10-day trip to Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur, Langkawi, Kota Bharu, Perhentian Islands

Below is a write-up of my 10-day (approx) trip to Malaysia with my wife. Definitely wouldn't mind going back to Malaysia again in the future! So much to see and experience...

Kuala Lumpur

Wed 23 Mar afternoon — set off from London Heathrow airport flying on Emirates Airline (flight cost us £550 return per person; we booked three months in advance).

Wed 24 Mar evening  — landed in Dubai International Airport for a 4-hour stopover before proceeding onwards with our journey. Had a McDonald's burger meal while we waited!

Thu 24 Mar afternoon — landed in Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Got a taxi to our hotel (The Federal) located in Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur. (We arranged and paid for the taxi at the taxi counter at the airport.)

Thu 24 Mar evening — joined a friend of a friend (a local) for a drive out to a restaurant named Sate Kajang Haji Samuri for some local Malaysian food. We had Satay meat (chicken, lamb, beef and fish) with rice and rice balls and peanut sauce! Was awesome!

Fri 25 Mar morning — the travelling caught up with us and we totally slept through!

Fri 25 Mar afternoon — we walked (around 20 minutes) from our hotel in Bukit Bintang to the Suria Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC) mall located under the Petronas Twin Towers, and then had a browse around the mall.

Fri 25 Mar evening — met some friends for dinner at Madam Kwan's on the fourth floor of the Suria KLCC mall. We ordered Nasi Lemak and Kung Pao Chicken. Was very decent!

Sat 26 Mar morning — we just about woke up in time for the hotel breakfast and then met with a local brother who drove us around Kuala Lumpur. We stopped by some places like the National Mosque and Central Market.

Sat 26 Mar afternoon — we continued our tour with the local brother and went on to Putrajaya where we saw the newly constructed government buildings as well as stopping by the two famous mosques here: the Putra Mosque (also known as the Pink Mosque) and the Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin Mosque (also known as the Iron Mosque). Totally loved the open designs of these two mosques.

Sat 26 Mar evening — met some friends for some Thai food at a little local eatery called Pak Chu Tomyam located in Keramat, Kuala Lumpar. If you're gonna go, go with a local otherwise you won't know what to order!

Sun 27 Mar morning — headed to Kuala Lumpur International Airport to catch our flight to Langkawi booked with Malindo Air (approx £15 per person). We should have flown from Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport (also known as Subang Airport) which was a bit closer to our hotel but I made a mistake when booking the flight!

Langkawi

Sun 27 Mar afternoon — landed in Langkawi International Airport and got a taxi to our hotel (Langkawi Chantique) located in Pentai Cenang.

Sun 27 Mar evening — we got a taxi to the Cenang beach, enjoyed the sunset, prayed Maghrib on the beach, and then walked along Jalan Pentai Cenang (= Pentai Cenang Road) and browsed the shops. We also booked ourselves on the Mangrove Tour for the following morning. Absolutely lots of places offering tours and activities and things to do in the shops dotted along Jalan Pentai Cenang.

Mon 28 Mar morning – we got picked up for our Mangrove Tour and taken to Kilim Geoforest Park where the tour starts.

Mon 28 Mar afternoon — we continued with the tour travelling to the various sites by boat. You'll see bats, monkeys and eagles along the way. Highly recommend the tour. Thoroughly worth it.

Mon 28 Mar evening —walked from our hotel to the shops dotted along Jalan Pentai Cenang in the search of dinner. We settled on Telaga Restaurant based on the taxi driver's recommendation the previous day. Bad idea! Don't trust drivers when it comes to restaurant recommendations! The food was not nice and overpriced too.

Tue 29 Mar morning — we hired a moped for our last two full days in Langkawi and what a great decision! So cheap (£10 per day including full insurance cover) and so liberating to go wherever we want whenever we want.

Tue 29 Mar afternoon — we rode out on our moped to Langkawi Cable Car (also known as Langkawi SkyCab) and enjoyed the views up top of the mountains. The Oriental Village at the bottom was nice too. Some nice cafes to rest at.

Tue 29 Mar evening — we rode out to the night market which is set up in a different area of Langkawi every night of the week and on this night happened to be close to our hotel. Had we known how good it was we would have gone the previous nights also! Lots of snacks and drinks on offer.

Wed 30 Mar morning — we rode out to the Crocodile Farm. Worth a quick stopover to feed the baby crocodiles and to watch the adult crocodiles being fed!

Wed 30 Mar afternoon — we continued our ride on to the Crafts Complex and then the Fruit Farm. Both worth a quick stopover.

Wed 30 Mar evening — we continued our ride on to Restoran Siti Fatima which had some good reviews online only to discover that it closes at 4pm! We thus rode back to Jalan Pentai Cenang and had dinner at Restoran Haji Ramli instead. Was decent. Good value for money.

Thu 31 Mar morning — rode out to Jalan Pentai Cenang to return our moped which served us so so well the previous two days.

