Malaysia - Day 11

Day 11 - Wednesday 26 September:

Our day began with a breakfast of both sweet and savoury rolls before packing into our 'bus' (12 seater van) and car for the trip to the Cameron Highlands.  It was such a beautiful trip into the mountains. Ps Calvin said we were taking the longer route because it was less windy, but we think it's because that's the way he could make a 5km detour to buy banana and sweet potato fritters!

It was cold, wet and foggy when we arrived at our accommodation - the Lutheran Mission Bungalow.  We all had a quick light lunch (at 3pm) in the town before relaxing at the Bungalow, playing tennis, taking photos and chatting until it was 6.30pm and time for dinner.  

The Bungalow is a retreat for Pastors and missionaries when they need a break and time to recuperate, so it was beautiful and isolated.  Dinner, made by Auntie, was mushroom soup, pork schnitzels, potato, cauliflower, salad, and apple pie with icecream - dishes learned from previous guests. It was all amazing and delicious!

After dinner we all went back into town and most of us had massages. Jesse had an ear candling, which afterwards went a little wrong, and he suffered side effects for a couple of days.

But I had a foot massage and an upper body massage, for 75 minutes (all for just RM70!) and it was very relaxing. Feeling calm and happy we went back to the Bungalow and set our alarms for 5am to be ready for our sunrise tour pickup at 5.30am.  It was a cold night, and I did not sleep well.

Malaysia - Day 10

Day 10 - Tuesday 25 September:

Tuesday was our hike day, we all prepared ourselves for a 2 hour trek. However, Ps Calvin had a change of plans for us. After walking up about 800 stairs we reached a series of waterfalls and pools and were told to go swimming! I didn't end up swimming, but just standing in the water was nice and cool. Ps Calvin, Chris, Dan, Cameron and Vicki had fun using a makeshift waterslide - it kept them all busy for almost 2 hours!  

It was a little weird though, as at the base of one swimming pool was a group of 3 people - 2 guys and a (large) girl. The the guys were cutting/doing each others hair... Yeah...


Ps Calvin was going to take us to a restaurant for lunch, but as it turned out, the restaurant was closed. Instead we stopped on the side of the road in a nice spot and had a wonderful view out over KL.

Afterwards we went to Ikea and the 2 massive shopping centres that were all joined. We did a lot of walking, and Erin & Chloe each had 3 frozen yoghurts! About 5.30pm we all met up and headed back to the Luther Centre for a KFC dinner. (In true Asian style, it comes with sachets of chilli sauce). After dinner was a time to relax, and we started planning our International Youth Mission Night booth and Waltzing Matilda act.

Malaysia - Day 9

Day 9 - Monday 24 September:

For breakfast we all met up at a Chinese restaurant and had a variety of Dim Sum. I liked some of them, but others had a horrible texture. My favourite was BBQ pork inside a sweet dough (like this). From there we walked over to Joe's jewelery store where we had a look around, and he started telling us the history of Melaka as we began our historical tour around Melaka. We followed the ruins of the old fort around the edge of the city (well, what used to be the edge before they started reclaiming back so much land from the ocean). As I am not interested in history in the slightest, I got a bit bored, but everyone else seemed to find it interesting. 

After our tour we all met back at the Calathe Arts Cafe for lunch. From there us girls went back to Joe's jewelery store and a few of the boys went to the observation tower.  I sent about RM200 on 3 pieces of jewelery (all hand made) - 2 pairs of earrings for myself and a beautiful butterfly broach for my Nanna.  With our purchases we went back to the guest house to pack, and then started our journey back to the Luther Centre.

As we were waiting at the final major intersection before hitting the main highway we witnessed a severe car crash. Most of us were just drifting off to sleep and awoke to a loud bang. A truck coming from the other direction had lost control.  Involved were 3 trucks, 3 cars and 2 motorbikes. It was a traumatic sight to see and we were all a little bit in shock. We all prayed for those involved and their families, know yet knowing the outcome. We found out the following day there were 5 fatalities.

View from the observation tower

When we arrived back at the Luther Centre we were left to our own devices to get dinner.  We all walked in the direction we were told for Nandos, only to get a little lost. It took us 45 minutes to finally arrived at the restaurant, and as we were all annoyed, another 15 minutes of arguing to order, but it was delicious!  One the way back, we stopped at Maccas for icecream, and it was only a 20 min walk in total. (Also, if we were so inclined, for just RM3 Maccas would deliver - no minimum order!)

Malaysia - Day 8

Day 8 - Sunday 23 September:

Our group with Ps Thomas

The morning started with church at our partner congregation - Luther House Congregation. We arrived a bit late - 9am for an 8.30 service (we only arrived at the restaurant for breakfast at 8.30) - but there were still people who arrived after us, including the man who was being baptised that day (he arrived about 2 minutes before they called him up to be baptised). The sermon lasted about 45 minutes, but the time went quickly as it was quite interesting. It used the analogy of being stuck in a traffic jam to use godly wisdom. Pastor Thomas was very friendly and we had a chat with him after the service. We even got a special welcome as visitors.

After church we left for Melaka. We stopped at the Melaka Lutheran Church - Pastor Calvin's first congregation - mostly made up of university students, so it is very youth orientated. From there we went on to lunch (about 2.30pm by this point), and then to our accommodation: House of Kititto. It was a guest house, so it had a shared common area and bathrooms.  Chloe, Erin, Jesse and I shared 2 double beds in one room. After a quick rest and toilet break we walked into Jonker Street which is where Melaka's night markets are held.

