Travel Diary - Part 2

By the first half of the first year of our marriage we wanted to take a break from the normal routine and go on a vacation. Both of us enjoy visiting new places and preferably new countries. As we looked at travel options our eyes traveled on the eastern part of the globe. We would not have to travel for long and yet it would be a land we have always wanted to travel to. Air tickets booked, hotels confirmed we were all set to explore 2 beautiful countries at a time……….. Singapore & Malaysia here we come.

We took a flight out of Bangalore to Singapore. We were misled by some folks in Blr that there were frequent train connections from Sin to Kul (Kualalumpur) and the travel time would be about 2-3 hours. On landing into the beautiful Changi Airport we took a metro to the nearest station for continuing our journey to Kul. We reached the station and got to know that the train would be leaving in less than 5 minutes; we quickly purchased the tickets and literally ran towards the train. We reached there just in time and managed to jump into the train which was about to move. We were in for a shock when we came to know that the train journey would take us about 7 hours!!!!!!!! We had the major part of the day wasted in the journey. Not that the journey was bad, but we were disappointed that we would get so much less time in Kul. We could see the landscape changing from the hi-tech city of Sin to the lush green country side of Kul.

We always make it a point when we travel outside India to travel by the mass transport system. Traveling by local busses or trains just helps us to blend with the locals and have a peek into a normal day in their lives. It’s very rare that we take up a taxi ride. On arrival into KL Sentral Station we walked over to the mono-rail station which was a few minutes walk away. We purchased out tickets and took the first elevated train ride of our lives. As we smoothly sailed through the ride we got to see the city. A beautiful city, growing closer by the minute to modernity but still firmly attached to their roots. The city was all decked up, all around we could see offices and shops all beautifully decorated. It was Chinese New Year time!!

By the time we reached the hotel it was nearly 4 pm in the evening. We quickly checked in, rushed to our room and freshened up. Our room was on the 13th floor and from our room we could see the Petrona Towers. Our stomach was growling loudly……did I tell you….. through the whole train journey we could not get anything to eat as there were no stations and we could not find a pantry area in the train. We hit the hotel restaurant for a very late lunch or should I say a heavy snack round :D. Once our tummy’s growling reduced we saw it was too late to go anywhere far. So we went to the travel desk and arranged for our city tour the next morning and went out to explore the near by places on foot.

View of Petrona Towers from our Hotel room.

I was a little disappointed to find the walkways a little dirty with bits of garbage and a huge amount of rotten oranges strewn around. We got to see most of the shops decorated and another thing that we got to see was next to most of the displays there were a couple of oranges arranged. It’s later that we found out that they were auspicious for the Chinese and this being the new year time they had placed it like an offering to the God. After a relishing meal we wound up to our room. With the lights of the room switched off we admired the brilliantly lit up Petrona Towers and the sky line of Kul. Down below we could see the Monorail zooming by silently.

The next morning we were off on our city tour. The tour was on a seat-in-coach basis, so we had a group ranging from kids to people so old that we were in awe on how they manage taking out vacations on their own at this age………….The tour started of at Jalan Tugu - The War Memorial of Malaysia. The main attraction being a huge Bronze statue comprising of 7 men which is dedicated to the men who lost their life for the sake of the country’s freedom. It was a beautiful place, with a very peaceful surrounding. Just the right atmosphere for a War Memorial.


The War Memorial

The next place we were shown was the Menara tower on the way to Merdeka Square. Here we got to see the Sultan Abdul Samad building that houses the present day Court of Law. It’s a beautiful architectural monument constructed during the British rule. Opposite to the building proudly stood a 100 meter flag pole, the one on which the Malaysian flag was hoisted when the country got their freedom from British rule.


Merdeka Square

From there we moved on to see the Royal Palace. Not really cause visitors are not allowed beyond the main entrance, so we could only get a distant view of the palace. We got to click a couple of pictures of the guards, who by the way looked really stately and grand in those uniforms.

Our next stop was at the famous Batik factory. Here we were given a tour of the factory; we got to see how beautifully the prints were made in no time. The creative hands worked wonders on the simple cotton and synthetic materials. We visited the showroom that displayed the different clothing made at the factory. From here our next stop was at the Royal Selangor Pewter factory. On the way we were shown the famous Batu Caves(famous Murugan temple), but unfortunately they did not stop there so we could only view the place from outside. Once at the Pewter factory we were given a full tour of the factory and also the whole process of turning that ordinary looking metal into beautiful show pieces. We were totally new to this metal, but for sure we fell head over heels in love with it. How quickly it set into the shape required from a watery form. As good as it looks; it was a very pricy metal too. The Souvenirs were very inviting but the price tag burnt our tender eyes :D.


Pewter Factory

Our last stop for the day was the main attraction or rather the landmark of Kul- The Petrona Twin Towers. What looked like a beautiful landmark from the cozy comforts of our room was an overpowering building. As we walked closer to it we were in awe. Both of us hurt our neck by trying to look at the tower from its base. The group was given an option of either returning to the hotel in the same coach or we could break journey out there. SM and I decided to break journey and do a little bit of window shopping and of course put some fuel into our empty stomach.


The Petrona - Twin Towers

Chinese Musicians playing some lovely music within the Mall for the Chinese New Year Celebration (It was truly Heavenly.........)


This was our first time in a full fledged mall (this was prior to the Mall boom in Bangalore), we had a good time doing some window shopping. Then we hit the food court, where we got to see stalls with cuisines from all around the world. We were in no mood for experimentation, so landed up eating some delicious Indian food.After a tiring day we returned to out hotel room. We got freshened up and got ready to catch up with some relatives who were settled out in Kul for many decades. They wanted us over for dinner, so we were picked up from our hotel by them and taken to their home which was on the other end of the city.

