Reviews and whatnot

There's something about picture-extensive posts - they cut the flow of my thoughts and I don't like my thoughts being cut, therefore I have decided to abandon the draft which I've been working on for the past two days, with the photos inside. Maybe later. But now I'm just going to type happily =)

As I type here I am also buying air tickets online, Malaysia Airlines ticket from Kota Bharu to KLIA. It costs RM76 nett. The same flight, for Airasia costs RM42 and I have this compelling urge to give my middle finger to Airasia. I don't see the need for the unhealthy competition, and Airasia is doing what we say in chinese, 以本伤人, which roughly translates into "using its capital to hurt other people", and it's a lose-lose situation. And that's not sportsmanship. Sokong Malaysia Airlines!!!

Well, travelling around has been fun except some minor gripes on accommodation, which I will talk about more extensively below, and that I wish I had more time to spend in Terengganu. Do you know that Terengganu has this really professional-looking tourism website? *click*
We just spent like two hours in Kuala Terengganu. Didn't really have time to walk around the bazaar at the lake front, and missed the supposedly biggest museum in Malaysia, but I did take some pictures of the floating mosque. And KT has a really nice Chinatown! It's small but well-maintained, with the buildings newly painted and there's a nice archway typical to most Chinatowns around. Also it's pretty clean.

Accommodation! Since there are so little information on hostels online, I decided to contribute my reviews here for people who may be interested. I actually trawled blogs to get reviews as well. Here comes the horror stories:

1. Banana New Guesthouse, Penang: Briefly reviewed here. Also after comparison, I feel that you could do much worse than it, actually. It's clean, cheap, safe, airconditioned. Only gripe was the noise at night, but that was just our room which was near the road. We stayed in a triple room hence did not try out the dorms.

2. Ideal Traveller's House, Kota Bharu: Location is pretty good, close to the Siti Khatijah market and most other attractions. Food's available within walking distance. The price is RM40 per triple room per night, with a double bed and a single bed. From outside it looks dilapidated, but inside's alright although it is a bit dark upstairs. Currently there's construction work being done right opposite the guest house, but they don't work at night so there's minimal noises. Attached bathroom was huge (shower and toilet bowl occupying the far end, the rest of the space is for you to dance in the nude if you so feel inclined), there was a balcony attached as well, and the room is not airconditioned. Gripe: There were bed bugs!!!! I got at least 53 bites on me (yes I counted), they weren't itchy and did not hurt, just left red spots all over me. That was rather irritating.

3. Cherating Bayview Resort, Cherating: This was the fourth place that we checked in Cherating and chose. This was our last night in the trip, and we decided to splurge a bit hence increased our budget to RM150 instead of the usual RM50 per night. A room with two double beds facing the sea cost RM135. The place is airconditioned, relatively clean, very near the beach. AT FIRST GLANCE (more later). Briefly, the places that we checked before choosing Cherating Bayview:

a) Ranting Beach Resort: God the place was rundown. We were shown a chalet which cost RM130, the floor was sandy, the bathroom was poorly lit. We decided to give it a pass.
b) Payung Guesthouse: This was Lonely Planet's editor's pick. The rooms were not airconditioned, RM35 for one chalet with a double bed in it. Because there were three of us we had to take two chalets. Cleanliness-wise it looked alright, but we decided to look further to see if there were any other place where we could share a room.
c) A place right opposite Payung I think, it is connected with a bistro, I can't remember the name: A family room cost RM100, 5 people can sleep in it with its bunk bed (two people at the bottom, one person at the top) and double bed. The place looked rather rundown, mattresses were thin and there was this huge ass mirror facing the double bed. Moving on.

For Cherating Bayview, Lonely Planet's review was that it was "particularly clean and almost obsessively neat". Well, I don't have anything against the bedroom nor the beds, but the TOILET!!! Got larva-like maggot-like worms inside!!! Being a resort (and not a lowly hostel or guesthouse), this is an unpardonable offense. Dikenakan Lonely Planet, yet again. Not only that hundreds of wriggling creatures were on the floor, the shower had very low water pressure (comparable to Auckland's Pentlands), so you are forced to shower in a very slow pace, your toes curled in, half tip-toeing as not to step on the half-drowning creatures on the ground... Luckily we were there for only a night, and I tried my best not to go into the bathroom. Additional gripe: The flush toilet takes ages to refill as well.

Hmm. More on my trips (and hopefully some photos) coming up. I realized just recently that I only have one month to bum around, then comes frantic travelling with Asa and Val, then comes a new life in Singapore. Shopping in Bangkok!!! Chatuchak!!! I've been having good dreams about it since reading about it from Pinkpau's blog (here) and I can't wait till Asa and I go there and do some major shopping. Since I'm right now surviving on the paltry number of t-shirts which were staples in my luggage while traipsing around NZ.

Will end post truncating non-stop rambling.