April in Malaysia

Just to add...we were dead chuffed on the train today when David Attenborough came on with his wildlife programme, which included a section in Australia showing red kangaroos and wombats! So although we didn't catch either of these actually in Oz we did see them from SE Asia...good eh?

Friday 17th April
We had quite a good night's sleep although I (Lin) did have a scary dream about us walking through a rainforest where a girl had gone missing and coming upon a brown bear and a lion! In the dream Brent yelled at me not to run, but I ran off the path and then watched as the male lion strolled past Brent... obviously not hungry! Weird eh? Anyway this morning Brent called me to look at the window: a hunting bird, possibly a small hawk, was doing its best to get into our room! It was tapping on the window with its beak and claws most insistently. It seemed to stay for ages until Brent got close to the window, looked it right in the eye and said: “ We don't have any food for you so off you go, “ and it did – flying into a tree down below us. Just yesterday we had been discussing Hinduism and Buddhism and the animism which both adhere to, where all things including plants and animals are believed to contain a spirit. We've also both admitted that were reincarnation to occur, we would like to come back as birds of prey. This morning's bird really made us wonder.

Anyway we ordered a taxi from the hotel to the bus station and would you believe it the driver drove carefully and charged us half the price of yesterday. We were definitely conned...in fact we reckon the guy yesterday wasn't even a taxi driver! We live and learn. We were pleased to get to the bus station early, purchase our tickets and join the small band of mainly Indian women waiting for the bus. When it arrived we were again chuffed that it had air con. and was again quite comfortable. Brent had bought some nibbles from the hawkers around the bus station and we settled into a happy 3 hour journey through quite magnificent countryside. The road steadily wound its way uphill and eventually reached a sort of secret valley: the start of the Cameron highlands. Here we were bemused by the number of market gardens which appeared advertising 'pick your own strawberries,' 'try our tea and scones' with villages where shops sold loads of strawberry related items like ballons, cushions, streamers etc. There was even a strawberry hill holiday resort! As we began to descend we were even more boggled when we say multistory hotels and alpine type chalets appearing. It was clear that what we'd expected to be a small, remote village was actually a thriving little town! The bus arrived on time and we were met by Paul, from the Fathers Guesthouse, where we were staying. We joined a minibus of several other backpackers and within a few minutes had arrived at our destination. It was quite lovely: we'd opted for the most expensive room, at RM80 (about £16) a night. Our room was cool and had a lovely view over the mountains. There was a comfy lounge area, a bar and a very helpful reception in the guesthouse, where all sorts of trips could be organised. After settling in we wandered into the town and found a mobile phone shop. We'd taken advice in Singapore and decided to buy sim cards to use whilst in Malaysia to book ahead. I thought it would be a good idea for both of us to get one so that we could also communicate with each other when separated...have to say this hasn't happened often, but partly because we can't get in touch with each other...Anyway this proved to be a BIG MISTAKE! My phone was locked and by introducing a new sim card it locked me out of the o2 network, so I can no longer use the phone to contact folk and they can't contact me either. Thank god for email and skype! Once we'd recovered from this blow we stopped and had tea and a shared scone followed later by a beer in a wifi bar. We then headed back up to Father Ted's ( as I call it) and had a very pleasant evening. The food up here was good and we met a lovely Scottish couple and had a good old chat, comparing notes on Oz and SE Asia plans. We also booked a trip for tomorrow and got some good advice about the circuit we might do around SE Asia.

