Melaka

Hey Melaka is great, when i finally arrived here. Had some right fun and games with the bus drivers at the bus station in KL one was trying to send me in one direction to buy a ticket and one was telling me to wait where i was to buy a ticket. Eventually my bags were loaded onto a bus and i was told to get on- still not got a ticket!

Just after we got off the motorway at the Melaka junction the driver pulls over and tells everyone to get off except for me and a Chinese chap (OK this is odd). He loads all the other passengers onto a different bus, they were not going to Melaka he was just bringing them this far as a favour to the other driver.. or some such randomness.

Anyway rather than take me all the way to the station he says he is going to drop me near my guest house which sounds great, its nearly 10pm. Anyway the Chinese guy got off the bus a few minutes ago and i am trying to get out of this 'will you be my friend?' conversation with the bus driver he wants my number so he can call me (He is telling me he cannot afford the 'fee' for the woman his family have found him and so he cannot marry her, oh and he sleeps on the bus). i am a little concerned about this conversation, especially when he admits he is actually driving in the opposite direction to the guest house.

He lets me off the bus at a petrol station with instructions to walk that way and ask for directions! nice! i think i would rather have gone to the bus station (if that was where he was going) there may have been taxis!

Its not actually too bad after about 5 Min's i get to a shop which fortunately for me is opposite the road i need to turn down, so far so good. 15 Min's later when i get to the end of this road i now do not know if i need to go left or right! OK so there is a small office open i am going in there- it turns out to be the head office of a water filter company who are having a birthday party in the back office (they actually sing happy birthday in English which i find rather odd!)

4 slices of cake, 2 bottles of water, 2 bags of crisps and much talk of Manchester United later the chaps at the water filter company drop me off at my guest house (another 10 minutes drive away!) and wish me happy travels- nice guys. Fortunately Jay and Malik the brothers who run Emily's Travellers Home are still up and i am shown to my room.

In the morning i get to eat all the toast and drink all the tea i want as breakfast, i also get to meet Playboy, he is the resident rabbit and has free range of the guest house gardens. This is a really fantastic place to stay its a converted Chinese shop house and the guys have made it into an unusual place with ponds full of fish and turtles, the showers are decked out to feel like jungle waterfalls and the coffee table converts into a BBQ!

So i like Melaka, the town is not massive you can go and see whats left of the old Portuguese Fort, they actually arrived before the Dutch. The Dutch soon got wind of them being there and took it from them so there are lots of old Dutch style buildings round the square and there is a windmill on a traffic island. Next to the square there is a fountain dedicated to Queen Victoria, the British had ousted the Dutch, but we were nice and gave it them back after a while!

The Maritime museum is in a replica of an old style dutch merchant ship, shipping is still big here with the Melaka straights being one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world!!

Of course there is China Town here with its weekend night market, it doesn't sell a lot but it does have an enormous karaoke stage at the end of one street which is very popular. During the day its interesting to walk around the shops and the temples here

This is a relaxed town and i really enjoyed the few days i spent here. Jay and Malik & Playboy were great hosts. I have no idea how we got onto the subject but we did sit up till 3am discussing Malik's own personal brand of religion which is something like a combination of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and the state of the world in general. Evolution is dismissed, doctors are shunned and the whole idea that the earth orbits the sun is a cause for hysterics- it was quite mind boggling.

From here it was very easy to get the bus into Singapore, and it only took a couple of hours to get there.

Kuala Lumpur

Sight seeing around Kuala Lumpur is really easy, they have a hop on hop off bus that travels around the city, the ticket is valid for 24hrs. It only goes one way round the city but there is a bus every half hour.


Fortunately there is a stop right outside my guest house. I have teamed up with a girl (Nicole) from Switzerland from my dorm as we are both only planning on being here for 2 nights.


The first place we get off has to be the market really doesn't it- might as well get the shopping out of the way. This is not a big fancy mall, there are loads of those this is a craft market full of little trinkets and handmade what nots!

The bus takes us past the Sultans Palace (i didn't even realise they still had one how bad is that!) you cannot go round the grounds here but the bus does do a handy 5 minute stop so you can take photos of the gates and the guards and get straight back on.

