Holiday in Singapore and Malaysia

We took ourselves on a three week holiday in July '09 to visit my relatives in Singapore and Malaysia. Planning started in December '08 and initially I wanted to go over Easter but I couldn't get leave until the July school holidays. As it turned out, the company I worked for decided to close its engineering group in Melbourne by the end of June, so my leave in July was permanent.

Singapore city was pretty much as I remembered it from my last visit in '04, when I attended Yung's wedding. If anything, it's greener than it was before and crowds seem less hurried. We took it easy and took the kids to the Science Centre and Wild Wild Wet water park, and wandered around Orchard Road. As book lovers, we had to visit the local Kinokuniya. Yung and Li-Yah spent a day with us around town, and we also visited them and my in-laws in their very nice condo.

Then we took a bus to visit my parents in Kuala Kangsar, a town in the state of Perak. The town now has a very nice Olympic-length swimming pool but the rest of the town is still pretty quiet, much as I remember it. We lazed in my parents' home for a week while mum busied herself keeping us fed.

We wanted to take Dad with us to Alor Setar in Kedah, where Lung lives, but found out that there weren't any direct buses (they stop in Butterworth and we'd have to change buses for the next leg) and taxies weren't big enough. In the end, Mum hired a minivan and driver, and Lung kindly paid the cost of the journey.

Lung and his family showed us around town. Kedah is rice growing state, and we visited the quite interesting Paddy Museum with its detailed full sized diorama near Gunung Keriang (I think).

While based in Alor Setar, we spent a couple of nights in Langkawi island. We took the ferry from Kuala Kedah to Kuah, and rented a basic room next to Cenang Beach. The kids really liked the idea of walking out from the room onto the beach and spent hours in the sand and waves. The water was mild and smooth, and the beach didn't have many visitors since it was the middle of the week, so it was very pleasant.

Our stay in Langkawi was short but we managed to visit Underwater World, Durian Perangin waterfall and the Wildlife Park.

We returned to Alor Setar and took a bus from there to Kuala Lumpur to visit my cousins. Kooi Sim organized an unexpectedly large dinner with her family and the kids got to sample even more Chinese and Malaysian food.

We left Malaysia from KLIA, transited Singapore, and took the overnight flight back to Melbourne. The kids stayed up all night with the onboard computer games and fell asleep in the taxi ride home.

Many thanks to everyone for hosting us in Singapore and Malaysia! It has been a great experience and holiday, and I definitely plan to make a return visit with the family.