Ipoh and Penang.
This is the most shiok trip I've ever had.The aim of this trip is just to relax - hence it is unlike my Europe trips which aims are to learn something new and see something different. So I really relaxed.
We have almost no plan: all we have are 2 printouts from wikitravel, a few maps, a GPS handset, and a magazine add-on from i-Weekly which tells us where to find good food.
So we randomly picked places to go to, slotting in good food in between - and it turned out really well. Places of interest in Malaysia almost always consist of temples after temples after temples, but we managed to visit only one cave temple and yet our itinerary was full.
I have not had such intensive input of good food ever. The best part was Penang - we went to the congregation of hawker stalls at Gurney Drive, ordered $30 equivalent of food, and we ate till we almost died. Of course that wasn't all - that was just one dinner. We also had steamboat dinner one of the nights whereby the pot has a chimney that sprays fire.
Though not all were nice: the beach at Batu Ferringhi was a disappointment. The water wasn't clear, and there were too many jetboats too close to the shore. Anyway since we were there we spent one whole morning and half an afternoon at the hotel pool - shouldn't waste the sun.
Just that, after driving into Malaysia for the first time, I realised how dangerous those coach buses that ferry people from Singapore to KL actually are. I saw this Five-Star Travel juggernaut on the expressway near Seremban ahead of me and as usual I tried to overtake it. I couldn't overtake it at all - not even after 100km - I completely gave up by the time we reached Malacca.
We stopped at Ayer Keroh for almost an hour for dinner, and my dad took over after that. The bus reappeared at Yong Peng - we saw it entering the expressway there. Yong Peng is not like Ayer Keroh whereby you get to stop and rest immediately after you exit the expressway. Basically, after we stopped, the bus flew all the way to Yong Peng, negotiated itself to some stop point/restaurant, stopped for dinner, negotiated back to the expressway, and met us again all in the same time as we stopped and travelled down. You can imagine how fast it went.
So it was behind us all the way - at some point it was following a small car with probably only 1.5 meters between it and the car - until we were at Tuas Checkpoint. Of course it couldn't be faster than us anymore.
That wasn't the only bus that behaved like that. That was just the most dangerous one. Those drivers are crazy, seriously. Don't ever take those buses unless absolutely necessary. And when you see them on the expressway, don't let them be in your vicinity - try to shake them off. You never know when they'll lose control and crush your car :P
