Just when I thought I'd seen the smallest guesthouse room ever, we checked in to our room at the Kang Traveler's Lodge in Tanah Rata. The room barely fit our two twin beds, but fortunately the door faces a grassy courtyard with a log picnic table, Buddha shrine, and a view of the rooftops below.
Tanah Rata is in the Cameron Highlands, where the elevation provides welcome relief from the thick tropical heat of the cities. The town itself is small, but it has everything a traveler could want - guesthouses, internet cafe, bank, and a row of various tasty and affordable Asian restaurants. There are also tour operators in every other storefront, offering day trips to places like tea plantations and strawberry farms - none of which we thought were tour-worthy, and some of which we ended up walking past later on our hikes anyway. Needless to say, we passed on the tours.
Each morning we set out for one of the dozen or so jungle treks that surround Tanah Rata, as depicted on an amusingly vague map we'd gotten from one of the tour offices. Most of the trails start in unexpected places, like behind a veterinary clinic or on someone's farm. Just when we thought we were lost or trespassing we'd find a trail head, where an ancient metal sign stood rusted and worn to a barely legible degree. The metal signs were sometimes supplemented by a newer wooden sign, usually pointed into the bush in a slightly different direction than the original. I'd read that it's not unusual for travelers to get lost in the highlands for days, and I could understand why. Each day we hiked for several hours through dense forest, climbing tangled tree roots up hillsides through some intense but fun terrain. With waterfalls and scenic views of the highlands, the hikes were rewarding - especially the part when we found our way back to town, dirty but in one piece.
After our hike, another daily activity was hanging out with our hostel's three resident puppies. Now about four weeks old, the puppies had been found in the jungle by a traveler and are being raised by the guest house's bartender. We'd take them out of their pen in the Jugle Bar and watch them play and stumble around awkwardly around the yard, as puppies do. They made my day every time.
In my travels I have gotten used to seeing American chain restaurants pretty much everywhere, but for some reason the Starbucks in small, fairly remote Tanah Rata really caught me off guard. I have to admit though, that after a few days of resisting I gave in to temptation and got myself a latte. The Starbucks was identical to any I'd ever seen, only with meat pies and squat toilets. The latte also cost the same as it would at home - which to put that in perspective, was almost as much as that night's accommodations and twice as much as I paid for dinner at the Indian restaurant next door. But since I hadn't had anything but instant coffee in weeks and there were no competing local coffee places, I thoroughly enjoyed the splurge.
Back in Kuala Lumpur, we spent our last day in Malaysia doing a day trip to the Batu Caves, just outside the city. Home to the largest Murugan (a Hindu diety) statue in the world, the caves are one of the most popular tourist sites in Malaysia. Usually a high tourist quotient takes away from the experience of a place, but today it made for people-watching that was just as interesting as the site itself. People from all over the world milled about the limestone caves, posing in front of the Hindu shrines throughout. At the entrance, vendors sold Hindu diety bumper stickers, colorful light-up signs, and cold drinks. Signs warning "Do not feed the monkeys" were largely ignored, with both parents and complete strangers snapping photos of their kids feeding them. Those that weren't being fed scurried up the cave walls, eyeing people expectantly and scavenging in the trash cans.
As I waited for Allie to come out, I bought an orange soda and sat at the top of the several story tall staircase leading up to the cave entrance, watching people exhaustedly reach the landing. I had almost finished the soda when all of a sudden a monkey came up beside me, grabbed it from my hands, threw the straw to the ground, and started drinking from the can. Once empty, he threw the can down the stairs and scampered off.
Meanwhile, I found Allie in mid-conversation with two Buddhist monks, clad in the usual orange robes. They were from Sri Lanka, and by far the most outgoing monks I'd ever seen. I was always under the impression that Buddhist monks were to avoid contact with women in public, and had acted accordingly when I see them around - but these guys contradicted every guidebook I'd read. We parted ways at the caves but ended up at the same Indian restaurant afterwards, where we talked about Buddhism and life as a monk over lunch, and on the bus all the way back to KL.