Saturday 18th April
Lin here again, it's actually Sunday and Brent's headed over to the bar to watch the Man U. game, but i'm not in the mood, so thought i'd get the blog back up to date. Yesterday, Saturday was a really great day. We climbed into an old Land Rover before 9am along with Kasper and Louise from Denmark and Misty and Kyarna from Canada, 2 young women each travelling alone. Our guide for the day was Francis, a local guy, who proved to be really good company as well as an expert on the areas flora and fauna. After introductions we set off for a drive of about 45 minutes to the start of the first trek. The last 15 minutes or so were off road and at the start of this section we picked up one of the Orang Asli villagers, who was to help guide us. The off road trail proved to be a lot of fun. Brent was sitting in the front and I had to laugh at his face. As you know if you've been reading this regularly, Brent isn't the best of passengers, but his astonishment at the state of the track was palpable. There were huge ruts, some half filled with water and we were all hanging on for dear life. Francis was clearly used to the conditions and drove us expertly to the start of the trail. 2 other jeeps were parked up and at least one other followed behind us...the tourist trail once again.

We then did a 3 hour trek, which was just brill. Francis spotted a range of plants, which he crushed and passed around for us to smell... ginger and tea tree were recognisable but others had a definite medicinal scent. Francis was able to tell us their healing properties, which included: protection from bites, including leeches, help against sickness and a special plant for women to use to help them stay beautiful, so as not to lose their husbands!!! He also spotted orchids and a beautiful red flower. As for animal life, well without Francis we would have missed 3 different spiders, a smallish black spider, which could jump quite long distances, another smallish jumping spider and a huge one, which fortunately was stationery in its web...believe me there would have been 3 hysterical women about had it started to move! I was struggling to get decent pictures of some of the spiders and flowers and discovered that our wonderful guide was clearly a keen photographer: he was very patient and very adept with my digital camera and got us some great shots. Francis was also able to demonstrate the many uses of the huge bamboo stalks: using the local guide's tool he hacked at various pieces of bamboo to produce musical instruments, drainpipes, chopsticks, hair slides, and tooth picks!

The trek was called the Rafflesia trek and one of the reasons for doing it was to see this huge parasite flower, which only lasts for about 5 days. It was originally found by Raffles around Singapore, hence the name. We had to venture over 2 Indiana Jones type bridges ( but not over ravines!), ford a river and scramble up some rocky and muddy inclines in order to reach 2 of these amazing things. We actually caught it in its final day and it was interesting to see others buds, which might still bloom, and still others that had turned black after blooming. After taking lots of photos we began the descent back to the landrover, stopping off to cool down at a water hole at the base of a small waterfall. As there wasn't a lot of space to change Brent simply put his swim shorts on over his pants and I decided to go in fully clothed ( like the local women would!) Our 2 Danish friends managed to get their swimgear on as they'd brought a big towel along. The water was lovely and my clothes quickly dried out in the sun as we walked back downhill. We all piled back into the jeep and began the journey back down the track. As we travelled along Francis stopped to pick up another driver... and as we turned a corner we saw his landrover stuck in the mud ahead! It was leaning to one side and the next half hour or so was spent trying to get him back on the road, so that we could continue down to 'a traditional village.' Brent was the first out of the jeep to help and I had another laugh when I spotted the huge wet patch from his wet shorts under his trousers...and he'd thought I was mad to go in the water fully clothed! Got a great photo of him!! After the guides had filled in some of the ruts and Francis had driven our jeep into the stuck one to push it along, we all helped sway and push the jeep til it was back on course. We all got nicely spattered with mud and had a really good laugh...really added to the adventure! We eventually reached the village and Francis demonstrated how the villages would use blowpipes before giving us all the chance to have a go at blowing a dart from a pipe. We couldn't believe how light the blowpipes were and I was very pleased to discover that I had a better aim than Brent when it came to hitting the target! That competitive streak raised its ugly head again!! We were given time to look around the village and Francis said it was fine to take photos as the villagers were very friendly. In fact we felt that they looked a bit bemused by us all and didn't seem very interested in us. The children were quite beautiful, but ignored us as they played between the stilts which held up their homes. Later we discussed our thoughts on this part of the day: we both felt that it was probably not a true, traditional village as it was too near the towns and head felt very poor. Interesting though. Around 3pm we continued on to visit a tea plantation, arriving around 4pm. This was very touristy, but interesting and the new restaurant / viewing area was modern and very attractive. We were gasping for a cuppa after the tour of the factory and enjoyed the black 'english' tea, along with some cake . Lovely. Francis pointed out the labourers; accommodation and explained that the tea pickers were mostly immigrants from India, Vietnam and Cambodia, as local people refused to work for the low wages paid. The tea plantation was established back in the 1800s by a Scot and his family still owns it. As you can imagine Brent and I were struck by the power of Capitalism, recognising the similarities with home. Back on the road Francis drove us to a second trail, where we experienced 2 different types of rainforest: mossy and ericcaceous. The trail was lovely to walk on, all soft and bouncy and the plants very different: the most amazing plant was the carniverous pitcher plant. We saw several of these the biggest around 11 inches tall and all quite beautiful. Francis was able to get me a great shot of the inside of one of these huge flowers, where several dead flies can be clearly seen... brilliant! We climbed up to a peak around 2000 feet above sea level and got some lovely views back down over the tea plantation. By now it was beginning to rain and had become quite cloudy. It was also nearing sunset, so Francis drove us to a metal tower in the hope of seeing a good sunset. As we arrived the clouds thickened. We climbed up the tower, but there was nothing to see, so feeling a bit disappointed we came back down. As we stood talking Louise spotted a bit of pink sky and realised that the clouds were moving....within seconds the sky became breathtakingly beautiful and we all rushed to climb back up the tower...WoW...the views were just splendid and we all got carried away taking photos. From pink to deep red, it was absolutely awesome and the perfect end to our day. We got back to Father Ted's around 8pm and met up after showering to head downtown for some food. Kyarn recommended one of the Indian restaurants and we had a lovely meal there to finish off the day. The group had really got on well and we had a fun meal together.

