Kuala Lumpur: the new black in stopovers

Petronas Twin Towers: one of the prettiest mega-structures in the whole world.

Twenty four hours is a long time to be sitting on a plane. Or anywhere. Break up your next long-haul flight with two nights (or more) in Kuala Lumpur. It’s got the glam mega-malls of Singapore without the litter-and-we-will-shoot rules, and the nightlife of Bangkok without the seediness. Throw in food that would have Matt Preston loosening his cravat and you’ve got the ultimate stop-over city. Last year, I rediscovered the best places to shop, sleep, drink, eat and, um, eat in Malaysia’s capital.

SHOP

OK, no-one really visits KL for the Bird Park. Hightail it to Jalan Bukit Bintang (jalan simply means “street”), the city’s answer to Fifth Avenue in New York or Oxford Street in London. This promenade of megamalls is a tourist attraction in its own right; allow a few hours for Pavilion alone. On Jalan Bintang, just off Jalan Bukit Bintang (confusing much?), is Low Yat Plaza – to remember the name, think “low fat pizza” – which sports 500 electronics stores. I picked up a BlackBerry Curve for $250 (tech-savvy friends tell me it’s a bargain). Once you’ve stocked up on Zara, cleaned out Sephora and bought the most recent i-something, cab it to Suria KLCC, a mega mega-mall underneath Petronas Twin Towers. Tiffany, Burberry, Coach, Hermès, Boost Juice… need I say more?

DRINK

For uninterrupted views of the glittering Petronas Twin Towers at sunset, you can’t go past Skybar, on level 33 of Traders Hotel. It boasts a lap pool, fast-flowing cocktails, super-friendly staff and DJ Farouk’s retro tunes will have you bouncing on the sunken lounges all night long. Skybar’s a KL institution, but there is a new player in town: The View, on level 30 of KL’s newest five-star digs, G Tower Hotel. The view of the Towers isn’t as good (despite the name), but its sexy al fresco atmosphere and charismatic “mixologists” are going to make this bar the place to be seen in KL. Get there before everyone else does.

EAT

With a melting pot of Chinese, Indian and Malay residents, KL serves up a smorgasbord of culinary delights – pack the stretchy pants. Start in Chinatown by sampling street food along Jalan Petaling and head inside the art deco Central Market (Pasar Seni) for lunch. Wade through the artisans’ stalls (the perfect place to pick up authentic gifts); on the mezzanine level you’ll find Precious Old China Restaurant. Try the nasi lemak, Malaysia’s national dish: $3 gets you rice cooked in coconut cream tinged with pea-flower essence (which is purple – crazy); with nyonya rendang chicken, fried anchovy (nicer than it sounds), hard-boiled egg, cucumber, crackers, peanuts and spicy sambal sauce. Feeling brave? Order the fish head curry. For a more upmarket dinner and cocktails session, head to Jalan Nagasari, a bit like Sydney’s King Street Wharf without the wharf (or disco bowling).

SLEEP

Want absolute luxury on a Best Western budget? You can stay at Malaysia’s first certified green hotel, G-Tower – home of The View – for about $120 per night. It opened in June this year and doesn’t accommodate children under 12 (not that I don’t love kids). If you’re on a backpacker budget, rest your head at Hotel Chinatown2, right on Jalan Petaling’s buzzy night market, for only $30 per night (it’s no Shangri-La but I liked it so much I stayed there twice). If money’s no object and you’d rather fresh sea air than the smell of BBQ satay and exhaust fumes, bunk down at Golden Palm Tree Resort & Spa, 25 minutes from the airport and 70km from KL (the resort provides a daily, free shuttle bus to the city). Located on the Malacca Straight, these 392 over-water villas form the shape of a palm tree. It’s Dubai-meets-Malaysian-oasis. If you can leave your four-poster bed, book a massage at the resort’s Escapade Spa. The best you’ll ever have.

5 things you didn’t know you could do in Delhi

Recently I visited Delhi, India, for the second time and saw a whole other side to this frenetic city. I’ll admit it, I wasn’t exactly like a kid on Christmas Eve the night before flying there. But with a little insider knowledge (in other words, a guide) you can see/do/savour some surprising things in Delhi. 

So I wrote about it, for Mamamia.com.au. Click here for inspiration!

    

Destination: Zanzibar

Best bits of week two

Back in Sydney.

