Monday 21 November 2011

Bangkok to Bali - Cameron Highlands, Malaysia



One morning in Malaysia we took a public bus for  6 hours to one of the countries most famous attractions, the Cameron Highlands.  Our hotel where we were staying was located in Tanah Rata and it reminded me of a typical Old English settlement - it's fascinating to see how far the colonialism reached and to be honest how out of place it looked in an Asian country.

Our hotel
With an area of over 712 sq km, Cameron Highlands is an extensive mountain range within Malaysia and is one of the many reasons why the country of Malaysia is so fascinatingly beautiful.  The area was named Cameron Highlands after its   founder William Cameron who served as a government surveyor throughout the British ruling in 1885. 


We only really had one full day to take in the places beauty and a so a number of us, Nicole, Sven, Eric, Naomi, Emma, Jenny, Gabby and myself embarked on an all day trip that would take in a vast area of places: a jungle trek, tea plantation, insect farm, and strawberry farm.


Our plan of blending in with the natural surroundings had a few flaws.


After a ferocious game of Jungle Speed the night before (more on Jungle Speed in a later post) we were up early and off in 4x4's up some huge mountain.  The route was treacherous, bumpy and very close to the edge of going back down the mountain fairly quickly. I hadn't been this nervous since 'Action' Dan Vodden drove his land rover sideways and then onto its roof around a roundabout in the UK.


We eventually reached a point where we must continue on foot.  This part of the expedition had three aims.  The first was to see the largest flower in the world, the Rafflesia arnoldii, the second was to experience our first waterfall swim and the third was to visit a traditional jungle village.  The route to the flower had its obstacles, crossing rivers over fallen trees, but on the whole it wasn't too difficult.



Sven in deep conversation with one of our guides 
Sven and Nicole negotiate a tricky part of the path
 Gabby getting a helping hand onto one the makeshift bridges
Halfway to the flower, we took a rest and the guides showed our group how to extract pure water from the bamboo that's growing in the area.  With his Crocodile Dundee knife he sliced upon a number of bamboo shoots and handed them out to he group.  It tasted like water and grass to be honest, but was refreshing and quite cool, shaded from the sun by being in the core of the plant stem.


The guide talking to the group about the area, the plants and the insects
Naomi was downing the shoot like a shot of vodka!

Where I appear to be using it like an instrument!
After our short stop we headed on to the Rafflesia arnoldii.  The flower itself is unusual in its creation (or at least to me as a non-gardener).  The plant itself is in fact a parasite that lives on a vine of another plant (called Tetrastigma) - it is the only place where it can grow and takes all its food and nutrients from this host.  It is also unusual as it has no roots, leaves and chlorophyll.  Because of the unique conditions for its growth, and due to its popularity as being the largest flower it has become endangered and there are significant conservation work underway to protect it.  We were visiting one of those sanctuaries managed by some of Malaysia's biggest universities and so certain areas were off limits and all potential growth was tagged and catalogued.


When you see it, and if you're not really into gardening like me, then you are somewhat unimpressed.  It's just a big flower with really thick rubbery petals.  On reflection I didn't really appreciate it's rarity and its conservational importance but I couldn't see myself going at such lengths again to see it (you could say, that box - see a big flower -  has now been ticked).


Beware of Canadians!

Rafflesia arnoldii 
Box ticked!

New growth tagged and catalogued


Our next exciting step into the jungle was to swim in a waterfall.  The weather was hot and a refreshing swim was the perfect way to relax and cool down.  Admittedly as we arrived at the waterfall it wasn't the biggest I had seen, in fact I was a little disappointed - foolishly thinking I'd see Angel Falls, but despite it's size it was still in beautiful surroundings.


