MALAYSIA 2010-11 six-month trip to Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines - part two revisited from memory after 12 year

from Koh Lipe by motorboat you can reach the island of Langkawi which is part of Malaysia, it has many beaches but the sand is not white, however at the top it has a spectacular and panoramic suspended bridge from which you can see a large part of the island.I then took a bus going down the coast to get to Cameron Highland, a plateau where tea and strawberries are grown in greenhouses and where there are various hotels and villas with exotic gardens where the British came to take refuge to escape the heat of the coast or inland, then we arrived at the beautiful city colonial Malacca, once Dutch and then Portuguese, a real pleasant surprise with its canal that can be traveled by boat to admire the houses on the banks adorned with beautiful colorful graffiti the center has various churches, public buildings and museums in red brick dating back to the colonial era , also a stupendous Chinatown with many truly beautiful Buddhist temples then it was the turn of the beautiful capital Kuala Lumpur a city that has a colonial part especially around the Merdeka square, with a huge green lawn, a beautiful mosque and the sultan's palace, there are green parks full of flowers, especially orchids and many very tall and beautiful trees that embellish the sides of the city streets interspersed with futuristic skyscrapers among which stands out the famous pair of Petronas towers joined by a bridge not far away a communications tower with a huge sphere at an altitude of 420 meters from where you can enjoy the panorama of the city. Malaysia is a very tolerant country where Muslims, the majority, Indians and many Chinese coexist who seem to hold the economic power, above all in the rich island of Penang in the northwest which I finally visited from Kuala Lumpur I wanted to go to Taman Negara National Park but the weather was very bad so I opted to go back to the west coast and arrived at the beautiful city of Ipoh where I did various excursions, one to the nearby city of KANGSAR which was for centuries the capital of the sultanate of PERAK and which still today preserves the imposing royal palace, the modern and white residence of the sultan, surrounded by a huge park on a hill overlooking the city. Even more interesting perhaps because they are accessible: the beautiful Ubudiah mosque, and two previous residences of the sultan, the first all in wood decorated in green and yellow colors which now houses a museum under restoration and the other is now a gallery in a very elegant building with a beautiful park contains various objects, photos and memorabilia of the current sultan. Kangsar has another area with the green square, the colleges of the colonial period, the site that houses the first rubber tree planted by the British which made Malaysia's fortune last century, but the institutional part of which I wrote earlier, is more beautiful and elegant because it is located in a very green area with beautiful plants and huge trees growing along the river and in the large green areas all around. The other excursion was to visit KELLY'S CASTLE, a home of a wealthy Englishman who had set out to build himself a palatial residence in the 1930s, but who later died before completing. The I went finally at Pangkor Island where I spent a week. Unfortunately, the beautiful beach was accessible only in the morning because around noon tons of rubbish arrived from the sea which made everything dirty and made the bathers run away so at the end I reached Malaysian Borneo by plane o
ne to the nearby city of KANGSAR which was for centuries the capital of the sultanate of PERAK and which still today preserves the imposing royal palace, the modern and white residence of the sultan, surrounded by a huge park on a hill overlooking the city. Even more interesting perhaps because they are accessible: the beautiful Ubudiah mosque, and two previous residences of the sultan, the first all in wood decorated in green and yellow colors which now houses a museum under restoration and the other in a very elegant building with a beautiful park contains various objects, photos and memorabilia of the current sultan. Kangsar has another area with the green square, the colleges of the colonial period, the site that houses the first rubber tree planted by the British which made Malaysia's fortune last century, but the institutional part of which I wrote earlier, is more beautiful and elegant because it is located in a very green area with beautiful plants and huge trees growing along the river and in the large green areas all around. The other excursion was to visit KELLY'S CASTLE, a home of a wealthy Englishman who had set out to build himself a palatial residence in the 1930s, but who later died before completing the wand finally at Pangkor Island where I spent a week. Unfortunately, the beautiful beach was accessible only in the morning because around noon tons of rubbish arrived from the sea which made everything dirty and made the bathers run away at the enad I reached Malaysian Borneo by plane I first visited the province of Karawak, that of Sandokan and the pearl of Labuan which is an island,(very famous Italian roman beloved by young boys), the capital is Kuching a beautiful green city on the river with many squares that house statues of cats , much loved here, to see the parliament building on the river bank and then some parks including the one that houses the orangutans who are free and show up in the evening when the park guardians distribute their food on the wooden platforms in the middle of the forest. I also visited another park that houses the nosed monkeys and the moustached pig and then a village that reproduces the various types of wooden houses present in the country, including the famous longhouses where many live in a single long house, the descendants of the head cutters, then continue to the other province of Sabah with the beautiful modern capital KK or Kota Kinabalu where I booked an excursion to the virgin forest along a river which hosts many animals on its banks including Asian pygmy elephants, several monkeys, snakes lastly, they also can be seen on the trees. Two great attractions of this wild province: Mount Kinabalu of about 4,100 meters above sea level, a heritage of biodiversity that I traveled to the very green base avoiding the too tiring and expensive climb, the other gem is the island of Sipan one of the best in Asia for diving and the spectacle of corals and colorful fish that it offers. I also did a day trip to a beautiful island near KK with beautiful beach and crystal clear waters. From Malaysian Borneo I reached the Philippines where I spent two months vacation and then returnED to Thailand again via Malaysia

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