I have a new love. Yep, I’ve fallen head over Havaianas with Tanzania, a diverse and welcoming country. Like the slow-cooker or any Ryan Gosling movie, I can’t recommend it highly enough. Here’s a list of my favourite experiences from week two of Intrepid Travel’s Road to Zanzibar journey. Hope it inspires you to visit Tanzania soon. You know you want to.

Amani Children’s Home It seems all we ever hear about Africa – which is a really big place, actually, and comprised of many unique countries – is doom and gloom. Danger, poverty, drought, malaria, yada yada yada. But Amani Children’s Home, in Moshi, is one very uplifting Africa story. Established in 2001 and home to 80 children, Amani’s social workers rescue street kids from Moshi and Arusha – a tourist hub and the gateway to Serengeti National Park. Amani means “peace” in Swahili. I expected healthy, happy kids, but I didn’t expect to meet Zawadi, a 16-year-old jump rope champion who spent three weeks competing in the US recently – where the sport has a cultish following. Zawadi’s now teaching the younger kids to jump rope. Intrepid Travel matches all donations to Amani Children’s Home, so empty your wallets!

 

From rags to jump rope: Zawadi.

 

Mshiri village Another happy news story on a Friday. This self-sufficient, ethereal village in the foothills of Mt Kilimanjaro is overrun with adorable children we encountered on their way to and from Sunday school. In 1992 a lawyer from London, Katy Allen, climbed Kili and never went home. She quit her career and, in consultation with the minister for education, renovated Mshiri’s primary schools and built a well-stocked library. On a four-hour walking tour, we visited the schools, library and computer centre, learnt about Mshiri’s farming culture and bought gifts made entirely by the village’s vocational secondary students. I used the most primitive toilet I’ve ever seen. Think wooden slats over a hole in the ground with cows chewing cud next door. Now that’s intrepid. For more info on Katy Allen’s projects, click here.

Only 5% of girls in Tanzania graduate from secondary school.

Hiking the Usambara Mountains More walking, this time through a less-travelled region south-west of Kilimanjaro and east of the coast. With local guides Muumin and Jackson leading the way (Jackson also wants to establish a decent library for his community) we set off from Lushoto, a former German hill station at 1200m, for a million dollar view. Along the way we met some ladies juicing sugarcane with a very large, very rudimentary kind of Breville, and about 500 more kids. Tanzanian children love having their picture taken and very rarely ask for money; if they want anything, it’s simply pens.

Camping in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania’s biggest city, at pop 3 million). After 10 days of dust and heat, we nearly kissed the alabaster sand of Dar’s South Beach. The water looked impossibly blue. The sea breeze was cool. The WiFi at Kipepeo Beach & Village actually worked. An armed guard patrolled the beach at night. It was paradise.

Zanzibar: island in the sun The next morning we caught the ferry* to Zanzibar, known for its former spice plantations and slave market, and 95% Muslim population. It spawned Freddie Mercury, though the only nod to the Queen front man is a pizza restaurant and bar called Mercury’s (next to Stone Town ferry port; you can’t miss it). After an unsatisfying night in Stone Town, we headed to another brochure-worthy beach that’s about 100 times less crowded than any Thai hotspot: Kendwa, on the north coast. Yeah, its Arab history is fascinating and all that, but the spice island’s real drawcard is its coastline. You can scuba dive, snorkel, visit the quirky giant tortoise sanctuary on Prison Island – where unwell slaves were quarantined – parasail, get a massage, play beach volleyball, drink unnaturally coloured cocktails, take the sunset “booze cruise” (no, thanks) or do nooooothing.

* Tragically, the morning we left Zanzibar a ferry carrying 800 passengers capsized between Zanzibar and Pemba, an island to the north. Nearly 200 people were killed and many more injured. Did I feel safe on our ferry from Dar to Zanzibar? Absolutely. In fact, I commented on how shiny and new it was – a far cry from the Sydney Harbour ferries. It wasn’t crowded. The sea was totally calm. Overhearing the news of the accident just kilometres from where it happened was a shock. The government’s taken swift action to punish those responsible for overcrowding the MV Spice Islander and I sincerely hope this doesn’t hurt Tanzanian tourism – the country’s number-one industry.

Pit stop in the Philippines

The Diamond Peel is Derek's best friend. Photo by me.

A couple of months ago I was in the mountainous north Luzon region of the Philippines with NZ Herald journo Derek Cheng (and others). I implore you to read Derek’s story about armpit whitening in a little salon in Baguio. Hysterical. The ladies also attack his “disgusting hands” with a man-icure. Click here!

