Now writing this in not so hot but very humid Malaysia. After one more day in Siem Reap we flew out of their very luxurious airport and into Kuala Lumpur - KL. In comparison to Cambodia KL was like stepping right back into the Western World, a really busy airport with starbucks, kfc, McDonalds etc everywhere and a bus trip to the centre on a big motorway full of expenisive looking western cars. The only thing that stopped me believing we hadn't made an accidental diversion to Europe was the tropical landscape with huge forests of what we think were mangrove trees (if Mangrove trees are stubby palm tree like things).
The actual city was great, mainly for the amount of cultures there who seem to exist together without any tension or problems. We were staying in China Town which was just a short walk away from Little India and in between there were lots of Malaysian food stalls. This was fantastic for the food as there were amazing stalls and restaurants everywhere you looked and with the amount of Chinese and Indian places around it was like eating really amazing takeaway for every meal. I tried to square this with my conscience by eating lots of the fresh fruit they sell everywhere at little stalls.
We had a few days there and seemed to spend most of it walking from place to place. On the cultural side we went to an Islamic arts museum (also the site of incredible arabic food market), an orchid garden and up the famous Petronas towers (a good view but for the privilige you have to sit through a ten minute brainwashing video on how great the petrol company petronas is, at the end I half expected them to say "now repeat after me . . " before we could go up). And then for one day of amazing non-culture we hit the shopping malls which are amazing. They put anything we have in the uk to shame as they are so huge and modern and everyone seemed to have amazing designer shops in it. There was one that came complete with a roller coaster and theme park rides and another that was so posh there were plush carpets everywhere and little groups of armchairs for the times when walking from Cartier, to Gucci to Alexander McQueen got too exhausting. We also found a cinema and for less than 2 pounds settled down to watch Sex and the City 2 (I was more excited in the queue for this than for Angkor wat but am pleased to say not as impressed).
Once our taste of civilisation at its best was satisfied we headed to the Cameron Highlands, an old British colonial hill station. This was amazing because with its height up in the hills it had a British climate that left us with the first naturally created goose bumps of the trip and gave us the luxury of sleeping without fan or air con and under 2 blankets! We visited a tea plantation here which was beautiful, it was like being in a tropical Switzerland, very green and hilly but with tea plants and palm trees everywhere. We had iced tea and scones and it was amazing!
The fact that while staying here we were sleeping in Nissan huts in 12 bedded dorms, (which, if you woke up in a confused state, would scare you into thinking you'd been conscripted into the army overnight)meant we only stayed a couple of nights and then came to current destination George town on an island called Penang.
Really like it here, at first it looks like a busy and quite ugly city and then you look more carefully at the buildings and realise why its a world heritage site. Because of the massive Chinese population and history here there are old Chinese shophouses (i wasn't sure what these were but was informed that they were shops that were also houses) which are all crumbling and beautiful looking often with shutters and vintage looking blinds. there are also some amazing chinese temples and mansions which are really ornate and incredible inside. They filmed the last King and I film here and its easy to see why, all you'd need to do is get rid of the windmill and fake flower covered rickshaws and a few tourists and you'd go back in time 150 years.
Continuing with the common theme here the food is amazing and its far easier to eat at street stalls and local restaurants here which is great as its far more atmospheric. Curry served on a banana leaf and eaten by the locals with their hands (we opted for cutlery) and chicken satay are probably the highlights. We're staying one more day, supposedly so we can visit a spice farm, but really because there's lot more local culture, ie. food, to be sampled...