Sunday 19th April
Today we had a lie in and bought a cooked breakfast at around 11am...it really felt like a Sunday treat and got us off to a good start. The weather was very interesting this morning. It was quite a bit colder and from being quite clear, within a few minutes an eerie mist came down covering the whole mountainside. Then the heavens opened for maybe an hour and it absolutely threw it down...yes, we finally experienced the rainfall that makes this place so beautiful. Surprisingly though it didn't last long and we were able to take a wander around the town and use the wifi down in a cafe. We spent much of today planning the next stage of the trip and have booked a hotel in Georgetown in Penang for Tuesday night. We've also researched transport from there into Thailand and will probably move on there before the weekend. The troubles in Bangkok seem to have died down and we don't intend to spend much time there, so should be OK for getting to Chiang Mai, in the North, which we really want to visit. This evening we had another good and cheap Indian meal ( around £2.50 each) and then had a look around the night market: I'd hoped to buy a skirt or a traditional tunic / dress to keep my arms covered, but it was nearly all food...which smelt great I have to say. Needless to say didn't buy anything. Came back up to the guesthouse and played a few games: I've got better at backgammon and give Brent more of a run for his money now, even winning a few games. Tonight though he beat me at both backgammon and Quiddler..The latter is most unusual, so I'll really have to get my own back. Anyway I'm sure you're falling asleep reading this and it's now well past my bedtime, so I'll say goodnight...catch up again in a couple of days.