Five-star travel on a backpacker budget

Me, doing my best flashpacker pose in the Serengeti.

Want to save money on your next holiday – but not skimp on fun – or get free perks? I probed the experts for their best and freshest advice, for Ninemsn Travel. Check it out here!

What are your tips and tricks? Leave a comment!

One happy camper

Usambara Mountains, Tanzania

Jambo!

(That’s “hello” in Swahili.) 

It’s been a big week. I’ve floated over the Serengeti in a hot air balloon, watched lions making love, camped in the natural habitat of elephants that could crush cars and visited the birthplace of mankind. I’m pretty tired.

After landing in Nairobi, Kenya, last Sunday – purportedly one of the most dangerous cities in the world – and a seamless transfer to my very un-dangerous hotel, I hooked up with 20 fellow Intrepid travellers. We would be a family for the next 14 days, according to our towering, ebony-skinned guide Patrick – who couldn’t be more relaxed if he was in a coma. He’s a dude. For the first 10 nights spent at various locations between Nairobi and Zanzibar, we would be camping, explained Patrick. Gulp.

Yes, I read the itinerary. Yes, I packed accordingly. But it sank in. I would be pitching a tent every day and sharing it with a stranger and potentially bumping into man-eating lions on the way to the non-flushing toilet in the middle of the night. See, the last time I camped I shared a two-person tent with Ryan and his brother because Ryan forgot the tent. No-one slept. It rained torrentially. For three nights. The time before that, we slept on yoga mats in the Sumatran jungle without mosquito nets. I dreaded school camps. When it comes to camping, I’ve been burnt.

But this time? I survived seven nights before upgrading to a room at our hotel/campsite in the beautiful Usambara Mountains, northeast Tanzania. (I wrote this from a real bed. With an effing comfortable pillow. Wanted to marry that pillow.) Seven nights! And it’s been worth it. Fun, even.

Our first stop was Arusha, south of the Kenyan-Tanzanian border – the gateway to jewels in the crown, Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti National Park. We actually camped next to a fully-operational snake park. Patrick warned us to zip up the tents. Properly. On Tuesday, we inched closer to the Cradle of Mankind, to Karatu, where there weren’t any snakes but a posh campsite with a pool and (sloooow) internet cafe. On Wednesday, we piled into 4WDs and went bush. Safari time.

We drove through Rift Valley – where 1.2m-tall hominids (predecessors to humans) walked the earth 3.6 million years ago, and today the intriguing Maasai people live traditionally, farming cattle and sporting vibrant, chequered “chukkas” (manly pashminas). In Serengeti, the jeep roof came off and our eyes scanned the never-ending plain for wildlife.

Serengeti National Park is 14,763 square kilometres and since 1981, has been a UNESCO world heritage site. It’s home to lions, cheetas, leopards, giraffes, zebras, gazelles, hippos, elephants, buffalo, 350 species of birds and during the annual migration from adjoining Maasai Mara National Park in Kenya, hundreds of thousands of wildebeests. And other animals. We probably saw them all. Seriously.

From the jeep, we spied a leopard with freshly-killed gazelle, lion cubs nursing in the shade, literally 50 elephants, hyenas skulking across the road; from a sunrise hot air balloon, masses of (live) gazelles fleeing the bulbous shadow, “fragrant” hippos trotting thunderously, giraffes pacing between acacia trees, game tracks zig-zagging the earth like a map. It’s hard to imagine any of these species are endangered when they’re everywhere you look.  

Ngorongoro Crater is even more unimaginable. Formed when a volcano erupted millions of years ago, it’s one of the biggest calderas in the world and a “natural zoo,” explained our driver-guide, Zek. After two nights’ camping and two days of safari drives in Serengeti, we farewelled the savannah and traversed the floor of the neighbouring crater. In 10 minutes we spotted lions mating. It lasted about 15 seconds. Disappointing. According to Zek, the happy couple will do it every 14 minutes for seven days, then the lioness returns to the pride to tag-team another female. Every guy’s dream, really.

In between close encounters with wildlife, my fellow passengers/new besties (Catherine, UK, Paul, UK, Marty, Netherlands, Justin, US) and I ate dust and sang to Justin’s faint iPad. Poor Zek. We drove back to our base in Karatu, past another tear-jerker sunset, and lamented the fact it’d probably be a decade before any of us could return to Serengeti and Ngorongoro. Before launching into All The Single Ladies.