 Naomi braving the cold
So Naomi, Jen, Gabby and I got changed and jumped in.  It was freezing!  No reflection on the 40c heat we were experiencing.  It was like being showered in ice.  Whilst standing on nails - thankfully for me though I kept my flip-flops/thongs on (yes, I now seem to be calling flip flops - thongs!).  We posed for a few photographs and for a bit of fun I thought I'd try and push Gabby all the way into the water.  Big mistake.  She quite instinctively pushed me back (succeeding in dunking me in) and as I was down I could feel something terrible about to happen.  One of my flip-flops released itself from my foot, elevated to the surface, and before I could grab it the Philippine thong shot down the river so fast that it was gone before I knew it.


Bugger!


I had no other footwear apart from my Vans.  But those were back at the hotel, a hotel we weren't going to go back to for another 8 hours.  But Naomi had a plan.  Though we have different size feet - significantly different - I could wear one of her spares for the rest of the day.  This plan worked for about five minutes as since they didn't really fit me they kept popping out and Naomi was, let's say a little concerned that I may brake them beyond repair.  So I went native on my trek back through the very muddy jungle which at first it was uncomfortable but my feet began to harden up and it turned out to be pretty good. Though at the time of this feeling I forgot to realise that I had a tea plantation, insect zoo, butterfly farm and a strawberry farm to visit.


Does the shoe fit, Cinderella?
Before the tea plantation we visited a traditional jungle village and took our hand to shooting with darts - which was a lot harder than it looks - well for me it was.  Eric who was up first got straight on the bullseye, whereas I think they are still looking for my dart!!!


Eric 'Robocop'

Eric's first shot on target



Leaving the village we headed on a thirty minute drive to the tea plantation.  The looks from the visitors as I entered the stunning tea plantation were very interesting.  It reminds me of the looks I give to people who go into large supermarkets still in their dressing gown - though I doubt those people lost their normal clothes in a waterfall.


My footprints were left everywhere!


Apart from the looks from other visitors, the tea plantation was spectacular and vast.  As you're in the supermarkets next to the person in the dressing gown and pick tea from the shelf, you really don't realise where it comes from and the logistics and hard work involved in getting it to the ASDA Wal-Mart in Barnsley.


  
Tea as far as the eye can see 

Jen brought Mr PG Tips back to his home
The next stop on our trip was to the butterfly farm and the insect zoo.  To be honest many of us were exhausted and couldn't really bothered with it, but once we were there we all enjoyed it.  Some of the butterflies were like birds, they were huge, but they were also very friendly and one landed on my shoulder and happily sat there whilst I went around the farm.



My new friend for the afternoon
Is it a bird?
After the butterflies we were led into the insect zoo.  Now this was fascinating and didn't just contain insects, but also snakes, scorpions and a tortoise.  A few of the girls took amusement to my fear of spiders and making me jump every few minutes, not helped by the fact that I was still barefooted throughout the whole day!



 Suffice to say I zoomed in for this shot

Once that white-knuckle ride was over we hopped back in our mini-bus to head to the strawberry farm which, I may add, was over priced and not that interesting - though the strawberries did taste rather good!


Strawberries

Naomi's audition photo for Strawberries
With all the planned visits over we had an opportunity to stop by a place where a landslide occurred.  We all read about the disaster that happened two days prior, it was tragic.  Seven people were killed, including a family of three (a 15 year old girl was one of those) with the last body not being found the following day (a 22 year old male).  About 600 people were evacuated and a number were injured.  Each of the families of those that died were give compensation of RM5,000 (Malaysian Ringgits), which sounds a lot but is in fact only $1,500.


You hear about landslides a lot on the news back in the UK, not knowing how bad it could really be, but you do hear about how many died and the devastation - but the next day that's it, you hear nothing more about it.  That's a shame and most certainly a problem with our entertainment driven society.  Though the landslide happened on day x, the following days people are still suffering, still trying to rebuild their homes whilst at the same time some people alive or dead are still buried - but no, the following day we will get a story about an overpaid footballer caught texting some random girl - how is that important?

