From KL to Sabah
From the towering skyline of Kuala Lumpur, to the jungles and mountains of Sabah— my experiences within Malaysia showed me a vast variety of landscapes, ethnic foods, and new challenges to test myself and expand my comfort zones even further than before. Here’s the highlights to my experiences on this 8-day adventure with Expedia and Tourism Malaysia!
Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur (KL) is Malaysia’s capital city and by far the most active as well as awe-inspiring from a modern design point of view. It’s also a great central location to travel to if you only have time or the budget for one, due to its distance to other popular attractions such as Batu Caves, and Kanching Waterfalls just to name a few. During my visit in KL, we enjoyed a tour of the city with Mike’s Bikes, which included a visit to various markets, hawker stations, and other picturesque locations around the city. This tour requires you to be a decent bike rider, as you’ll find yourself dodging traffic and cycling along within feet of other cars traveling down the same roads while you sport the fashionable bright orange safety vests provided. Obviously, a must do on any thrill-seeker’s agenda while visiting! To end the night, we grabbed a variety of delicious options from the hawkers at Jalan Alor.
Langkawi
While visiting Langkawi, the best views to be seen are atop the Langkawi Cable Car and Sky Bridge. With glass floors on both the cable cars heading up the mountainside, as well as in sections of the Sky Bridge, these attractions allow you to experience the sheer height of the mountain edge right below your feet. The panoramic views of the surrounding islands and thick jungle hillsides around you are definitely worth the trek up alone.
But we were looking for something to get our hair flying in the wind a bit more, and jet ski tours from the beaches of Langkawi was just what we needed. Exploring the local islands and nearby geopark, Pulau Dayang Bunting, was definitely the highlight of Langkawi and not to be missed if you are visiting yourself. Filled with massive limestone features carved out by the sea, these islands are all unique and mystifying in their own regard that I could have spent hours exploring their coasts and features. But all good things come to an end, and after a day spent in the sun ripping up the waves of my fiberglass pony, what better way to end the epic day than to spend it on a sunset dinner cruise? We did exactly that, where the alcohol flowed like water and the jellyfish stung plentifully to those who dared swim in tow behind the catamaran.
Penang
Penang is known best for its amazing selection of authentic foods. After having tasted all different kinds from places throughout Penang, I can attest to this firsthand. Everything we had in Penang was not only amazing, but completely unique and individual in some way to the area. It’s easy to get lost in Penang solely on food and seeking new options and tastes, but make sure you don’t miss out on visiting the awesome places like Entopia— a live vivarium and insect sanctuary that also has plenty of awesome photo locations inside it to experiment with. I was surprised at how picturesque this location was, with multiple different options for unique compositions. But after visiting Georgetown and seeing the street art and different buildings and architecture, it made me want to get more into street and architecture photography.
Sabah
The first stop of our tour through Sabah, was the Mari-Mari cultural village, that houses 5 traditional houses representing 5 different native groups. There, we were shown the different ways the people make food, alcohol, grow rice, and were invited to see and participate in various traditional activities. In the houses that represented the groups who were known headhunters, permission was first necessary in order to enter the house. This was granted by approaching the chief’s eldest son, placing your right hand on his shoulder and he the same, and answering his questions about who you are, where you are from, and what your intentions are. My favorite activity, was a spring board-type floor they had in one room where they had a game to launch each other as high into the air as possible and one person tries their hand at touching a goal item placed high up on the ceiling. It was much harder than it looked to get good height and largely depended on technique that was difficult to key in on.
After the tours of the villages, we moved on to a fish massage arranged for us in which we had entirely no idea of what to expect. Upon arrival, we learned that this meant hundreds of 5’’-18’’ fish swarmed your feet and anything you put in the water. It was a rather unique experience and feeling, though one that is not for everybody. Fished up and smelling great we moved onto the Sabah Tea Gardens where we were shown the way black tea is grown, harvested, and processed into what many people drink on a daily basis.
Malaysia at a glance
Exploring Malaysia and seeing the amazing differences between each location we visited firsthand was incredible and I’d suggest anyone mildly interested in visiting Malaysia to absolutely go! The diverse scenery and tastes and people are hard to come by in many other countries and everywhere we went people were warm, friendly and welcoming. The food alone is worth a visit, and if you do come for the food, Penang should be at the top of your list. Overall, I would say however that Sabah was my favorite area due to the richness in wildlife and epic jungle scenery. I’m from the mountains so maybe I’m naturally biased towards mountain-related terrain. But if tropical is your style, you couldn’t go wrong with Langkawi.
I’ll certainly be back to Malaysia very soon. I can’t wait to explore more of Borneo and Sabah and the wildlife sanctuaries they are home to.
See more of what I did in Malaysia at https://malaysianchallenge.expedia.com/