...unless her name is Jeannot. Or at least that's what Cham the Chapati Man claims. Greetings friends! It's been a while since our last update, but fear not, we have been blazing our way through Malaysia and the Thai islands and have many Am-asian adventures to report.
None more intoxicating than our night in M.D. Curry House, Kuala Terrenganu, in the company of Cham - the man who taught the boss of Ferrari how to make the perfect chapati. An impressive claim, although not perhaps as impressive as if he'd taught him how to build cars or fine tune engines or something. Anyway, Cham had aslo met Elvis and Sean (pronounced Seen) Connery and was fond of serenading his female customers. Since we were the only customers, Jeannot was treated to a one on one performance of such classics as "It's Now or Never" and "Diamonds are for ever"!It was also through the medium of song that Cham made his startling claim that Jeannot's name translates to "Island" in Hindi. The song goes "Oh Jeannot, Jeannot, Jeannot, Oh Jeannot", which, for those of you who don't speak Hindi, means "Oh Island, Island, Island, Oh Island." You really had to be there to appreciat how much emotion one man could cram into such limited lyrics. Once we'd made this connection we were able to sing many other heartfelt Hindi classics such as "Oh my Jeannot in the sun" and "Jeannots in the stream". Good times!
Aside from chanters (or should that be chancers) like Cham, Malaysia has loads to offer the humble backpacker and we took in the historical town of Melaka, the waterfalls and lakes around Tasik Kenyir, and the beautiful beaches of Cherating and the Perhentian islands/ Perhentian Jeannots.
Next up were the Cameron Highlands. Famous for tea plantations and lush, rolling hills, it was a cracking contrast to the blissful beaches we'd just left. Humid, rainy and cold at night, it was like Scotland (with the added humidity of course). We hooked up with a local guide called Yam for an adventure into the hills, which included a trip to the BOH tea plantation. BOH is like the Tetley of Malaysia and the people who pick the tea are called the BOH Selectors. (Haw haw- Jeannot believed that - you'd think she would know better by now!)
Anyway, we had a pot of freshly picked tea and a cream scone (They do a lovely scone!) before heading further into the jungle for a special quest. Our objective was simple - find the biggest flower in the world. Although this sounds like an outlandish aim, it turned out that the world's largest flower - the Raffleasia (after Thomas Raffle) - was in bloom and only two hour's trek into the jungle interior. You know you've been travelling too long when a smiling stranger beckons you towards dense vegetation with his machete and you go without even conferring with one another. Needless to say, machete man was a good guy and lead us on our sweaty way. Have a swatch in the gallery (coming soon) at our big botanical find. It truly was a big old flower and it carried a bit of a nasty stench too, thus the reluctance on our part to get our heads too close in!
As a reward for our flower finding exploits, the villagers in machete man's village let us have a go of their blow pipes. Cue jokes about wacky baccy! No, not thsoe sort of blow pipes - the other sort. You know....the ones you fire poisonous darts from to kill things. We both managed to hit the target on the tree and there was even a stranage moment where everything went into slow motion and Bryan Adams popped up, singing that song from Robin Hood.
Our final stop in Malaysia was in Kuala Lumpur. We'd sepnt time there before on honeymoon, but we wanted to return to see Anthony's ex-colleague, housemate and honorary Scotsman, Greg. We spent a brilliant few days with Greg and his wife, Denise, who treated us to numerous curries, roti breads, tea tariks, Tiger beers, and our very own Indian outfits. Denise proved to be the Malaysian makeover queen and wouldn't let us leave without buying us the full outfit (right down to the earrings for Jeannot). All we need now is an Indian wedding to show off our new wares (Come on Raj! How's about it?) And so with a heavy heart (and an even heavier rucksack) we siad farewell to our lovely Malaysian friends for another few years and flew north to Thailand for a final stretch of R + R. And that's what we're doing right now. R-ing and r-ing. We do have more to tell and some great foaties to share, but the waiter just brought our drinks and we need to finish them before the massage in the Spa at 6, so until next time folks......Cheery bye!
