Recently visited Ipoh and Taiping and Pangkor Island and Selangor in Malaysia.
This to me was genuinely fascinating, especially to talk with the overseas Chinese community and see what they shared with Taiwanese and what they didn’t. And the food was generally awesome including Malay. The people were very friendly everywhere we went and it was a joy to easily interact in English and Chinese with many. There were many families with kids and they aren’t completely smartphone obsessives yet. Local people and other foreigners said hello and greetings to my family and I almost everyday, which I didn’t think I’d miss from the old days in Taiwan, but I kind of do now. The countryside there is mostly palm plantations, but they do have some nice cave complexes and temples and obviously some highland areas (didn’t visit this time). It’s these old historical immigrant towns which impressed me the most.
I’m sharing a few pics to get a feel for the places.
Nice thread. I hear Bhutan is supposed to be interesting. Getting a visa for it is difficult I hear, so that might be why people don’t really talk about it. My biggest traveling-related regret is cancelling my trip to Myanmar back in 2012. This was during that brief period of relative normalcy and stability there. I had my visa and tickets and hotel booked, and then the landing tarmac in Yangon airport or wherever got flooded iirc. Instead of just rebooking for a later date or finding another way in, I just cancelled everything for partial refunds. Stupid. Nowadays it’d be dumb to go as there’s a civil war and even if you don’t get caught up in it your tourist dollars will go straight to the ruling junta.
As for places I’ve actually been… Japan has some great snowy ski towns north of Tokyo. Instead of going to the tourist spots in Tokyo and Kyoto that have been absolutely ruined by tourists, I’d suggest detouring to some of these less talked about places. We went to Yuzawa, which was fun. The snow was great and I don’t know if it’s permanent or just an exhibition but they had a sake museum with about a hundred different sakes so I got very drunk. They were all categorized like vending machines with the brand of sake and year it was established and what it tasted like (eg: “notes of cherry and oak wood”). Very cool. I’ll I’ll include a pic of that too. I had the best bowl of ramen there I’ve ever had too.
In South Korea this year I went to this cultural village near Busan. Gamcheon village. I guess it’s not that unknown. It had its fair share of tourists too, but it wasn’t packed and ruined with them like a lot of spots in Japan (Korean sites in general weren’t as packed) . I just thought it was very cool and interesting. The colorful houses built over each other on the hill reminded me of South American favelas.
I’m going next month 25 years since my last visit. I slept in the Chonggu temple in Yading last time and was allegedly the 13th westerner to do so (according to a list on the wall). Kinda dreading it but I want to see for myself what all that infrastructure looks like.
Finally somebody looks at it. It was beside a small Dutch Easy India Company fort and the soldiers initials were carved into the rock. I immediately recognised the VOC insignia also.
The tiger attacking the child has a sad story behind it. Supposedly the daughter of one of the officers went missing in the jungle there and they believed a tiger got her.
What do you think? I’m guessing the hell yeah they did, Malaysia is huge and a lot of it was only cleared in the last 120 years. That little island still has natural forest there actually. Loads of wildlife, not tigers of course.
1st pic Pangkor island, 2nd Malawati Hill, Selangor.
In fact they say there’s still tigers in peninsular Malaysia.
The Malayan tiger (Panthera tigris jacksoni) is the only tiger subspecies found in Peninsular Malaysia, and it is critically endangered with an estimated fewer than 150 to 200 individuals remaining in the wild.
I’ve been to Kuching and really liked it, again that old colonial mixed Chinese shop house vibe, very little development, a town lost in time in the jungle. Fantastic tropical sunsets as it faces West. Great coffee too and played an important part in the development of the theory of evolution (museum there) . Neighbouring national park is brilliant for wildlife, can stay in treehouses there.
Further afield, I am intrigued by Goa. I wonder if any forumosans have spent time there
I visited last month for work, just at the start of the rainy season, bad timing cos all the beaches were shut down practically. High season goes from Sept to Feb. Beautiful countryside and friendly people and unique vibe. Broadly It’s divided between a busy cheaper Northern part and a more secluded ritzy Southern part. Be aware it’s a top Indian domestic tourism destination and also many Russians visiting, but there will still be Europeans in the high season and local foreign residents.
I ate at an old Portuguese style restaurant , house of the owner, she also came out to talk to us for a few minutes, Goan food is all about seafood and while it’s simple it’s really nice. I visited some beautiful churches there. Goa is like old Macao on steroids (controlled by Portuguese for 400 years) and the people there maintain a lot of their unique heritage.
I was dragged to a riverboat casino as it’s the only place that permits Casinos in India, you can imagine the tackiness. I would like to go back in the dry season, it’s a real haul from Taiwan though, three flights !!! Very tiring!!(Currently there are NO direct flights between India and Taiwan ).