That was the first seven days of Intrepid Travel’s Road to Zanzibar tour. In a nutshell. Next, a children’s home in Moshi, the foothills of Mt Kilimanjaro, the Usambara Mountains and… Zanzibar! Where Freddie Mercury was born.              

The person sitting next to you

Dubai airport, 9.30am Sunday.

I have a confession. I’m a seasoned traveller but I just disembarked from my first solo international flight. Sure, there were about 4000 other people on the plane but I didn’t know any of them. In the past, I’ve travelled with friends, with my husband, with other journalists and publicists – whose job it is to ensure you have a brilliant time – but this time it was. Just. Me. Two hours ago I made it off the plane to the transit lounge Starbucks for $5 coffee and free WiFi without losing anything or getting lost or buying stuff I don’t need because the duty free shops make everything look shiny.

There are pros and cons to travelling by yourself. Con: once you’ve settled in at Starbucks – or wherever – you can’t leave the table. Forgot the sugar? Too bad. Need the bathroom? Hold on. Think you just saw Sarah Murdoch and need a closer look? Forgettaboutit. (PS, I really did see her. On the escalator.) As I write this, my laptop’s open, I’m charging my BlackBerry and wedged between my feet is my DSLR camera, daypack and my friend’s expensive sleeping bag. I’m stuck here. Ryan – husband who’s been to more than 50 countries and has never been robbed – has trained me to be almost obsessive about watching my stuff. I’m like Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard. Except I don’t sleep with my computer.

Why don’t I just ask a stranger to watch my stuff? I’ve had two hours’ sleep and am a little bit paranoid.

Pro: other travellers are more likely to talk to you, especially on a flight. OK, to anyone who’s ever been talked at for three hours straight by a narcissist with no understanding of social cues, this could be considered a con. But for every annoying passenger you want to stab in the eye with a fork, there are dozens of passengers who have a story to tell. Like the man I met last night.

It was my first Emirates flight, as well, and it was packed. My heart sank when I discovered I was in the middle of the middle section. I drink a lot of water on planes and thus need to pee a lot. It sank a little deeper when I noticed the passenger next to me in the aisle seat was disabled. I’ll be honest. I thought, this is going to be hard. I hate bothering able-bodied people to get up every time I need to pee, but a disabled person? Jeez.

Turns out, I am an idiot. This articulate Welsh guy, with salt and pepper hair and a charming young family across the aisle, leapt out of his seat. Definitely nothing wrong with his legs. I sat down and he asked me point-blank if I snore. “No. Do you?” “No!” He explained that he’s deaf in one ear and if I needed to get up, to give him a whack. A gentle whack he demonstrated with his hand, which is the first thing you notice about the Welshman. His arms are short – about half the length of a healthy arm – and his hands are bent back like hairpins. One side of his face seems a touch paralysed. Peter is a thalidomide survivor.

In the late 1950s, pregnant women in 46 countries – including Australia and Britain – were prescribed thalidomide for morning sickness. Mothers were assured it was completely safe, but, being the days before routine ultrasound screening, between 10,000 and 20,000 mums gave birth to children with physical deformities nine months later. Thousands more would have miscarried and never known whether their babies were affected by the drug, Peter explained.

I’d heard about thalidomide but certainly never met a survivor. In fact, I can probably count the number of times I’ve spoken to any disabled person on one hand. If I hadn’t been randomly seated next to Peter, who lives in the UK with his wife and two adorable daughters, our paths wouldn’t have crossed. So, his hands look funny. But there’s nothing “disabled” about Peter. This warm, chatty, successful businessman scuba-dives, runs, hikes, skis and does advocacy work on behalf of thalidomide survivors. The battle for just compensation in some countries is still going, and more and more evidence is emerging that thalidomide wasn’t just an accident.

So, for 14 hours, we chatted intermittently, compared notes on movies – he helped me navigate Emirates’ fancy-pants touch-screen entertainment system – and yes, I bugged him when I needed to go to the loo. And I didn’t feel bad about it.

I boarded the plane feeling slightly anxious about no one being there to hold my hand. But then someone did, in a way. Only Peter’s hand was a bit different.            

 

I’m in Africa for 14 days, travelling through Kenya and Tanzania on Intrepid Travel’s Road to Zanzibar tour.