Monday 20th April
Ok...so I'm writing this sitting in ...wait for it, Starbucks... in Georgetown, Penang. It's Tuesday as I write and Brent is doing a reci looking for our hotel here. ...Anyway yesterday was a good, chill day. We got up late, had a good breakfast at Father Teds: I had fresh fruit with yoghurt and toast and Brent had cheesy scrambled egg. Then we headed into town, where we managed to hand in our laundry for collection later on, post Fred's birthday card, book our coach for Penang and have a nice lunch. we also decided to get haircuts. This proved to be a real treat. We were the only customers in the place and for RM63 (about £12,50) for the 2 of us we got great head, shoulder and back massage plus wash cut and blowdry!! Brill! In the afternoon we caught a bus out to a butterfly farm: this was well worth the trip and we saw some beautiful butterflies, some small and others really enormous. They also had various local snakes, lizards, beetles, scorpions, centipedes and spiders in cages, some of which I can tell you were pretty scary!! We wandered down the road to a strawberry farm, where we could have picked our own...or as one advert put it 'self plucking strawberries!' Here we ate a wonderful icecream, with fresh strawbs and cream...delicious. After that we strolled down the road and had a laugh at the huge selection of strawberry related tack on sale!! Brent had the most awful coffee and I had a poor cup of tea in a cafe with a panoramic view, which included a building site! We had a good look around some stalls, selling all sorts of stuff, including strawberries. Brent asked the price of a small punnet and was told RM3. As we thought about it a Malay guy asked the price and was told RM2.50 for a large punnet. Brent took out RM2.50 and a large punnet and passed to the girl, who said oh no, it was RM8!! Needless to say we didn't buy any. We moved to the roadside ready to stop the bus and found 2 lads from Bournemouth and a French girl from Bordeaux, who'd been waiting for over 45 minutes. We joined them and waited for around 20 minutes before the bus arrived, getting us back just in time to collect our laundry. A quiet evening was spent in preparation for our bus trip.

Tuesday 21st April
Got up bright and early and enjoyed our last breakfast at Father Ted's place. We'd listened to the wind blowing all night and it was raining as we left, but it was nice and cool and I have to say I almost enjoyed putting on my Berghaus raincoat for the walk to the bus station. The journey to Penang took 5 hours and we were ready to get off when we reached the bus station at Penang: the speedy driver had taken the windy road at quite a pace and it felt good to be on terra firma! We walked over to the ferry terminal and enjoyed the ride over to the island and it's capital, Georgetown. Refusing the local taxi drivers ( that Northern frugality again) we spotted a bus to the Komtar shopping centre and knew that our hotel was near there, so jumped aboard. Now we are about to walk to the hotel, which Brent has just found....will catch up later dear reader.

Hotel like a mini Ibis, with added extras of towels, shampoos etc., hair dryer put the price up to RM63. Room smelt a bit smoky so we decided to check out other recommendations before rebooking. This was interesting: Brent, the font of knowledge when it comes to directions, took us the wrong way and route B lead us past an excellent Indian restaurant, where we both had an lovely chicken Biryani with Naan bread for around £2 each! We eventually found Love Lane and the hotels: the first one, the Star Lodge, was asking about RM45 for a very basic room and we couldn''t find the second, but did find a Chinese run hotel, Hotel Penang, which looked nice, but weren't able to confirm vacancies until the next day. They charged RM65. In the end we decided that Tunes hotel was a bargain, so booked another 2 nights there...RM52, without the extras. Good eh? On way back up to the room we met up with Colin and Katie, our Scottish friends, who'd recommended the hotel...thanks you two! We arranged to meet for breakfast tomorrow morning. Back in the room Brent nearly had a heart attack when he discovered that the $US he'd put into the safe had disappeared!! 15 minutes later, having searched the room, including under the bed, which was disgustingly filthy, we decided to head to reception to inform them of the theft...thank goodness I suggested Brent check the laptop bag one last time and lo and behold, there they were...phew!

Wed. 22nd April
Met up with Colin and Katie, our new Scottish friends, who are coming to the end of their year out and are ready for home. Had a Starbucks deal for breakfast: RM6.5 for coffee and cake (just over £1), not bad eh? It was good to have a good ole chat: Katie has just finished her probationary year as a primary teacher and was telling us about the lack of jobs in Scotland. Around 12 we said goodbye and headed off on the free shuttle bus from the Kompar shopping mall down the road. Have to say that getting down to the mall is an absolute nightmare: the city is unbelievable un-pedestrian friendly and each time we head outside we have to run the gamut of cars, scooters, motorbikes, cycles and pedocabs and honestly feel like we are taking our lives into our hands... absolutely horrible. We'd hoped to find the tourist information, which yesterday we'd been told was on the 3rd floor of the Kompar mall: this shopping centre seems to be on both sides of a very busy road, and we decided to go to the other side as we'd had no luck finding it yesterday. Security on the ground floor told us to head to the 3rd floor, where we'd need to get a pass to go on up to the 56th floor, where we'd been told the tourist info was... oh dear! As we stepped off the escalator on the 1st floor a very nice Malaysian man came up to see if he could help us. He insisted we follow him back downstairs and directed us to the shuttle bus stop, saying we needed to get off at stop 15 to find the tourist info. He did say that we could pay to go up to the top of the Kompar tower to the sky deck, but we decided against this and got onto the free bus. Once again we found the Malays very friendly and keen to help us: 2 chaps asked where we were going and told us when to get off for the tourist info.. hurray! This proved to be tourist info for the heritage sites: the many religious buildings are generally all in the same area, which is a UNESCO heritage site.

