Day 7: Sentosa Island, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) & the Asian Civilizations Museum

On Sunday we had a free day where most of our group went to Sentosa Island. Sentosa is a series of beaches and islands packed with restaurants, resorts, and other venues for all ages. We got dropped off at the furthest point of the island and walked to the other end to see what was there. The island was beautiful and the water was extremely refreshing. There were palm trees and enormous cruise liners, shipping barges, and yachts could be seen on the horizon. Because it was a Sunday, the beaches weren’t packed but I can imagine on a Friday afternoon it would have been much different. We spent most of our day at this resort called Café Del Mar. It had a pool, an area with cabana type beds, and awesome music. After a while a couple of us rode the Sentosa island luge, a sort of alpine slide you would find in the US. The luge was awesome. After we were through there, we went to another resort called KM8. This resort also had a pool and more people started showing up as the night went on. The food was amazing (Me and a couple others sampled the Diablo pizza, Calamari, and house specialty wings). Once the sun went down there were fire dancers that put on quite the show. After the show most of us started to get taxis home because we were tired from being in the sun all day. I would recommend Sentosa Island to anybody in Singapore.

Credit: Chad B. & Currie B.

 

On our free day, we took a four and a half hour bus ride to Kuala Lumpur to meet with Andrew’s sister Rachel, who is a sophomore at Elon University as well.  The day started out with a 7:30am departure time from Singapore.  We arrived in Kuala Lumpur around noon right at the foundation of the magnificent Petronas Twin Towers, featured in movies such as Entrapment.  From there, we had a very cultural lunch experience – Indian Marsala Pizza from Pizza Hut (stuff crust) – our first “American” meal in the Pacific Rim.  After lunch, we haggled with a taxi driver and got him to take us to Batu Caves, a Hindu landmark featuring several Hindu figures representing stories within their religion.  This was a particularly notable experience – thanks to number of monkeys along the cave entrance’s staircase that could be comparable to the amount of squirrels on Elon’s campus.  From the caves, our driver took us to Templar Park, where we, along with hundreds of local friendly Malayans, cooled off in some of Malaysia’s natural waterfalls.  We ended the day with some tasty Arabic food and drinks amidst a spectacular view of the illuminated Towers before embarking on our trip home.  Overall, this gave us a great new perspective on the region.  Amongst all the economic hustle and bustle of Hong Kong and Singapore and other key cities, we were exposed to the untamed jungles that are home to many of our favorite zoo animals such as tigers, elephants, and monkeys.

Credit: Andréa M. & Andrew Y.