A very warm family, whom we had never met before made us feel total at home. They wanted to treat us to some local cuisine, so off we went to a local Malay restaurant. The ambience was good, with more than 90% of the crowd being young guys and girls. There were tables where some birthday celebrations were going on; some folks just chilling out and the rest of the crowd were families out for a relaxing dinner. We had a good time minus the fact that the food was not one bit our kind of choice. But the lovely people that they were, we had a perfect ending to a perfect day.

The next day we bid farewell to this beautiful land, a little sad that we should have planned it a little better and stayed on for longer duration. But with a promise that we would come back here on a well planned and longer holiday for sure…………..

Travel Diary - Part 1

This has been long overdue from my side. Not that I had promised anybody about it. I always wanted to keep an account of the places I and SM (and of course Jelly now) have traveled so far, with the pictures and details. Want to do this before my all famous memory stops working completely.

So here I am all set to fly back into the first travel me and SM made together. When the thought of planning for our honeymoon started we had a couple of options in our mind. But what both of us wanted was some time away from the hustle and bustle of a city life. We wanted to get rid of the tiredness of the wedding rituals, the endless flow of relatives and most of all just wanted to spend time with each other and forget the world. So without any confusion both of us zeroed in on “Maldives”. A place that is very close by, yet completely detached from this world.

For the first leg of the journey, We took our flights from Bangalore to Trivandrum (back then the direct flights betweem Bangalore and Maldives had still not started operation). We had to break the journey for 1 night at SM’s uncle’s place as there were no immediate connections from Trivandrum and the earliest connection was for the next day.

So after a short break for the night we took the next morning flight out of Trivandrum to Male. The flight journey was just another routine one, the same old beyond retirement age and grumpy air hostess, same old badly maintained flights and one of the most horrible on flight food I have ever had - all courtesy our very own National Carrier. Remember this was before air travel boom time with just a couple of private players unlike today. This was the only negative side of the trip.

The 1 hour flight had nearly come to an end and we heard the announcement confirming the same. Just as they announced to fasten our seat belts, I looked out of the window and the view was truly a breath taking one. As the flight started descending we could see tiny islands scattered all around. The water was turquoise blue and so clear that we could literally see the shallow sea. As the flight got ready for the landing we could see the runway and that sight was truly one to behold. The runway and the ocean looked only meters away from each other, just like conjoined twins - conjoined all the way from head to toe. There was nothing to hold the water away from the runway!!!!!!!! It was a beautiful sight no doubt but at the same time the landing looked a dangerous feat to attempt.....

When we got out of the airport after the immigration, we got to see that the airport was the only thing on that particular island and when we dug for more information after our return we got to know that 1000 and odd islands formed Maldives of which only about 200 are inhabited and of that nearly 90 were exclusive island resorts……Wow!!!! We had our speed boats ready to take us to our destination………The speedboat transfer took about an hour and the views of the islands that whizzed past were breathtaking. The boat just seemed to glide over the ocean barely touching it a few times during the whole journey.

This is the view that greeted us on our arrival at the resort


Just to note - these photos are scanned images of the photos shot using traditional cameras. Those were the days where simple aim and shoot film cameras ruled the roost and the now famous and convenient digital cameras had not yet made their mark or presence felt amongst us.

Now on to the trip - the resort had two kinds of rooms - Beach Villa and Lagoon Villa. We had opted for the Lagoon Villa - this villa is built on stilts on top of the ocean water. We had to take a tiny bridge to enter the villa. Once we entered the room we just felt like we were air lifted from this world to another world that was totally alien to us. At the other end of the room was a huge glass wall which gave us unhindered view of the vast beautiful ocean ahead of us.

This was the view from our room.



The four days we spent there helped us in recharging ourselves and also getting to know each other better. The food was awesome, both of us were not too interested in sweets or desserts back then, but I guess the credit goes to the restaurant chefs for making us the foodies that we are today.



This was the view from the restaurant.

The island on which this resort was located contained nothing but this resort. When they told us we can take a tour of the island on foot we were a little taken a back. How would it be possible to cover an island on foot? But as we started walking along the shore line we totally felt at ease. And before even we could realize it we had gone round the island and it hardly took us about 15-20 minutes. The island was that small!!!!!

These were some of the pictures taken on one of those walks.

Near sunset time we would sit at our very own private sun deck and enjoy the lovely sunset. From the sun deck there were wooden steps that took us directly into shallow ocean water. This was one of those things which we truly enjoyed. Even though we did not know swimming we would frolick around in the crystal clear waters of the ocean. And if we got tired of that we would sit on the steps and look down into the ocean to either find colorful fishes or sting rays swimming by or just admire the beauty of the coral reefs that was all round the place. Wish we had our current digital camera back then, We could have taken some better pictures I feel.

This was the view from the sun deck.

This is the view of the other Lagoon Villas from our sun deck

One night there were heavy rains and the sound of the waves crashing against the sun deck was a little scary. We went out during the rains just to have a look at nature’s fury. Believe me it was so dark outside and we could hear the loud crashing of the waves on the barrier far ahead. We could feel the pressure of the waves against the stilts of our villa, it was so powerful that we could feel the wooden floor and the building swaying in a very slow fashion. It was a creepy as well as an exciting feeling.

With heavy hearts we were ready to say “Good Bye” to this lovely place after four days. But we did make a promise that we would come back here for sure, probably when our family is complete.

We had a safe journey back with plenty of sweet memories captured in our camera and in our minds.