We ended up spending a wonderful few hours in the area. First of all we visited a museum of Islam: this was very well done, explaining how Islam arrived in Malaysia via India and China and describing the influence of the religion in terms of education and culture...all clearly explained and very interesting. We then decided to limit our time to 2 other buildings: the Chinese Clanhouse and a Mosque. These were both unbelievably beautiful and both had excellent guides. The Clanhouse was in a hidden courtyard behind quite a typical run down street. It was ornately decorated in different hues of red and gold. We climbed some steps to a kind of verandah, where the carvings were intricate and many were frames and told parable-like stories: we were very impressed by 2 of these, both of which conveyed the message that the old should be revered and cared for by the young: the 2nd carving had a young man lying on a block of ice: apparently the old man nearby was his grandfather, who wanted to fish. As it was Winter this wasn't possible as the water had frozen, so the grandson lay on the ice so that it would melt and his grandad could fish!!! Wow! The detail was amazing. We then looked inside the 3 areas off the verandah: the main, central area was huge, with even more ornate carvings, with a central shrine-like carving. A doorway lead to a corridor at the back of the building, where there were huge paintings, done in ink. These were superb and again told stories. The remaining 2 rooms off the verandah were for males only: the first was a homage to the men who had gained academic degrees. The walls were covered in gold plaques listing names and details of the degrees achieved. It was interesting to see that these had been gained from universities all over the world, including Oxford, and Lincolnshire!! the smaller room was used for ceremonies and was similarly decorated.... very interesting. Our guide here was female and very well informed: I did ask her if she thought females would at some point gain access to the rooms, but she said not.

We left the Clanhouse with a real sense of the moral value of Confusionism and moved on towards the beautiful, much plainer Mosque just up the road, and visible from the road. Before going in we went past it into the area known as Little India, where we bought samosas from a street hawker for lunch ( very good they were too). As we entered the grounds of the Mosque there was an arrow pointing to Information. A guide came out of the office and introduced himself with a big smile. He then showed us around the Mosque, where a handful of men were praying. The area was huge, with long carpets set out throughout. Our guide showed us the pool where worshipers washed before beginning their prayers. This is seen as both physical cleansing and a way of clearing away the trials and stresses of the day and cleaning the mind in preparation for prayer. Our guide explained that the men pray shoulder to shoulder, with no differentiation between rich and poor. He described the 5 compulsory times of prayer, beginning at 5.50am and ending at sunset. He explained that women prayed separately from the men, as contact with them might distract the men from their prayers. I asked where the women prayed and I was given permission to look at the area, which was a small interior room, where one woman was supine on the ground. Our guide said that generally women were not comfortable in the Mosque. He said that many of their work places provided a room where the women could pray together. All very interesting. He then invited us into the info office, which was air conditioned and a very pleasant book lined room. Here he gave us cold drinks and we had an informal chat about his religion. A younger guide and a Chinese Muslim joined us and the chinese guy asked my name ... Ms/ Mrs....umh??? He was clearly digging and I felt quite uncomfortable. In the end I decided to tell a white lie rather than divulge my personal details. He asked if we wanted to convert to Islam, and we said no, but we were interested in all religions. Brent in fact asked why there was so much friction betweeen religions and he suggested this was due to ignorance, implying that there was sometimes a closed minded approach to Islam. We left feeling that we'd been made very welcome.

