Langkawi
Arriving in the dark from the Koh Lipe
ferry, when I found a taxi I was a bit suspicious of the driver's
claims that almost every bed on the island was full. Lankawi is
right up in the north west of the peninsular part of Malaysia, and
for some reason enjoys duty free status. It's a popular holiday spot
for affluent Malaysians, and all very nicely manicured. That didn't
stop the taxi - doing about 60mph on a smooth dual carriageway in the
dark - from hitting a fairly large, dead dog, square on! The driver
just said "DOG" and slowed for a bit until he was happy
that there was still air in all the tyres.
But arriving at the place I'd planned
to stay, it turned out that he was right about the lack of rooms -
they were full, knew of nowhere empty, and just said "good luck,
I hope you can find somewhere"!
Eventually I did, but not quite in the
price bracket I was after - the Frangipani Eco Resort cost just over
ten times more per night than where I stayed on Koh Lipe, but it was
at least ten times more pleasant!
Anyway, all the busyness on the island
was down to the fact that Malaysia's huge and prestigious
every-other-year (what's the word for that?), arms trade show was in
full swing - I'd thought that something was up when I saw all the
warships dotted around the island as we sailed in!
The next day, the trade fair was open
to the public with a huge air show to draw in the crowds, so I
decided to brave the searing heat on the airport runway, and joined
the crowds to see the #1 attraction, the good old Red Arrows from
Blighty!
Having not seen them since I was a
little boy, the mixture of the excellent and crisp build up from the
RAF officer on the tannoy, then the awesome spectacle of the nine
hawks thundering around, weaving impossible looking shapes followed
by red, white and blue smoke trails got my national pride going, as
did the shouts of amazement from the Malaysian public and
miscellaneous arms dealers.
Nothing that followed them was anywhere
near as good, but the sudden ear splitting roar of three Malaysian
F18s coming down close over the crowd from behind, afterburners
blazing at what must have been near-supersonic speed scared the
living daylights out of me, with some people in the crowd around me
screaming and ducking before they knew what was going on. The
intimidating manoeuvres gave some inkling of how terrifying these
jets must be when they're used for what their made for. Later in the
hotel, a Swiss arms trader told me that the F18s' display, and
several of the other demonstrations were widely considered to be
highly dangerous, using manoeuvres over and towards the crowds that
have long been illegal in most countries. I can see why!
But otherwise the air show was very
slick and professional, until it finished in the only appropriate way
- the PA system was cranked up to 11, and the Top Gun theme tune
blasted across the runways!
Much of the rest of the hotel I stayed
in was occupied by the Red Arrows crew, but not the pilots and other
officers, who were in a posher resort. They were a good laugh in the
bar later on, and filled me in on the mechanics of how it's decided
where they do shows, and who pays for it (Rolls Royce and BAE pay
most of the expenses as it helps them sell their stuff to the foreign
governments).
Cameron Highlands
Getting from Langkawi to Cameron
Highlands was a mission, since there was a mass exodus at the end of
the arms fair, and school holidays had just begun. It involved a very
early start, many different forms of transport (ferry, coach, taxi,
minibus etc) and several hours of waiting around in a city called
Ipoh. But once I did get to Cameron Highlands, it was completely
different from Langkawi.
lots of legs!
Being at almost 2000m, it's cool by
Malaysian standards, but still warm enough for shorts and t-shirts in
mid-winter. Warm enough, but hardly dry - it rained for most of each
day I was there, but I suppose you can't have rainforests without
lots of rain! It was also the first place in almost three weeks
where I wore anything other than flip-flops on my feet.
Carnivorous plants
Met some great people there, and we
went exploring the jungle and tea plantations. Lots of tea is grown
in the Cameron Highlands, almost all owned by a company called Boh
(nothing to do with Ali G or Avid Merrion apparently!), set up in the
1920s by a Scotsman called JA Russel, whose family still own and run
the company. It's still the #1 tea brand in Malaysia, unlike
everywhere else I've visited, where the only tea drunk seems to be
Lipton's Yellow Label!
Anyway, did you know that black tea,
green tea and white tea all come from the same plant? I didn't.
Plenty other stuff is grown in the area too, including lots of
strawberries and other fruits, acres of orchids and tonnes of other
flowers, cacti, chives, lettuce, tomatoes etc. It seems that
anything you plant in the ground will grow fast and well.
Some of the growers have installed high
power lighting systems across huge areas of polytunneled fields for
24 hour growing, giving a bizarre Spielberg-ish glow to the mountains
at night.
Cameron Highlands boasts the highest
concentration of Land Rovers per capita in the world. Surely not
long before some parts of central London can take the top spot!
We also went to visit an Orang Asli
("Original People") tribal village in the jungle, and tried
our skills with a blowpipe. Our arrows weren't tipped in poison, but
we used a proper blowpipe, about a metre and a half long, and all
managed to pierce clean through a flip flop, several metres away.
They gave us some delicious food from the jungle, and our guide,
who'd lived in the village when he was younger, showed us all sorts
of medicinal plants, including a tiny flower which properly
anaesthetised your tongue for about 15 minutes.
As we left the village in our Land
Rover via the soaked and slippery mud road, the regular medical team
for the Orang Asli tribes were totally stuck in their lesser vehicle,
and a bunch of children from the village eventually managed to help
push them out. As we drove off, a group of young boys gave us sweet
smiles and waves to warm the hearts of all us Westerners. But then
once we'd passed, and they didn't realise that two of us were in the
back of the Land Rover and could still see them, the smiles turned to
grimaces and they showered us with obscene gestures!
Kuala Lumpur
Then on to Kuala Lumpur, which I still
refuse to call 'KL', because the oh-so-cool people who consider
themselves 'Proper Travellers' annoy me when someone asks 'So what
did you think of Kuala Lumpur?' and they reply with something like
"I'm a big fan of " <pause for effect> "KL.
Blah blah blah"
Unfortunately, it rained most of my
time there, but - as well as Christmas and other shopping - I got
about using the monorail (not as good as Bangkok's Skytrain, but
still pretty good) and went to the Chinatown markets and the Petronas
Towers, which are very impressive up close. But from the other side
of the city, you get an idea of how ridiculously tall they are, since
from a distance it becomes clear that the other nearby skyscrapers
aren't anything like as tall.
As with most places I've been since I
started, the historical influence of the British is clear, and in
Malaysia one of the many changes the British made was to introduce
large numbers of Indians and Chinese to the population, so the country's
an interesting mixture of original Malay, Indian and Chinese people,
languages, cultures cuisines and everything. But what made it dead
easy for me was that almost everyone spoke English!
Almost forgot - on Langkawi I caught a penguin, and forced him to pose with me!....