We also went to the lake gardens (the gardens themselves were actually closed) where they have lots of little 'farms' the butterfly farm is where i found out about the nasties in the Cameron Highlands, and we had a mooch around the hibiscus farm and the orchid farm. Not far from here is the State Mosque (closed for prayer- we are whipping through these sights!!) and the old railway station. Both the old station and the railway company head quarters were built by the British but in a very traditional Islamic style they are really quite impressive.

Merdeka Square is where Independence was declared on 31.08.1957. (Malaysia an i share a birthday you know!!) Its really a big grassed area with a flag pole and some fountains! The law courts are nice, again in the Islamic style and there is St Marys Church (The curator is very proud its 150 years old!)

Thankfully we didn't have to wait long for the bus it is raining again. We didn't get off the bus again until we got to the KL Tower. It would have been better to walk here from the guest house as it is supposed to have a bit of a rain forest at the base but we don't have enough time to do it that way. There is nothing much in the way entertainment in the tower but the view is nice, you can go up to the top for a fee but as we are planning on going up the Petronas towers tomorrow its back on the bus!!

Our last stop we decided should be China Town, this is actually a bit passed out guest house and so we have ridden through it already but nothing really gets started here until about half six. It is like one huge market selling fake sunglasses and watches. It covers a massive area and unfortunately doesn't sell anything much other than those sunglasses and watches. We did have some nice food here though.

So last day in KL and we are off to the Petronas Towers. if you want to go up to the sky bridge you have to arrive early to get a time slot. We arrived about 10am and will not be going up till 2.15pm just as well there is a huge shopping mall in the base of the towers.

The mall has everything from Prada and Tiffanys (saw a beautiful necklace in there!!) to Marks and Spencers and a massive food court on the top level.

Down on one of the lower levels Estee Lauder are doing a makeover session, my companion for the day signs up for this and i wait whilst she has her hair and make up done. before she can have the photos taken its time to head off up to the sky bridge

The views from here nice- we are on the 41st floor and can see lots of the places we visited yesterday on the tour bus. You get about 10 minutes on the bridge which is plenty before its back down in the super speedy lift.

Back to the fashion makeover, now at some point whilst waiting for Nicole and visiting the sky bridge i have decided that i want to have this makeover done too. Its not my usual thing but seems like fun so i have my face done (false eyelashes and all) and my hair curled before i was whisked into a changing room fitted out with a glamorous dress, which was probably very glamorous on some one else but i look like a fancy bag of potato's (its only head shots they are doing so they don't really care how the whole dress looks)

Once the photos were taken you get to pick one and have it printed, but not before they have airbrushed you to the extent that it no longer looks like you!! I do have all the other pictures they took on a disk though, i like these ones better they look like me!

So with my newly curled hair and my now not so nice makeup (the false eyelashes kept banging on my glasses so i had to take them off but that left funny lines in my eye makeup!!) I am now leaving Kuala Lumpur and heading south.

Ipoh, Kota Bharu & the Jungle Train

Any bus to or from the Cameron Highlands has to pass though Ipoh so as we both want the overnight bus to Kotah Baru we decide on an afternoon in Ipoh.

Its a pretty little town and we made our way round it within a couple of hours. There is the green in the middle where a cricket match was taking place, a crazy Victorian/Moorish style railway station now a hotel.


The most random thing was a clock tower monument to someone called James Birch, he was the first British Resident of Perak but was a bit unpopular and got himself murdered. The clock tower is quite pretty and has a frieze round it showing all the characters from world history who have contributed to the colonised world. As this is a Muslim country the figure of Mohammad has been painted out. This chap was so unpopular that the road the clock tower memorial stands one was renamed after one of his murderers!


so once we had seen all that we just so happened across an English style bar and spent the rest of the afternoon in there- Had a very nice steak and chips!! Am not impressed with the food here so far!

The journey to Kota Bharu was the coldest most uncomfortable journey ever. We arrived at about 5am and spent most of the morning catching up an sleep.

This is a good day to be in Kota Bharu there is a cultural festival- this town is billed as the most traditionally Malay in Malaysia!

There were displays of traditional music, dance and games. There was also a food festival just up the road- the festival of 100 rices!! The food here was really good, it was sort of like the good food show at the NEC in that restaurants, hotels and brands all had food to sample or buy. We had a job getting away from people who all wanted to give us food when we wanted to buy!

Every one wanted to chat it is a really friendly town. On the way back to the guest house one chap insisted on hugging the both of us. Felt quite guilty that we both immediately checked our bags!!!

