, to Jurong bird park.

The bird park is on the outskirts of the island, and even though it doesn’t seem too big, it’s a feet killer. The birds are so beautiful, so colorful, and so many, it’s impossible to hurry through the park. So we practically spent the day there. On the way back we had time for dinner, and then we headed ‘home’ for an evening swim, hoping to go to bed early. Tomorrow we plan to see the zoo, which is even bigger than the bird park, and we should really go earlier, if we plan to do something else than that.

And now loooots of pics with birds. They have really nice bird shows too, so you see birds are also smart, not just pretty 🙂  I had a hard time selecting these pics, from the thousands.

Back to Singapore

No photos this time. We have a communication error with the camera. And we are tired.

Yesterday the long trip back to civilization. First the local bus from Kuala Tahan to Jerantut, then the train to Singapore. The train was late, and then it accumulated more delays, and it turned into an almost 10 hours train ride. We arrived to Singapore after midnight, when buses don’t go anymore, and the taxis have a 50% surcharge, by law.

Our host is very nice and talkative, we stayed up chatting almost until 2. After so late night, today we slept late, did some laundry, and out to see the town. Had some dim sum for breakfast, now that i know what it is, then ice kachang, shaved ice with syrups and, you guessed it, beans. And corn, and condensed milk. We walked around Chinatown, then hopped on a train to Orchard Road. We are interested in buying a rice cooker, they have some very nice ones at this side of the world. The problem is how we get away with it, explain it at the security check 🙂

Moving on to Marina Bay, we got there right in time for the show. Lights, music, a bit cheesy the images they projected, but worth seeing. Tired of the day, we chatted some more with our host when we arrived. Maybe I wake up early tomorrow to go for a swim, since we can use the nice pool of the condo.

The view from the 16th floor is pretty nice. I understand why people like to live so high. And the rats can’t climb so high.

The rainforest

Interesting night, with loud nature noises all around. I woke up at night in panic at some strange sounds (röh  röh), to realize those wild pigs that seem to be roaming everywhere were here. It seems their favorite place is under the chalets, so they were practically under my bed 🙂

We woke early to go to the forest at sunrise, trying to spot some birds. We did see very nice and colorful ones, too bad we don’t know their names, and they are hard to capture with our not-so-very-expensive camera.

After breakfast we went to the canopy walk, and after that to Bukit Teresek hill. We probably walked like 8 km, sweating buckets. No leeches! They made a raised walking platform entirely on the canopy route, and anyway it is the dry season.

The canopy was one wobbly business. They say it’s 40 m above ground, but we honestly didn’t have much time to look down. The bridges were hanging between huge trees and each tree had a small platform around it where we paused to stop our asses from shaking. 

Teresek hill was another sweaty business, but we were rewarded with a nice view.

We took another walk in the afternoon, there is always something new to see. We saw lots of squirrels, a giant lizard, monkeys, more birds and butterflies, and those wild pigs which seem to be just everywhere.

One evening, when the butterfly was drunk, he met a wasp…

It’s not rainforest if it doesn’t rain, Toni said, it’s just forest. At our afternoon walk, the rain came to prove the point. We were just about to start another trail, so we didn’t get wet. Not unintentionally, at least.

But it all cleared out pretty quickly, no disturbance to our evening round.

Today I saw a gecko in our house. That explains why we don’t have bugs. Fair and square, glad they mostly walk on the walls not the floor. But I’m still jumping every time I hear weird noises outside. It’s pitch black, and the pigs just passed by a while ago. Who knows what else is lurking in the dark..

It’s a jungle out there

The night was hot and we slept badly, and had to get ready early morning for the trip to Kuala Tahan. Luckily the owner of the place we stayed in was so nice and booked everything we needed, a ride to a local agency, to get us the ride to Kuala Tembeling Jetty, the boat, and the national park permits.
After a simple breakfast of toast and coffee, Toni was ready to roll.

The boat ride was a real ass-flattening experience. Three hours sitting in the long boat, on the bottom of it. The landscape was amazing, looked like we were going to middle of nowhere. Lucky timing coming here on a Sunday, we were only 4 in the boat, they normally squeeze 2 people per row. We saw a hornbill, and kingfishers and some unknown birds, a lot of people bathing and fishing, and even the police boat, parked by the shore.

We arrived to Kuala Tahan and went a bit to check out the village, since we had few hours to kill before checking in. The village is very small and there are a lot of hostels and chalets and a few floating restaurants. We had lunch, then we headed across the river to the resort.

We have our own little house in the forest. It’s all carefully manicured around the chalets, but the birds from the trees around are very noisy, so we really are in the jungle. When we went for a walk, we saw few wild pigs right in the middle of the resort 🙂

The rainforest is amazing. We just took a short walk. Even though we didn’t see too many animals, we certainly heard them. There are some crazy sounds, we recorded a few clips, it’s unbelievably loud. We saw some squirrel/mouse types of little animals, birds, butterflies, monkeys, and Toni saw a giant lizard. Plus the wild pigs in the front yard.  We took millions of photos of the strange shapes of the trees and leaves.

For dinner we crossed again to the village side. This is the view from the national park to the village side of the river. Small and cozy.

We like it here. Food is crap, but the place is nice. We could have skipped the night in Jerantut. I remember thinking about it, the choices were to stay there overnight and catch the morning boat, or to come here by bus. You win some, you lose some. The boat trip was great so either option has its good sides. 

