Highlands and Islands Part I; Highlands

Again, it has been a while since I have written one of these, but I really havn’t had the time. I’ve been a hell of a distance in the last 3 weeks and done a huge amount of stuff. Let me see…

So, I took the bus up to the Cameron Highlands the day after I last posted on here, but I don’t really remember much of the journey, as I was asleep for most of it. I got talking to a lovely Alaskan girl called Tara, who had been teaching in Thailand for a few months. She had accommodation booked in Tanah Rata, the town in the Cameron Highlands we were aiming for, and so, I joined her at the guest house. The dorm I was in was fairly basic, but it did the job, and really felt like a travelers guesthouse; a long dormitory, with single squeaky beds that you had to walk past to get to nearly any other part of the hostel. Feels just like home now! We arrived at about midday, and having slept for most of the journey, and smelling the clean, fresh mountain air, I headed out almost immediately for a hike.

I was rather excited about this, as I hadn’t been for a good wander in months, mainly due to the danger of hiking in South East Asia with it’s mines and un-exploded ordinance. I asked the landlady where was good to walk, and she very kindly drew me a map, which was almost ordinance survey accurate! Off I went and soon found my way up to a rather serious and obviously infrequently used trail. I walked alone for what felt like hours, enjoying the trees and the fresh air and the freedom, before I began to feel that all was not right. I had seemed to have been walking for miles, and the sign I had followed said I should have been at the end of the track by now, according to my mental distance calculations. The track got harder and muddier, and even went down into a ravine, which looked like the ravine I had traversed in Listvyanka, only less Siberian and more Sub-tropical. Back up I went, and had to haul myself up the slope via a  rope that had been left for just that purpose. I really began to feel like this path was going somewhere I didn’t want it too. I continued on. Higher I went. Harder the path became. I really thought about turning back, and had literally given myself 10 more minutes walking before I planned to re-trace my steps, when I came unexpectedly on a clearing with what looked like a motorway sign it was that big, telling me that the peak of the hill I was climbing was 0.2 km away, and the town I had come from was down another path, only 3 km away. Oh. Right. So much for doubting. I had however been walking for a good 3 hours by this point, and apparently it was 5 km back to where I had started! Somehow, I don’t believe this! Anyway, I rested at the top and made my way back to the town and then on to the guest house. On the way, I had to pass one of Cameron Highlands glut of strawberry farms and as no-one was around, I snook, (snuck, snuk?) I creeped in and stole a strawberry. To be honest, I’ve had better, and even the thrill of thievery didn’t improve the bland tasteless fruit.

Back at the hostel, I was getting changed, ready for and wanting my nice warm shower, and who should walk past, but Mr Rob Gummer! I have met Rob many times on my travels, firstly in a cave in Vietnam, and then randomly in various cities throughout that country and then again in Phnom Pehn. We had organised to meet up in Georgetown and had had a beer. He had moved on to the Highlands a couple of days before me, but other than that I had no idea he would be in Tanah Rata, let alone staying at the same place as me! It was great to catch up with him again, and after I had had my shower, joy of joys, Rob, Tara and I headed out for dinner, to one of the many Indian run restaurants along the main road.

Malaysia is a very intriguing country, with a wonderful mix of Chinese and Indian culture. It is a country where nearly every religion is celebrated, from Buddhism and Taoism from China, Christianity from the West, and Islam, Sikhism and Hinduism from Central Asia. This also means that there is a wonderful mix of foods as well, and in most restaurants, you can get incredible Chinese AND Indian food! Heaven. I was particularly taken by a drink that Rob introduced to me as “Masala Tea”, a milky tea with legion spices, from cardamom to cinnamon and clove, and so many more that none of us could recognize. It tasted like Christmas in a glass, and was the perfect drink for the cold Highland nights, after a big hearty curry or bowl of noodles. I don’t jest about the cold Highland nights either. I was forced to put on trousers and my fleece! The horror! I knew I had kept them for a reason. To be honest though, it was actually nice to be cold for a change. It sounds crazy, but I have been in a state of constant sweat since I hit China, and other than one or too nights up various mountains I really havn’t been able to cool down much in the last 6 months.