The following morning Dana and i parted company she is off to the islands and i am having another day here (to do my washing- yay!) before getting the Jungle Train (ooh exciting)

Even though i told the guest house i would be needing to move to a single room rather than a twin i think they though i left when Dana did because they locked the room from the outside. I took me ten minutes of banging on the door before they let me out- i was dying for the loo!!

So i moved to a different room, threw my stuff in and set about using the washing facilities, that's 2 large buckets and a tap!

I had to be up for 5am the following morning for the Jungle Train, unfortunately i was not alone in my room last night, as i get to the train station i find my arms are covered in lots of little itchy bumps, apparently my back was too. Anywhere that had not been protected by my pajamas had been munched on.

I now know that the actually quite large, red (funny that) flat looking bugs that were climbing up the walls when i was leaving that morning were bed bugs. They do not live in the bed they live in cracks in the walls and skirting only making their way to the bed at night!! Nice!

So anyway it was still dark when i got on the train so i had a sleep till the sun came up. The idea of getting this 16 hr train journey to Kuala Lumpur is that it passes across the mountains, through jungle and villages. Well it certainly does that but most of the time the jungle has grown right up to the track so you cannot see much. I had approximately 2 1/2 hours of fantastic views.

There was a 2 hour wait for my connection at Gammas and i eventually arrived in Kuala Lumpur in time to go to bed!

Cameron Highlands

Well its supposed to be 5 hrs to get here, 7 hours after leaving George Town we arrive in the Cameron Highlands. We are staying in an area called Tanah Rata which is little more than a high street with a couple of places to eat and some shops.



I cannot say i am impressed with the places that do food here most of it is pre made and sitting around waiting to be ordered and so is served up cold.



Its cold up in the hills and it rains a lot (which is why the food really needs to be hot!). This is where all the English used to come for holidays to escape the heat of the low lands. The big thing here is strawberries, there are loads of strawberry farms and small shops offering 'real' Devonshire cream teas with strawberry jam!!! They also have a lot of tea plantations here.



for the first time on this trip i am using my sleeping bag it really is cold!! (have you caught on yet its cold?)



Armed with a map Dana and i head off to do a spot of trekking (taking Wans advise of route 9!) down past Robinson's Waterfall (very nice) and through some jungle. it only really took a couple of hours to make our way down to the road, and that included one wrong turn where we had to do some back tracking and lots of scrambling over/under fallen branches and a small stream! It was another 45Min's walk by road (uphill all the way) to get to the tea plantation i was totally worn out by the time we got to it and was very much in need of a nice cup of tea! (Boh TeaPlantation)



The views from here were lovely and the tea bushes were spread across the hills as far as you could see- they look like some crazy jig saw puzzle!



We didn't fancy heading back through the jungle and fortunately once we had made it back onto the main road a chap stopped and offered us a lift back to town for a small fee. On the way we passed a sign- 14k back to Tanah Rata by road- thank god for that lift!!!



Further in to the hills is another town Brinchang which is quite disappointing in that it is exactly like Tanah Rata. The walk back from there was nice though and we passed the old smoke house which looks like some one just plucked it out from Henley in Arden or Stratford upon Avon and dumped it on a random hill station in Malaysia!!



Later when i was in Kuala Lumpur i found out that Malaysia's biggest spiders (bite not poisonous but hair will give you a nasty rash) and its deadliest Scorpions (yes i mean deadly) both as big as your hand live in the Cameron Highlands. Thankfully i was completely unaware of this when i was scrabbling under logs and through leaf litter!!

George Town, Malaysia

Going across the border into Malaysia was quite exciting this is my first over land border crossing. It was really easy too. The mini bus drove us to the Thai customs were we were stamped out of the country and then drove us across what looked like a bridge to the Malaysian Customs where we had to take all our luggage to do the usual scans and stamps and that was it i was in Malaysia!

At first i couldn't quite put my finger on what was different we were driving through some fairly empty countryside it was quite flat and fairly green. Then it hit me- we were on a motorway! this is the first motorway i have been on since leaving the UK. The only thing that came close was the short journey along the expressway into Bangkok from the airport.

And there are no longer any corrugated slums along the side of the road, eventually i could see in the distance what looked like housing estates, admittedly in the middle of no where but short blocks of streets with houses!

