KOrea - Hanging in the south with little Kim's big brother South East Asia, Nepal, Korea

im sitting in the lounge at fathers guesthouse in  the cameron highlands, drinking my way through 2 liters of oran jus and eavesdropping the conversation across from me where the girl is just telling someone about how she accidentally took magic mushrooms in laos. mushrooms grow in cow shit. thats why you  spend the first hour laughing. this came out of a cows ass... where do you think the expression thats good shit came from. thanks bill.

so we left KL finally some time last week, our last day was freaking epic, but it worked out allright. we had gone to the nz embassy to ask about motorscooter liscencing and insurances and buying them and whatnot, and the woman couldnt really understand why we wanted to ride scooters round, kept trying to talk us into buying a car. but we dicided eventually that due to the burocracy and money involved, ane the difficulty of seilling them again at the end, that bussing to a place then renting scooters while there would be the best option. while at the embassy we mentioned that we hadnt been stamped into the country as our train never stopped after crossing into malaysia from singapore. the woman who had worry lines etched all over face (i think this country is causing her trouble) said that we had a huge problem, we needed a consular letter to the right people outlining our situaton. we paid for this letter, and took a cab the next day out to a fuckin CITY that the malaysian government has built 40 km out of town to house their various departments. it is huge ornate, new and really expensive looking. that is obviously where the money in this country goes. on the way our driver tried to convert me to hindu(ism?) while i tried to explain about the gaia hypothesis, and that perhaps a better definition for god is the earth itself. then he told me that i smell. fuck, it was never going to work, and i knew that i was doomed as soon as he started the religion discussion.  we pissed around for half an hour trying to find the right block. eventually found the building we needed. there was a reception in the front. the gir;l gave me directions then said "nice to meet you". bit nicer than the australian/nz service staff angst that im used to. so. blok 4GH or something. there is a market in the back selling fried food, sewing machines. clothes?? really odd. but we found our way up. went to the enquiries counter. were directed to the forms counter. got a form 12 to feed the guy later on. went to the cashier counter. paid our 1 ringit. went back to the enquiries counter. fed the guy our filled out form 12's. got a number. number got called. went up to counter 14. gave them our passports and consular letter and explained the situation. he took our shit. gave us each another number. we went to get lunch and a power root (epic name for a soft drink). went back. our numbers were called in due course. got our shit back with a shiny new malaysian visa. i actually think i preferred our last visa related bad experience. i kinda prefer cronic corruption to cronic burocracy.  at least you know where you stand, and you know that your money is going to some dude, and not into the governments gold lined palace.

so we made it back in time to catch the 1pm air con bus (the company name is unititty. we should have known better) to the cameron highlands. got on when the bus arrived half an hour late, and it was HOT. bus started moving, and it was still hot. and not really a dry heat. bill paxton would not have liked it. so there was no air conditioning. broken. we moved from the back seat to 2 rows forward where there was an open roof hing creating a cool (38 degree) breezee. then the transmission started making some onimous crunching noise, and ross started talking about molten metal flying around, and engine fires. argh. after 5 or so crunches, one of the back tyres blew out and scared the sweating jesus out of me. and prolly everyone else as well. he stopped, looked at it, then continued on. we stopped at a rest area and he told us half an hour. 3.5 hours later we had tried the food (disgusting laksa that tasted real strongly of fish), tried the jukebox (i put some foo fighters on, and the fuckers unplugged it) and even got bored of  the monkeys that were hanging out in the trees outside when they started eating plastic rubbish and styrofoam cups. they took the back of the bus apart, took the front apart, fixed none of the 4 big things that were wrong with it, and we negotiated a transfer to another bus that stank of diesel. they tried to not let us take our bags but we barged through and ripped them out of the hold, and piled onto the new (actually much older, but not chinese)  bus that took us 15 minutes down the road until the gear bag fucked out, and we drifted into a bus graveyard of sorts to try and hire another bus. it was getting later, and more rural, but you can only laugh. we were having visions of sleeping overnight on the bus fighting off atacks by determined gangs of savage monkeys sick of eating plastic, and hungering for the taste of human flesh, when the negotiations seemed to work and we piled onto our third bus. it cranked away and almost toppled over sideways as the saggy suspension tried to deal with the rutted track. our driver knew his shit though, and he steamed up the hill, overtaking trucks and all sorts of local traffic, even a school bus on the narrow mountain road. we finally made it to the top at about 9 pm about six hours late. fuck. give me a bike.