In the last blog we talked about Singapore, a beautiful city. Now on to part 2 of this blog and trust me, it won’t be as cheery as the last one. While I am sure there are parts of Malaysia and Indonesia that are great, the cities that I visited were far from that. Do yourself a favor and take in consideration of what I have learned if you are planning to visit these places.
As I said before, this vacation was three countries in less than a week. It is really easy to get to Malaysia from Singapore. After all, it was a 45 minute drive to the border from our hotel. We visited Johor Bahru which is the capital city of Johor in southern Malaysia. Sounds good right? That is what I thought also. However, staying there was quite different. When we arrived at the Singapore/Malaysia border our taxi driver dropped us off and we had to drag all of our bags through customs to get to the Malaysia side. I have no idea why I thought it would be different. This was the first time I have crossed a border on land (usually it was in the air). I guess I assumed the taxi would pull up to a drive through window, pay 50 cents and we would be on our way…. That is not how it happens. We spent a good 2 hours waiting in line to get through to the other side because out of the 10-15 passport processing lanes they had, only a third of them handled visitors, the other 2/3 were for Malaysia nationals. I must say that once we were at the custom agents desk I must admit that it went very smoothly. In about 5 minutes we were on Malaysia’s side with Singapore behind us. Now what? Well, walk outside the building where multiple taxis and busses were waiting to take you to your destination. Here is where you need to put on your poker face and make sure that the taxi’s are using the meter.
Johor Bahru is the 2nd largest city in Malaysia so I figured that there was going to be plenty to do. I was sadly mistaken. Maybe some of you have been to this city before and maybe you feel different than I do. Maybe you found plenty of things to do but for someone who has never been there, it is very hard, if not impossible, for someone to find something that would bring in tourist.
We arrive at our hotel and I must say that the hotel was very nice. It had a huge lobby, friendly staff, and a nice pool on the 2nd floor. The rooms were nice, not the best I have seen but far from the worst. The hotel was in walking distance to a nice shopping mall, however getting to the shopping mall meant that you had to walk down a dark path full of trees for about a city block. Usually there were other people walking through the same path but sometimes you were alone which gave you a creepy feel to say the least. When asked, the hotel recommended that we visit the city zoo. Being in such a big city, and being a zoo lover, I thought it would be a great idea.
The hotel called a taxi for us and then we were on our way. I was excited because we had been there a full day and so far had not found anything to do besides the shopping center at the end of the big bad wolf trail. The zoo was about 35-40 minutes away and it seemed like longer because we went from seeing buildings to a long winding road, maybe 10 miles of nothing but trees on both sides. We finally arrived at the zoo entrance and the taxi driver didn’t even pull over, just stopped on the road and let us out which seemed odd. However, we hadn’t seen many cars on this road so it wasn’t a problem. At the entrance there was a small one man building, where I assumed you paid to get in, and a huge fence that was open and wide enough for 2 trucks to get in and out at the same time. We looked inside where the attendant should be but it was empty. I thought about just walking in after waiting for about 5 minutes but decided against it being in a different country and not wanting to deal with the local police. Finally, a small older lady came out from another bigger nearby building and took our money. I’m guessing she was in the bathroom but really have no idea. So, off to the zoo. I was expecting something big, something really nice from this big city and from the way the hotel talked about how great it was. However, it was very much the opposite. It took us a total of 30 minutes to walk the circle and half of the cages were empty. The animals that were there were in very small and dirty cages. Now, I am no animal activist but this was terrible. After seeing the zoos in the U.S., it really bothered me to see tigers in cages that were 10x20 and only thing that separates you and the animal is a cage door and a padlock. You could literally bend over and stick your fingers inside the cage, if you felt like losing a finger that day. I didn’t feel like it so I kept back. For all of you animal rights people out there, you are fighting a war in the wrong spot. Our animals stay at the MGM Grand and their animals stay at a Motel 6. It’s time to leave the zoo.
We had had enough so it was time to leave. We walked out the same entrance and of course the lady was gone again so we waited on the side of the road for a taxi. After all, this is a zoo and other people will be coming to see the animals right? And when they do, we can take their taxi after they are dropped off. Wrong. We waited for a good 45 minutes and finally I decided, “Hey, we should walk back down this road and eventually there will be a taxi to take us back to the hotel”. We walked and walked, and then we walked some more, all the way back to the city. Cars passed us, some were nice and honked at us waving, some throwing jesters with their hands, I’m sure that they were wanting us to look at a bird in their own way. A couple taxis passed us and wouldn’t stop because they already had passengers. All in all, we had a good time talking but it was a very long walk. Thankfully it wasn’t raining.
We got back to the hotel and I had had enough of this city. We relaxed by the pool for the remaining time here in Malaysia.
Our next destination was Batam Island, Indonesia. In order to get there we took a ferry boat from Johor Bahru, around Singapore and landed on the island. The whole trip took 6 hours and was far the best time we had on this trip. When we arrived at Batam Island we of course went through customs and (it’s really my fault for not checking) I, as a U.S. citizen had to get a tourist visa. It wasn’t expensive and didn’t take too long but it was a surprise because I assumed I could travel anywhere in Asia without getting a visa. Stupid American, I know.
We exchanged money and to my surprise, I walked out a millionaire. Not U.S. dollars of course. The exchange rate is so high; I ended up with millions of rupiah. We took a taxi to the hotel which cost us about 10 dollars, or 60,000-70,000 rupiah, I don’t remember exactly. The hotel was beautiful, if the hotel in Malaysia was a 5, this hotel was a 12. Nice rooms, nice friendly staff, beautiful pool, and nice exercise room. The hotel we stayed at, believe it or not, was a Holiday Inn. Yes, a Holiday Inn.
We ran into the same situation here as we did in Malaysia, nothing to do. There was one place to eat in walking distance to the hotel and it served mediocre food. There were many abandoned buildings around the hotel and the beach, what can I say about the beach. Well, we never actually made it to the beach, even though the hotel was mere yards from it, very much walking distance. Why would we go to an “exotic” island, stay at a beautiful hotel on the beach and not go to the beach? Because the beach was covered with rocks as big as soccer balls. I’m not talking a few here and there, I’m talking loaded on top of each other stretching from the water all the way back probably 100 feet. There was no way to get to the water without risking your ankle, or life! That wasn’t mentioned on the hotel website. When we left the island, we saw a couple places that had beaches where you can actually get to the water but by this time, this vacation had been so bad, we didn’t want to leave the hotel anymore.
So, what is the moral to this blog? Visit Singapore, if you want to get your passport stamped with other countries, go to Malaysia and Indonesia. However, either pick a bigger tourist area to stay, or just don’t stay too long. I’m sure there are beautiful cities in both countries however I didn’t see it and will not be returning to either place.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.