This is more like the good old times in Central America - flying through countries. After just 3 days in Singapore we jumped on the bus and got ourselves another stamp in the passport.
First stop was a town called Malacca - does not really matter about the correct spelling because so many different peoples have lived in this historically important port that we have seen it written in 4 or 5 different ways. The Indonesians have ruled here, the Thais have had a strong influence, the Dutch were the first Europeans, then the Portuguese, then the British, then the Japanese (briefly), back to the British and then finally part of the Federated Malay states.
We actually knew very little about Malacca before we arrived, bar it was a good half way stop between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. What we did know was that it was the capital of the Baba Nonya region and still had good examples of their architecture and (more importantly) their food. Baba Nonya is an ethnic group derived out of Chinese immigrants marrying into the local Malay families. We tried a couple of delicacies - most of which were spicy noodle based and Nicola tried the Durian. The Durian is a famed (sorry notorious) fruit in this neck of the woods - which smells so bad there are signs on public transport not permitting their consumption. Nicola had a special Durian concoction of shaved ice, kidney beans, some rubbery jelly type things and the Durian beast itself. The sage words seem to apply here - if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks - it is a duck. The Durian looks awful, smells awful and as Nicola found out - tastes ruddy awful too.
The Dutch have left a lasting imprint on Malacca - the main square is built in the Dutch style (pink clock tower, pink buildings) and they built also a small system of canals. A couple have recently been renovated and are slowly being turned in to a tourist attraction – with motorized gondolahs whizzing up and down them. This was the first of our activities in town - not very spectacular, but a good way of getting your bearings in a new place. The second was another revolving viewing gallery up a big pole! As you are getting the gist of - It was not the most exciting place in the world.
No matter - as is the life of a global gypsy - we just picked up our metaphorical tent and got on the real bus and headed for the capital - Kuala Lumpur.
Kuala Lumpur is, I would say, a more intense version of Singapore. A much larger poor population, less town planning, worse public transport system - but still just as hot and humid. Much as I dislike saying it - we spent much of the time in KL (as all the travellers call it) in a shopping mall! Not out of laziness, but because most people in KL exist in malls due to the heat. We also did the Petronas Towers, we went to the Islamic Arts Museum, we tried to go for some Malaysian tea (but the tea house had closed down)and we did a walking tour of all the historic sights - with me narrating (info from Lonely Planet guide book)
After the disappointment of the closed tea house and our cool northern European genes letting us down we decided to head for the Cameron Highlands - slightly further north (6 hours) but at an elevation of some 1500 meters. We booked the VIP bus, which turned out to be a very average mini-bus and after 4 hours on a motor-way and 2 hours on switch backs arrived at Tea central. We checked in and went straight to the first Tea House we saw - amazing green valley views, Tea bushes all around and proper cups of English breakfast tea - oh and maybe a couple of scones and jam each too. Did I mention the humidity had dropped to lovely (thats the real scientific metric point) and the temperature to English summer? It was very welcome.
As soon as we arrived at our hostel, grubby but I think it was the equivalent of GBP4.5 per night for both of us, we booked ourselves on to a day trip the following day.
We had such a good day - I will just briefly list what we did - Land Rover squelch up a jungle track, a 1.5 hour jungle trek, saw the biggest flower in the world (its actually a fungus!), swam in the fresh water waterfalls, went to local tribal village, blew local tribal blow-pipe (Nicola got bull’s-eye on her second dart, mine limped pathetically out of the pipe - apparently there is a technique), visited a strawberry farm, a Tea farm (and factory and a butterfly and insect house. I think in one day we managed to exhaust all the Cameron Highlands best bits - but what a day.
With nothing else to do - and Nicola itching for some picture postcard islands, surrounded by seas with out deadly sharks and jelly-fish (as in Oz) we got back in the VIP mini-bus and headed for the coast. Our final destination was the Perhentian Islands - off the east coast of Malaysia and specifically - Kecil (the Malay word for small). The islands were indeed picture postcard, but the weather did not really play ball - not terrible, but not sitting out in the sun/snorkeling weather. We had a lovely few days - just chilling out - reading, a bit of scrabble and formulating future plans.
As you leave the Perhetian Islands, the first town you hit back on the main land is called Kota Bharu. Kota Bharu is the Muslim capital of Malaysia – whilst the whole country is Islamic – Kota Bharu is traditionally the most devout region (they used to have single sex check out queues – butnot any more). We stopped off for the night markets, the traditional handicrafts and hoped for a cheaper cooking lesson than the ones offered in KL. When we arrived – we went straight to the local tourist information office and met a character. That character was called Roselan – a middle age Malay who had spent time living in both London and Paris and was now back in his home town as the director of tourism. He gave us a pointer for the places to go, sent us to a local cultural centre for local drumming, kite making and batik painting (all of which he co-ordinated) and then he took us to his house for a cookery class. We sort of thought there would be others and a more formal teaching area, but no – it was just his house! We bumped I to his son coming out of the shower as we came in to the front room! Any-way – with limited space he took us through 5 different recipes and then we sat down to eat them all. Whilst the format was a surprise – it was a very interesting evening and fun too – we learnt and tasted new meals and had the chance to talk to a local and see where and how he lived.
Next stop in Malaysia, was back to the west coast and another Island, but not for beach bumming, no for history and culture. Penang was the British port on the straits of Malacca prior to Raffles founding Singapore. The capital, Georgetown is a great bundle of Chinese shop-houses, British colonial influence and modern office blocks. We again popped to the local tea house for tea and scones, had lunch on the verandah of the Eastern and Oriental Hotel (sister hotel to Raffles, founded by the same family), did another Heywood narrated walking tour and organized our visas for our next country – Thailand.
Apologies for over use of lists and lack of charming narrative, but with so many experiences I have had to cut out some of the waffle. I hope it still gives you a feel for what we have been doing and there is enough rhetoric to keep you coming back for the next installment. Of which, we are in Bangkok at the moment but still have 2-3 weeks in Thailand, so the next up date will not be for a month or so.