Jungle railway to Jerantut

Easy day today. We had a half day travel by train from Kota Bharu to Jerantut, almost 7 hours. We just had to sit. A nice change from all that walking we do. The time passed easily, we were looking at the green stuff and more of the green stuff, we dozed off a bit, we munched some, and right in time with no delay we arrived to our destination.

Jerantut is a small town in the middle of nowhere. We thought the 1 km walk to the hotel was pretty tough, but the heat at 2 pm was just unbearable.

We took a walk later and without the backpacks and the scorching heat the route to the center seemed much shorter. Funny thing about this place is, it’s not at all touristic. So basically there is nothing to see or do here. Really nothing. But they do have free WiFi.

By a happy coincidence we are here on the only day of the week when actually something happens: the weekly night market. Otherwise we would still be walking around looking for dinner.

There are banana trees on the side of the road 🙂
And people still say hello to us.

Tomorrow morning we have a 3 hours boat trip upriver to Kuala Tahan where the headquarters of the national park are. Next few days we will be somewhere in the jungle, most likely with no internet connection, but with running water and air conditioning 🙂 Looking forward to the canopy walk, and hoping that it’s dry enough not to meet any leeches. It hasn’t rained at all while we are here, except the one afternoon at Batu Ferringhi. Could we be so lucky?

Friday in Kota Bharu

Kota Bharu is the capital of Kelantan, a mostly Muslim state, and Friday is the day of rest, and prayer. Prayer it was. Our hotel is across the street from a mosque, so at 7 am it started, blasting through speakers for everyone to hear. At 8.30 we decided to go to breakfast, and it was still on. And when we left towards the market, it was still on.

Breakfast was very authentic. They obviously don’t cater much to foreigners, not to mention vegetarians. There was fried rice, all right, but there were pieces if chicken in it. With skin on. Toni had to go for few slices of bread, and some green spongy cake.

We went to visit the colorful market in the center. The variety of fruits and vegetables is amazing, too bad you have to go through all the fish and chicken stalls before reaching the center of it.

Upstairs, bags full of dried fish, and mountains of meat floss.

The day is obviously a celebration day, the streets were full of people, shopping in the street markets, just walking about, or some simply sitting in the shade.

There are a lot of museums in this town. We walked around the area with the museums and royal palace, all the way to the river to the royal jetty. Of course they were all closed for the day. We knew they will be closed on Friday but well, no better timing. A lot of shops were also closed, but with our small bags we are not exactly on a shopping spree.

Yesterday when walking around we were wondering what’s with all the barbwire on some buildings, right in the center of the city, and so loud birds. Sounded suspicious, so loud chirping and not many birds in sight. Well, we found out what those are, buildings converted into swiftlet farms. They play on speakers the loud chirping to attract more birds, the ones that make the edible nest. I haven’t seen anywhere on the menu bird nest soup, but it may as well be all exported. In any case, it’s very noisy.

Another evening walk to the night market for a second dinner of nasi kerabu – most likely I will not find blue rice in other places. We had again the same fun with locals checking us up all the time and smiling. A lady even changed her trajectory while crossing the street to compliment my outfit. However, today we saw 5 other white tourists. And 3 of them asked us in the market where they could have a beer. Like, yeah, nowhere, it’s forbidden, go have a tea and call it a day. Actually I read somewhere that there are few Chinese restaurants that have beer and serve it to non Muslims only. Not a big market.

Now packing up the bags again, tomorrow morning moving on. We booked a taxi for 6.30 am to take us to Wakaf Bharu train station, with a 7 h train ride ahead of us, into the jungle.

Kota Bharu food night market

Our reserved taxi ride arrived at the hotel at 5.15 am to take us to the airport. I was just thinking wow, in Finland is 11pm, and I’m so sleepy.

The flight from Penang to Kota Bharu was very quick, and once we got to the center by bus, we got a map, and decided to waste some time in the mall. Well, the mall wasn’t yet open, so we first sat on the stairs, with a lot of young people that were waiting to get to work inside. Once it opened, we walked around and ate some breakfast. At 12 we couldn’t take it anymore, went to the hotel to try checking in early. Success. So we got some sleep.

In the morning the bus left us right in the middle of a market. Of course I understand fruits and vegetables but I still find it appalling how they sell all the dead animals in the same place, just like that, from plates or buckets.

After the nap it was already time for dinner so we went to search food. It’s not the most attractive city, I have to say. Lots of buildings look very worn out and dirty, and streets are the usual chaos. By a lucky turn we found the night market. I mean the food ‘court’, cause there is always some sort of a night market. First glance says this is not the most Toni-friendly place. No vegetarian food in sight. We eventually found some murtabak – a pie of very thin dough, filled and folded over. We got the one with a filling of banana, egg and raisins, and we were very happy to have it. It was so tasty, we bought two more later.

I ate some blue rice with coconut and chicken – nasi kerabu. Very authentic food market, I haven’t seen a fork, everybody eats with hands, from paper. This is why I always carry wet napkins 🙂

We feel like monkeys in the zoo, everybody is eyeballing us, smiling and talking to us. I assume they don’t see white tourists too often here. The kids are extremely friendly, they say hello and wave, it feels pretty funny.