Back at the hotel we managed to sort flights for Thailand and a hotel in Kuala Lumpur for the overnight stay. We were really fed up to discover that our skype is no longer working...some problem with the audio device. I'd been really keen to chat to family, but it wasn't to be.

Thursday 23rd April
After another Starbucks breakfast and chat we decided to head to the Botanical Gardens: as we walked back into the hotel we overheard a young German couple booking a taxi to take them there. We asked if they'd like to share the taxi and they were very pleased. The 4 of us then enjoyed a happy couple of hours at these beautiful gardens, where lush greenery provided very welcome shade. We left them at around 12 and they headed off in an expensive taxi to the Spice gardens, while we wandered down the road to find a bus home. En route we visited a Batik factory, where we were talked through the process and wowed by the beauty of the fabrics. In the shop I was sorely tempted, but resisted, knowing that a/ we needed to look after our remaining funds and b/ I didn't need to be carrying any more stuff! We were very hot and sweaty and stopped for a lovely passion fruit drink, freshly made in front of us. The friendly seller also gave us a banana, my second, since we'd bought a bunch earlier from a nearby stall....oh dear. 5 minutes further down the road and I got awful stomach cramps. A ghastly hour followed where we struggled to find any form of transport home and i seriously thought I might have an 'accident' before we got there. Luckily Brent waved down a taxi driver, who was lovely and got us back just in time!!! We've been trying to drink only bottled water, but sometimes it's just impossible to resist the temptation of a cold drink. Anyway after a good rest we were able to head out for tea.... have to admit that neither Indian nor Chinese appealed and we ended up at Pizza Hut!!! We were served by a young man from Bangladesh and got into conversation with him: turned out he'd been in Penang for 2 years but was not happy. His wages were low – half what Pizza Hut workers earned in Bangladesh back home. He was very efficient, well spoken and charming and we felt for him.


We then went to the local cinema and saw a Harrison Ford film called Crossing Over. We knew nothing about it before going, but when we looked at what was on both chose it. It was bizarre... if you haven't seen it stop reading here and go! It was particularly pertinent to us here in such a multicultural society and began with a Muslim girl reading aloud in class in New York. She was trying to say that whilst we may not agree with what the 7/11 bombers did it was their means of getting heard but her classmates were outraged and turned against her, with verbal abuse. The teacher was way out of her depth and struggled to reach a conciliatory end to the lesson, with the poor girl being harangued and ending up running out of the door in tears.

The film then moved between different people of differing Nationalities and cultures, all trying to get into the US: the young Brit ( Ashley Judd), who pretended to be a practising Jew with experience in education, the young Australian who wanted to be an actress,and ended up sleeping with an Immigration official to no avail; the Mexican single mum and the young Chinese boy forced to join the local gangsters, who ended up involved in a hold up . HarrisonFord was in the immigration 'police' department and involved in raiding ilegal factories. His partner was and Iranian Muslim, whose family was about to receive Naturalisation. He had a younger sister who was American born and who was seen by the males in the famiy as dishonouring the family by dressing in western style. The film was very thought provoking. In the end the 15 year old schoolgirl was deported for her essay – her house was raided and her mother chose to go back to their home land ( Bangladesh / india?). It was heart breaking to see the family split up and for me after my own small experience on entering the States, entirely believable. Meanwhile one of the Iranian brothers murdered his sister and her married lover..another tragic story.

We came out of the movie theatre somewhat shell shocked, only to be assaulted by the sounds of Play Station type games with loud music blaring out.. this after being forced to exit via the underground carpark...all very weird.

As for the cinema...well it's the first time we'd walked in to a cinema to find we were all alone!! Around 6 other folk did join us, but overall the place was deserted. It has 8 screens and we'll probably come back tomorrow for the comfy 'ish seats and air con!!!