The trip into George Town did not take very long in fact i think the whole trip including customs was probably only about 3-4 hours long.

George Town is not how it sounds, it is really a big place. I am staying in the China Town area in a hostel called Banana that was recommended to me by some chaps in Hat Yai who come here regularly to renew their Thai visas. The sun is starting to go down once i am checked in so i just have a little wonder around the local streets. Just round the corner outside the Chinese temple there is a stage set up and a play been acted out- it looks quite interesting with all the traditional Chinese costumes and obviously they are talking in Chinese!

At the end of the street is the Cathedral, a Church and across the road from that a nunnery. I also find the local mosque and a Hindu temple (though i had no idea that is what it was at the time) This is my first sight of a Hindu Temple and it is highly decorated, really lovely.

So the next day is the real sight seeing. There are two free hop on hop off tour buses here, one that does the historical sites and one that does the religious ones. As its Sunday neither of them are running so its a walking tour for me.

The first place i head for is the Fort Cornwallis. This is the landing point for Sir Frances Light and the British East India Company which led to George Town being the capital of British Malaysia. There are a whole load of impressive colonial buildings on the way, the fort is also closed today but that's OK as there is nothing inside except a mock up of and old campsite!

It is whilst wondering around the outside of the Fort that i meet Wan (at least that's what i think his name is- how awful is that!) He is an elderly Chinese Malaysian who gets chatting to me. He spent many years living in England with his English (Yorkshire) wife, first in Derbyshire and later in Sutton Coldfield of all places. He decides he would like to show me around his hometown.

Just behind the Fort is the the clock tower celebrating the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria, and just up from there is Malaysia's very own Downing Street. This is the financial district and is full of familiar banks such as HSBC and The Royal Bank of Scotland!

After much convincing i decide that i will let my new friend show me some of the sites further afield, i know this may sound like a really stupid thing to do but i like this guy and i don't feel any danger from him so i get in his car and we go first the Thai Buddhist Temple, OK so i have seen plenty of these but this one look different its does not have all the glitz of the ones in Thailand. Across the road from there is the Burmese Buddhist Temple which is totally different again.

Our next stop (after a quick drink in a seaside cafe) is a really beautiful Chinese Temple. My guide explains that these places are not really temples they are associations. Yes the Chinese population comes here to pray but there is more too it than that. Wan feels that the Chinese people in Malaysia are treated like second class citizens (which considering their hard work is what made Malaysia what it is today is despicable- obviously this is my guides bias opinion!) It is apparently much easier to get on in life as a Muslim and so if a Chinese child shows academic promise (backed up by report cards) the association will pay for them to receive a better education right through to university. I cannot say if this is how it is this is just how Wan views it.

The only place i have not been yet is a Mosque so that is next on my list. Wan drops me off at the main one (just around the corner from Banana) this is the only place of worship he will not enter he is going off to have a drink at Banana it turns out he knows the owners and may see me later. So i head off into the Mosque alone. I do of course cover up with the garments provided and have no sooner set foot in the place when i am accosted by a chap wanting to show me the way (religiously speaking of course) he is a nice chap and very earnest and given the amount of bad press Islam gets at the moment I don't blame him for wanting to explain it in a way that doesn't involve jihad or suicide bombers.

Whilst there a group of Muslim women arrived they spoke to my guide in absolutely perfect English, turns out they were from Iran and oh they were so pleased for me that i had come to the mosque to learn about Islam (?) they each shook my hand and smiled so much i felt quite guilty that i had really only just come to have a look about!! I managed to lose my guide when a group of unsuspecting Spanish tourists arrived and got myself back to the guest house quick!!

Wan was still there having a beer when i arrived so i sat with him for a bit and he told me more about his life (used to import Swiss watches for a living) and he has decided that we are going to Batu Ferringhi (the beach) for food.

Whilst sitting there we make a new friend- Dana!! (yay hi Dana finally caught up with you on the blog!) She is waiting for the bus to go to go somewhere (i forget now!) but its not working and we drag her along with us! Lol she couldn't get rid of me for about a week after that!!

We are both going to the Cameron Highlands next only i had planned tomorrow but Wan convinces me that it is better i stay in George Town another night and then Dana and i can go together- its better that way.

So we had a final dinner with Wan again the following evening and said our good byes and it was off to the Cameron Highlands!