Kota Bharu

Thu 31 Mar afternoon — we got a taxi from our hotel to Langkawi International Airport and then our flight with FireFly (a subsidiary of Malaysia Airlines) to Kota Bharu airport (also known as Sultan Ismail Petra Airport) and then a taxi to our hotel (Hotel Perdana Kota Bharu). The flight cost us approx £25 per person.

Thu 31 Mar evening — we set off from our hotel and walked around town. We had no real plan. Just to walk around and get a feel for the town centre. We picked up some Kelantan FA (The Red Warriors!) football shirts along the way, stumbled across a local book fair and stopped by the local night market for some dinner. The local night market was cheap and cheerful but not quite as good as the one we experienced in Langkawi.

Fri 01 Apr morning - we got a taxi from hotel to take us to the Kuala Besut Jetty. The taxi ride from our hotel to the jetty took us just under an hour.

Perhentian Islands

Fri 01 Apr afternoon —we caught the 12:30pm boat from Kuala Besut Jetty to our hotel on the Perhentian Islands (Perhentian Island Resort). Note that boats are hourly from around 8:30am to around 4:30pm and the boat journey is around 40 minutes. We bought our boat transfer tickets from Kota Bharu Airport (70RM return per person).

Fri 01 Apr evening — we chilled by the resort's beach and jumped in for a swim till sunset and then prayed Maghrib before tucking into the resort's buffet dinner.

Sat 01 Apr morning — we got some snorkelling equipment from the resort's equipment hire cabin and practiced using it on the resort's beach.

Sat 01 Apr afternoon — we joined a snorkelling boat tour and stopped by three different places close to our resort which are good for seeing coral and fish.

Sat 01 Apr evening — last evening on the island... sitting by the beach and taking it in :-)

Sun 02 Apr morning — we caught the 8am boat back to Kuala Besut Jetty and then a minibus ride to Kota Bharu airport.

Kuala Lumpur

Sun 03 Apr afternoon —we flew to Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport (also known as Subang Airport) from Kota Bharu and then got a taxi to our hotel (The Federal). The flight cost us around £20 per person.

Sun 03 Apr evening — we joined some friends for some delicious Western Chinese Muslim food at Amber Chinese Muslim Restaurant located in Bangsar South, Kuala Lumpur. Excellent way to wrap up the trip.

Mon 04 Apr morning —a taxi ride to Kuala Lumpur International Airport from our hotel and then the return flight back home with Emirates Airline.

*****

SUMMARY: Excellent trip throughout. We'll be back to Malaysia for sure! And if we go back to Langkawi (which we sure plan to) we'll probably spend a week there next time round rather than just a few days.

Book Review: 'A Million Bullets - The Real Story of the British Army in Afghanistan', by James Fergusson

I'll be honest, I skipped a large chunk of this book in the middle. I liked the opening chapters of this book — thoughts of British troops on the ground who have fought against the Taliban — and the closing chapter of this book — thoughts of Taliban insurgents on the ground who are fighting against "foreign invaders". With regards to the mindset of British troops, if this book is anything to go by, it is clear that in 2007 (when this book was published), many British troops on the ground were really not sure what they were fighting for. If they were fighting to remove the Taliban and to put in place a competent, uncorrupt, pro-Western government that can defend itself against the Taliban, then they had failed. If they were fighting to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table, then the fighting was pretty pointless because the Taliban could have been brought to the negotiating table without any fighting.

4-day trip to Ireland (Dublin and Galway)

Went to Dublin and Galway in Ireland with the wife for four days last week. Here's the itinerary of our trip:

• Thursday 27th morning flew over from London Stansted to Dublin airport with Ryanair.
• Thursday 27th afternoon picked up our rented car from Europcar at the airport and drove to our hotel (Aspect Hotel Park West) located west of Dublin town centre near Park West and Cherry railway station.
• Thursday 27th afternoon got the train from Park West and Cherry railway station to Dublin Heuston railway station and then the Luas tram on to the town centre (Abbey Street) from where we started our walk south to Dublin Mosque passing Trinity College, Merrion Square and St Stephen's Green en route.
• Thursday 28th evening prayed Asr and Maghrib at Dublin Mosque and had dinner in between in the Mosque canteen.
• Friday 28th morning drove down to Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland for Jumuah and then had lunch at the Mosque canteen following Jumuah. What a Mosque!
• Friday 28th afternoon drove further down south to Powerscourt Estate Garden and Waterfall. Highly recommended! 
• Friday 28th evening drove back up to Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland for Maghrib and a light dinner and then on to our hotel.
• Saturday 29th morning returned the car in the town centre and then caught the train to Galway.
• Saturday 29th afternoon walked around Galway town centre and caught a very nice crafts and food fair on Church Lane just off Shop Street.
• Saturday 29th afternoon picked up our rented car from Budget and drove along the coast to our B&B (Summerville B&B) and then on to Spiddle town, stopping along the way a couple of times and catching the views.
• Saturday 29th evening drove back into Galway town centre for dinner. We went to Pearla Na Mara restaurant and found it to be very nice!
• Sunday 30th morning drove along the coast back into Galway town passing and stopping at Salthill en route before returning our car.
• Sunday 30th afternoon got the train back from Galway to Dublin Heuston railway station and then the Luas tram on to Abbey Street to pick up some goodies before getting the Airlink 747 bus from Busaras to Dublin airport.
• Sunday 30th evening got our return flight from Dublin airport back to London Stansted.