When we turned up there it looked exactly how we saw it in the papers.  The saddest part of it was seeing someone's living room in half, with the curtains still on the broken window.  A few of us discreetly took a picture whilst in our vehicle and headed back to the hotel, all a little more grateful and extremely fortunate that we can get to experience this amazing country despite some of the tragedy we got to see.  


But our adventure continued after the Cameron Highlands where I headed back home to Kuala Lumpur!




The landslide

The curtains in the window









Saturday 12 November 2011

Bangkok to Bali - Penang, Malaysia


My second visit to the beautiful country of Malaysia started with a long coach ride from Ao Nang, acrosss the Malaysian border to the island of Penang.

The local tourist board describes Penang as ‘A fascinating fusion of the East and West, Penang embraces modernity while retaining its traditions and old world charm.’  A bold statement but on reflection it’s not too far from the truth.  I really enjoyed my time there, though only short, we had some great laughs and adventures!

We spent the first night at a nice food plaza enjoying some of the local delicacies whilst the following day a few of us hired some mopeds and took on a grand tour of the island.


Some of our gang: Andreas, Trine, Eric, Laura and Sam


Boy racer Eric shot off like a dart; much to our concern as he didn’t actually have a licence and was using another member of the groups licence to get the bike.  Also he had a motorbike accident a few weeks prior and we didn’t want him to hurt himself the second time around.  He does have a unique style of riding.  Confident, but he likes to stick one of his legs out so he is in a constant counterbalance.  A skill for sure.


Me and Naomi on the left, Eric and his stray leg on the right (though he was stationary at the time!)
Our first stop in the blistering heat was a nature park where you can opt to go on one two, three and four hour treks.  We decided due to the incredible heat to have a little walk in and then walk out again and grab more water.  The thought of walking solid for anything longer than thirty minutes would have simply killed us.


Me, Naomi, Sven, Gabby and Eric (pic stolen from Jen)
Sven, Gabby, Jen and Eric
The park offered some very nice coastal views and a simple rope swing onto the beach.  The next ten minutes were very amusing.  Both Naomi and Eric hadn’t really used a rope swing before, not least one like this (which seemed pretty normal).  The videos of them attempting to swing are hilarious – more so for the noises they were making.  Naomi screamed throughout finishing with a happy dance and Eric nearly fell off.  The noise he made even makes me laugh today (some several months later).



The reservoir
Back on the bike we headed to a reservoir for a couple of pictures and then to a fruit farm – a place, I must point out, that Naomi was so desperate to go to (others, including myself, were not so keen).  The fruit farm was perhaps the most boring I have been for some time, and I wasn't alone.  Out of everyones patience, the first to surrender of all people was Naomi!  But as we had to travel up the farm in one of their own vehicles we had to wait for the tour to be over, grab our free fruit lunch (where we really pigged out) and then made our way back to the mopeds.


Gabby, Jen and the flower from a fruit 


Despite the dullness the views were magnificent

Naomi, Jen and Gabby

  
Fruit addict Gabby pigged out a little on some nice looking fruit


The groups they took us in with were far too large for you to appreciate what they were trying to show you and a tour we had in Indonesia was far better and best of all we could try out everything (more on that in later posts!).


Our next stop was to visit a traditional fishing village.  This was some distance away but through some beautiful scenic roads that are best experienced on a bike.  On one of these roads Naomi and I passed a wooded place that had many cars outside and looked quite busy.  When we did stop and were about to get off our bikes the people did not seem very happy to see us.  The reason?  Naomi was not 'appropriately dressed' for what turned out to be a religious event.  This could be the only explanation why they appeared to shouting abuse at us and nearly chased us down the road.

As we caught up with the rest of the group it appeared that one person was missing....

"Where's Eric?"

As it was hard to deviate from the route we assumed the boy wonder headed off down to meet us at the fishing village.  That was until half an hour later when we saw him coming back the other way during some road works across a bridge.  He was unable to turnaround due to the contraflow in place so we told him that we shall wait for him at the nexy layby (which was about 15 minutes down the road).

