I'm officially back from the 1 week escapade...

Now THAT was a holiday! My apologies for not being able to upload some shots while I was gallivanting around the country. It's all due to 1 thing - TECHNOLOGY. Sure its amazing when it works... but when it doesn't, it can be NASTY. I posted at least 3 times and it didn't work out... BUT no worries; I've gotten it all settled and the next time I need to do some mobile blogging, you'll see it here...

So what exactly happened? Where did I go? How was it? 1 word - SPECTACULAR.

It was a really well thought of holiday; executed down to the T will little surprises here and there. No, it's not like I recently struck a lottery or something, it's mostly thanks to contribution of certain individuals, a little bit of savings and some of the points I collected when using some cards - I managed to redeem quite a number of stays in a couple of hotels and made this trip a reality...

So here's how it went...

To kick it off like dessert in a 5 course meal, it was a night's stay at the Ritz Carlton Kuala Lumpur. Its like a jewel hidden in some corner in Kuala Lumpur which is kinda there but not kinda there. Service, as mentioned in tonnes of their advertisements - is impeccable. What they said about their butler service was true. Imagine this... at any point during our stay (our - meaning Stella & I), all we needed to do was point and push with one teeny weeny finger at that "magic" butler button and voila! out comes a butler (not in a genie style - just at the phone) awaiting to attend to your every need. Fruit juices? Coffee? Tea? There's no such thing as tea or coffee making facilities in the room - all you need is to push the "magic" button. So that was nice... and "Wake Up Calls" came with Tea + Coffee + Juice as an option... it was all complimentary :P



So after the check-in, it was my dinner, planned by Stella... at the Westin Kuala Lumpur... managed to get a free cake and a 50% discount for the entire meal (again using one of my many discount cards :)); but that's not the main thing - it was the food... oh GLORIOUS food... where? At the Latin restaurant called QBA - you read it as Que Bar. Very VERY VERY good food... dinner lasted a good 3 hours. No idea how but it just did. Most of the time was spent on chewing, swallowing, taking pictures and trying to blog using my mobile phone. Dinner ended with a tiramisu cake - compliments of the hotel and a dude who sang like how Pavarotti would sing Happy Birthday...



Next morning, it was a trip STRAIGHT to the land of Pangkor Laut - a privately owned resort by the YTL group. Located right next to the island of Pangkor and is home to one of the best Spa centres in the region! Of course, we had to drive to the jetty which was at Lumut and from there, a 50-minute boat ride to the 'island of paradise'.

Getting to the Lumut Jetty was quite an experience as :

1. We decided to stinge on CA$H
2. We wanted to try something new, instead of taking the highway...

So the "old road" we went. To be really honest, it wasn't that bad at all! We had almost ZERO toll to pay and sure we had a couple of HUMONGOUS trailers to overtake at certain points but overall, the view was great, the kampungs were a refreshing sight and seeing chickens, big lizards and cows crossing the road was exciting :) How? I don't know. Really I don't because I trusted my Garmin (the GPS I own) 100% of the time but it knew the routes and 3 1/2 hours later, we arrived at the Lumut Jetty.



First came the welcome drink then the escort to the jetty and ferried over to the beautiful resort island of Pangkor Laut...



What happens in Pangkor Laut... STAYS in Pangkor Laut so I'm not going to blog too much about it here :) Just that I was bitten by gazillions of sand flies leaving me with nasty polka dots all over - one at a very intimate area called the 'belly button'. :)



A couple of days into our stay (just a couple of days before our stay ended in Pangkor Laut) we decided to hook up another stop-over... food came to mind and Penang... HERE WE COME!



So after Pangkor Laut, we returned to the jetty, picked up my ride and drove once again via the "old roads" (to save $$$) towards the Penang bridge. It took a good 2 1/2 hours through the little towns and kampungs... and then HELLO the land of food, char kuey teow with huge mutated prawns...



Where did I stay? The latest hotel in Penang called the "G Hotel" which is located right next to Gurney Plaza. Only sad thing, I couldn't get tad bit of discount... everything was full-fare... but the hotel was so new and 'artsy' that we had to try it... @ 240++ we thought since we saved so much during the trip using all the points redemption and discount cards; why not?

... a day later ...

Returned to KL and went feasting again! Compliments of my parents, we went to this Korean BBQ restaurant for dinner - it was a lil' pricey but GOOD and a tad bit smoky...



If I were to document everything I went through during this unforgettable one week, it'll probably take a whole month to finish typing it all... so I'm gonna leave with you with some pics taken during the trip...