Our group with some of the Melaka youth group

The night markets were very busy, and had lots of fascinating items. There were souvenirs, bags, clothes, gadgets, food and craft items. We wandered the streets for a couple of hours before meeting up at the Calanthe Arts Cafe, where our tour guide for Monday owned the cafe and jewelery shop.  We had a late dinner, sat and chatted for a while, and eventually started back to our accommodation. It was about 10.30pm by now and the stalls were starting to pack up, but we stopped so many times that it took us almost 45 minutes to walk the 15 minute journey back to the guest house.  I fell asleep quite quickly.

Malaysia - Day 7

Day 7 - Saturday 22 September:

Our day started with a sleep-in (8am!) and a warm shower - wonderful! A bit after 9am Michael took us to one of his favourite restaurants for breakfast, and we had eggs and hashbrown and toast! I was so glad to have normal food, and it was very cheap; quite popular with students. From there we all met up at Annie's house and started our tour of KL. 

The Petronas Towers - 88 storeys

We went to a very upmarket shopping centre - KLCC - at the base of the Petronas towers. They had Prada, Gucci, Chanel, Dior and Versace stores - stuff I could never afford! From there we had lunch in a western restaurant near China Town; minestrone and salad had never tasted so good! The prices were a lot more than we were used to seeing here and it made us think about the difference between the rich and the poor.

Then we went to China Town and learned to bargain.  Jesse and Bradley saw it as a game, but Vicki hated it as she is not a fan of high pressure sales. Thankfully we had Annie and Lily to assist us in choosing the better quality products and step in to assist us in our haggling. I bought a genuine imitation Chanel wallet (RM20), a Jimmy Choo wallet (RM20) and a Coach evening bag (RM40).  We also bought gifts/souvenirs from the indoor Malay Central Market.

Group photo with the Sunway Youth!

We were then running on Malaysian time to go to the Sunway Youth group (30 minutes late). We had a pot luck dinner (yellow watermelon tastes delicious!) and a worship service, which was conducted in both Chinese and English. It was quite weird slipping from one language to another in a single song. We had a few games - human bingo, Chinese whispers charades, and a puzzle - and then the night was over. We had a few group photos and chatted to the youth a bit more before we were all dropped back at the Luther Centre, all tired and ready for bed.

Malaysia - Day 6

Day 6 - Friday 21 September:



Friday was a 'play' day for us - we went to the Sunway Lagoon Theme Park, and it was amazing!! For RM80 we had access to 3 of the 5 different parks inside. The boys paid the additional RM20 to have access to all 5, as they wanted to go on the go karts and ATV's. In the morning us girls went around the wildlife park and saw all of the animals, and checked out a couple of the rides while the boys went and did their Extreme Park activities.

We all met up for lunch and got changed for the Water Park. Vicki, Jesse and I had our feet cleaned by fish as we waited for lunch to settle. It was the most bizzare feeling - like little electric shocks all over my feet - and then it was time for the water slides and the wave pool! We were at the theme park from 10.30am until the rides started closing at 6pm. 

We met up with Annie, a leader from the Sunway Youth, around 6.30pm who took us into the Pyramid Shopping Centre next to the theme park. We did a quick bit of shopping before meeting the Sunway Youth Group at an outdoor food court for dinner. I had lasagne for dinner, as I needed a change of Asian food for a day. After dinner we went to Par Tea Time for supper and to sit and relax and chat with the other youth.  Jesse had a Heineken tea, which was actually quite delicious! The youth were very friendly and interesting and chatty, and most importantly, they all spoke very good English! 

That night went all went on a home stay.  Jesse and I stayed with a guy called Michael, who is an architect.  It was very good for us, as Jesse was able to get answered all of the questions he had about the construction industry in Malaysia - it's very different to home! Their standards are a lot lower than out - speed and price are the most important factors in constructing buildings here.  He is currently staying in his brother's townhouse while his house is being renovated and his brother is living in Shanghai. It was very nicely furnished (though still sparse), but I would quite comfortably live there.  It was a stark contrast to my other home stay, which was an obviously poor family. I'm glad we did that first, as it made us appreciate the luxuries (like proper beds!) and was less of a shock to the system.  Jesse and I stayed in the kids room (the walls were pick & purple).

I was glad to go to bed, as my feet were quite sore and a little swollen from all of the walking, and probably tender after the fish foot spa. I slept like a log, being in an actual bed was amazing!

Malaysia - Day 5

Day 5 - Thursday 20 September:

I woke up to my alarm at 7.15am to have a shower. Sadly the water was not hot, but I was desperate. I washed my hair in the cold water, and afterwards I felt so refreshed. We all met at the Indian restaurant for breakfast at 8am. We all just had toast, as none of us were particularly hungry after the previous night's dinner & supper.

After breakfast we checked out of the hotel and went to the church. We saw a group of children using the library! Ps Daniel's wife showed us some handmade souvineers, beaded necklaces, purses made from recycled chip packets, and wall hangings. We bought a few things, knowing the money was going to good cause.


Afterwards, we took a trip to the Malaysia/Thailand border. We had a look around at the duty free shop, but Zen said the prices would be the same at the airport, so we should wait until then to buy alcohol. We picked up some fruit - a waterlily mango - which was delicious. We left the border around 11am and started our long journey home. We stopped in Ipoh for lunch around 2.30 - 3pm and then caught rush hour traffic coming back into KL. We finally arrived back at the Luther Centre at 7pm.  We convinced Zen to get us pizza for dinner - we wanted something non-Asian - and yet the pizzas still had an Asian flavour to them.

The remainder of the night was just spent relaxing after a busy few days.