We waited, and waited, and waited.  Then we thought that perhaps he's had an accident?  I decided to head off to find him and drove all the way back up to where we last saw him at the roadworks and he wasn't there.  Checking all the little side streets along the way we still couldn't find him.  Returning back to the group, I looked at them defeated and said...

"We've lost Eric".

There were a number of side streets along the way that he could have gone down, but one thing we were confident of was that he didn't have an accident on the main road.  It was impossible to search for him so we waited on the main road for another fifteen minutes (it had already been nearly an hour since we last saw him) and decided to head to the fishing village in the hope that he was there.


He was not.  A little about the fishing village at the south of the island if you ever do visit.  There is nothing that interesting there at all.  Which was a shame as it was a highlight of the trip that we were looking forward too.  We did a quick search around for Eric and he wasn't there.


By this point we were all starving and looking for something to eat.  We decided to head up to the north of the island to a mall that we knew would be open (most of the shops were closed for Ramadan).  Getting to the mall involved navigating up some busy highways (on our little mopeds) and selecting the right underpass and overpass to go on.


I took point with Naomi, as we had a local sim card and GPS on my phone.  Sven was behind me and the two girls, Gabby and Jen, were at the rear.  As Sven, Naomi and I arrived at the mall we lost Gabby and Jen.  Our group appeared to be dropping like flies.


Sven went off to find them whilst Naomi and I parked up and waited by the mall entrance.  And we waited, and waited.  We'd lost Sven as well.  About twenty minutes past when we spotted Sven and the girls coming into port and finally we were reunited, but still without Eric.


Refuelling with a pizza we had a few more hours of good light left and decided to visit a monastery located more inland and then take the route north of the monastery back to our hotel.  Naomi took charge with directions and after a few wrong turns we arrived outside it.


Stopping on the road for a few pictures we got our map out again to finalise our route back home.  Now I often tell people about the joys of travelling but also how friendly local people are.  As we stood by the side of the road a family pulled up in the car, noticing we had the maps out, and asked us in broken English if we were okay and did we need any help.  I could never imagine this happening to a group of Malays in the UK but in this country (and others that I've visited) people are so kind, so respectful and value looking after people, particularly visitors.


They gave us a few pointers and we were off heading straight back to the hotel, passing an amazing procession in the street too (the video of which is below).






As we got to the hotel, who did we find?  Eric.  It turned out that he ended up going to the same mall we did, pretty much at the same time and managed to find his way back!


Later that night we returned our bikes, grabbed some dinner and after quite a few beers by the water - and me securing a free Tiger Beer bottle opener after we all purchased what felt like a hundred bottles took a quiet walk home.


Sven and Gabby (pic from Jen)

(Left to Right): Emma, Jen, Naomi, Sven, Gabby, me and Nicole
All enjoying a few more beers 
Me and my 'well earned' bottle opener.

Gabby, Jen and I who walked behind the group saw a bar claiming to do Karaoke.  It was really late, we had an early start in the morning and thought to ourselves that we should head to bed and be fresh in the morning.  Jen was persistent and in a twelve angry men style (for you film lovers out there), she turned the jury round and we headed in.  The final premise on entering was that we will probably never ever get the opportunity to go to this bar again in our lives and therefore we should.  That sums up travelling in a way really.  Seize the moment, take every opportunity to experience new things.  And more importantly if it involves singing at a Karaoke then let's do it!



The night wasn't all that bad!
The bar itself was very local, and the people there (drunk and sober) were so welcoming and we had a really good time.  Now I have to be honest, I cannot remember how long we were there for and the short journey back to the hotel did not get stored in my mind.  Though I certainly remember the hangover in the morning!


Penang is a really good place to visit for a few days; there are lots of things to do and with the welcoming warmth of the local people you'll feel at ease and will want to return again.