Good trip overall alhamdulillah. We could have done with an extra day in Dublin to ride the DART local train to explore the east coast and an extra day in Galway to explore Connemara National Park... but I guess that leaves us things to do should we return!

Here are our pictures from the trip:

• Dublin (5 photos)
• Powerscourt Estate and Garden, Wicklow (3 photos)
• Galway (5 photos)

Muslim names and PayPal transactions!

So my account was blocked by PayPal over a month ago and I've been chasing them up to figure out why and when I found out why... it had me in stitches!

It turns out it that my attempt to forward £100 to my friend Ali with a note "Deposit money from Abdul Basit and Taleb" contained a forbidden word in it: Abdul Basit. No joke! PayPal is instructed by the American government to flag all transactions which contain the word Abdul Basit in it.

So, lesson learnt: if you're going to use PayPal to transfer money to friends, avoid using Muslim names in the transaction note or risk getting your account blocked! True story :-D

Day trip: Wendover station to Coombe Hill

Went on a day trip with the wife, niece and nephew last bank holiday Monday. We got the train from London Marylebone station to Wendover station in the Chiltern Hills (around 40 minutes). And then we walked from Wendover station to the top of Coombe Hill, chilled there for a while and then back to the station. It's a nice easy walk which takes around 40 minutes each way if walking at a reasonable pace and not taking breaks. The view from the top of the hill is very nice on a clear day like what we had. If you use Ordnance Survey maps, it's the Chiltern Hills North (181) map which you want (grid reference '86 07' to '84 06'). 

Some pictures from the walk here.

Book Review: Virtues of Jerusalem, by Ismail Adam Patel

This is the perfect little book for anyone planning on visiting Jerusalem (Al Quds) or just generally wanting to know a bit more about why Jerusalem is so important to the Muslim. It covers the verses of the Qur'an and sayings of the Prophet (peace and blessings of God be upon him) in which the land is mentioned as well as the Prophets of old who are linked to the area. There is a section also about the history of the area in the previous 1,000 years. Rightfully, in my opinion, modern politics and Israeli occupation is not dwelled on and is not the focus of this book. If anything stood out for me in particular, it was the point that it is the land itself which is blessed more so than any particular building or structure within it. In summary, get this book if you're going to Al Aqsa!

Book Review: Training the Samurai Mind – A Bushido Sourcebook, by Thomas Cleary

Nice collection of essays from Japanese thinkers who lived in the last millennium on what it means to be a martial artist. Some of the ideas about God and divinity in these essays are indeed alien to the Islamic understanding but that aside what is proposed of the ideal character and virtue which one should aspire to is very much consistent with Islamic teaching. I've picked out some quotes below which stuck out for me the most:

"Kindness means the wish to relieve suffering; compassion means the wish to give happiness." (Ichijo Kaneyoshi [1402-1481])

"... there are buoyant attitudes that overcome things, and depressive attitudes overcome by things..." (Suzuki Shosan [1579-1655])

"When you manage to overcome your own mind, you overcome myriad concerns, rise above all things, and are free. When you are overcome by your own mind, you are burdened by myriad concerns, subordinate to things, unable to rise above. Mind your mind; guard it resolutely. Since it is the mind that confuses the mind, don't let your mind give in to your mind." (Suzuki Shosan [1579-1655])

"To see what is right yet fail to do it is lack of courage." (Yamaga Soko [1622-1685])

"Even if you have a plough, it's best to wait for the season." (Yamaga Soko [1622-1685])

"... when you look to the left you forget the right, and when you look to the right you forget the left. If you look at an opponent's hands, your mind inclines to the hands; if you look at his feet, your mind inclines to the feet. Once there's any imbalance, you're like an empty house. If thieves break into an empty house, since the owner's not home he can't stop them. For this reason, you should have an overall perspective, not a biased view." (Izawa Nagahide [1711-1732])

"If you fight willing to die, you'll survive; if you fight trying to survive, you'll die. If you think you'll never go home again, you will; if you hope to make it back, you won't." (Adachi Masahiro [fl. ca. 1780-1800])

"A swordsman strikes out after the other but hits home before the other." (Hirayama Heigen [1759-1828] quoting Chuang Tzu)

"I have heard of military actions that were clumsy but quick, whereas I've never seen any that were skilful yet took a long time." (Hirayama Heigen [1759-1828] quoting Sun Tzu) 

"... break the enemy's soul, and his skills will become useless." (Hirayama Heigen [1759-1828])

"Wind and rain can be shut out, but cold and heat cannot be controlled, because they have no form." (Hirayama Heigen [1759-1828] quoting The Master of Huanin lessons on military strategy)

"... people lacking in loyalty and respect for parents are worthless no matter how good they may be in other respects." (Saito Totsudo [1797-1865])