Visiting the Western Coast of Malaysia

If you arrive at KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport) for vacation, a good idea might be not to continue straight to the capital. What about to rent a car from airport and to drive yourself?

Western Sea Coast is not far away from KLIA, a nice drive of 20-30 minutes and you arrived. You need a car for sure, there is very little public transportation in this area.

Where to stay? I like the place called Corus Paradise Hotel, 4 km south of Port Dickson. The former name of this hotel was BLUE LAGOON Hotel.

Link is as follows:

http://www.corusparadisepd.com/

If you have good experience with other hotels along the Western Coast, please add them in this thread.

Personal favourite, great people and good food. Nice quiet peaceful ambience too. Great for romantic couples

http://www.avillion.com.my/

I found this thread - it was discontinued, forgotten, some years ago.

Unfortunately, Malaysia is not the favorite destination for Western visitors - Thailand is well-known, offers more attractions and is cheaper, there are not so many hotels around in Malaysia, not so much sightseeing - you should drive your own car as public transport is somewhat limited. Often a lot of time is wasted only for waiting somewhere.

On the other side, driving your own car, it's easy to have breakfast in Penang, lunch in Kuala Lumpur and dinner in Johore Bahru - just over the bridge to Singapore. Western Malaysia is not such a big wide area compared to Thailand.

You have to pay for highway in Malaysia, but local streets are often in a very good condition, why not driving along the coastline through the plantages from Port Dickson to south? Next city will be Malacca.

Driving into the city, you will see soon on the left side

The Legacy Hotel Malacca - for very good room you pay about USD 45,- / USD 50,-

a good place to stay.

http://www.malaccacityhotels.com/

There is no shortage of hotels in Malacca, and if you have your own car it's recommended to stop and to check out various hotels - most of them are very near located to each other in Malacca - but there are remarkable differences in price and quality.

Now Halfdrunk's passport is almost in the bag... and as we're heading south for Songkran, I think we'll take a drive over into Malaysia for a day or two. Do you have any suggestions for a first time visit (driving) in the border area... a nice quiet beach, perhaps?

If you're not going over to Langkawi then you might try Kuala Perlis, not been there but it has beaches to the south and has a reputation for good seafood. Failing that you could always drive on to Pinang.

Mandrunk, on 2009-02-26 22:02:32, said:

Malaysia has better sightseeing spots INSIDE the country. Why beaches? There are forest, waterfalls, caves...etc.

After passing Padang Besar border, drive on or maybe 15 km and look out for right side for signs to KAKI BUKIT, and a small town called GUA KELAM.

Visit the cave there, and there is a walking bridge there, also picnic and swimming, quite popular among the locals.

And when driving on again for 15 km you could visit the snake farm called TAMAN ULAR (ular = snake in Malay) - There is a street to right, called SUNGAI BATU BAHAT a picnic spot along a river.

Next place would be city of KANGAR, visit the old Muslim building there, see the old mosque there and ask for the old House of Dato Wan Ahmad.

Quite a long time ago, I visited these places, but I think, nothing really changed there.

I'm looking forward to the photos.