Marvellous Malaysia

MARVELLOUSE MALAYSIA

Hello Charmaine

Well, we are back from an amazing trip.

Villa Samedhi in KL was excellent - recommend it to anyone. Right in the heart of the Embassy district (actually next to the Libyan Embassy!). Thank goodness I printed out the hotel's map as the taxi driver didn't know where it was and it certainly is hard to find - no name on gate, just a carving in wall saying 'member of Secret Retreats'. Cherie the manager couldn't do enough for us and she arranged for a special dessert for Barry's birthday meal and our Matthew had arranged for a bottle of champagne for Barry (although he had to share it with us!)

Shangri-La Tanjung Aru in KK - we got upgraded to suites!! Very nice.

Sepilok - well what can you say about the Orang Utans - cute!

Barry and I went on river trip which was well worth it although 2 hour drive each way from Sepilok, which was why Rod & Dianne didn't join us as we had the long drive next day to the Rainforest Lodge.

Borneo Rainforest Lodge. Five hour drive from Sepilok, and it certainly is in the middle of nowhere, but what an amazing place. We had our personal guide, Hendry (early 20's) who took us on 3 treks a day!!!!!!! Wouldn't have missed them for anything and the canopy walk was amazing.

Shangri-La Rasa Ria in KK - very large hotel with lots of building work and refurbishment going on. Not so obtrusive as we thought and we did try to upgrade to Ocean Wing but no luck but were allowed to use the Ocean Wing Pool and their breakfast restaurant as the Garden Wing breakfast place was manic (the Chinese have taken over Borneo I think!) So we had the best of both worlds as the Garden Wing room was very good. Barry got another cake on our last night and Rod & Dianne a Wedding Anniversary cake as this happened while we were away as well.

The ground arrangements by Diethelm Travel went very well as we expected (apart from driver waiting at wrong terminal at KK, but resolved in very quick time by Diethelm).

We were so glad we decided to go Business class on Emirates as it certainly is a long trip. We came back from KL to Dubai on an A380 and the seats on that were amazing - Rod said he thought they were better than Virgin 1st Class.

So here we are, back in UK in the warm weather here so we didn't feel too cold coming from 32 degrees heat.

I have put some pictures on my Facebook page. (these are just a few of the many I took!!!!!)

Thank you for arranging this trip.

Now back to getting over the jet lag and doing all the washing (I think the jungle clothes walked to the washing machine!).

Regards
Margaret