The next morning the three of us decided to rent some motorbikes and head out into the countryside. The Cameron Highlands are famous for their tea-plantations, and apparently for their strawberry farms, so we set out on 2 bikes instead of 3, as they were rather expensive. When we had hired them, the lady that rented them to us showed us a map of where we could go. She explicitly said we should NOT try to get up one of the hills to the north, although there was a road, as firstly the bikes were not strong enough to make it up the hill, and secondly that we weren’t insured to go up it. So what was the first thing we did when we were out of the town? That’s right! On the way to the hill, we passed a Finnish girl called Anna, from our guesthouse, so she jumped on the back of Rob’s bike. So with Rob and Anna on one and Tara and I on the other, the 2 bikes labored up the hill, mainly in first gear. It wasn’t a particularly steep hill, but obviously it was steep enough, as before long, the bikes just didn’t want to go any further. Rob preceded to punctuate this by driving slowly and inexorably into a ditch! Good man points!

We made the unanimous decision that it would not be a good thing to try and force the bikes to go any further up the hill, so parked them by the road and walked the rest of the way. The sign makers of Tanah Rata really need to figure out how far a kilometer actually is, as again, we were walking for a very long time, and much further than the signs indicated before we got to the top. Here we found the “Mossy Forest”, which was a, ahem, mossy forest. ‘Nuff said. There sadly wasn’t all that much to see, as the mountain was shrouded in cloud, but it is noteworthy that we had reached 6,666 ft! On the way down we got talking to a nice Malaysian family (the 10 year old daughter had a picture of a robot farting on her t-shirt!) and the kindly father offered us all a lift in the back of his pick-up. This really helped us save time getting back to the bikes, but danger lay ahead.

As we turned a corner and were nearly back at the bikes, a hornet was sucked over the top of the pick-up and in the wash of the vehicle, got stuck in Tara’s hair. It proceeded to sting her in the head, before launching itself at Rob’s arm. Anna batted it away, but it gave chase, keeping up with the vehicle and getting stuck in Rob’s hair! He managed to brush it off before it stung him a second time, but by the time we reached the bikes both victims were in considerable pain. We found out later that they had been attacked by the Asian Giant Hornet, the biggest hornet in the world, which can kill up to 40 normal bees in 60 seconds, has multiple types of chemicals in it’s sting, including one to dissolve flesh (!) and one to attract other hornets. We also found that if you are allergic to them you can go into anaphylactic shock! Fun for all the family! Luckily, neither of the patients were allergic, but it did make them both rather grouchy for the rest of the day, and also made their various wounds swell up and become rather achey.

The rest of the day was spent zipping around on the bikes, exploring the tea-plantations and inventing a new game, “Tea-bushing” which is basically planking but on a tea bush… One thing that we did do was to visit a butterfly farm. This in itself, was possibly the best and worst thing about the entire trip to Malaysia. We entered, having payed some obligatory fee. Looking around, there were not the swarms of butterflies fluttering around as I had expected. There werw a couple, and they were more flopping than fluttering. At first, we all thought that the butterflies were dead. None moved and they clung to the various flowers they were on without moving, or feeding, or anything. Eventually one fell off it’s perch and proceeded to flop around the floor before it stopped moving altogether. Rather depressing. The rest of the exhibits weren’t much better, from chickens and ducks in tiny cages, to scorpions that people kept throwing coins at for some crazy reason. It was so awful it was a little funny, in a morbid, macabre sort of way. We left feeling perplexed and confused.

We finished the day off with a pint of Guinness and a lovely meal in a rather posh country house called Ye Olde Smokehouse (I jest not) and then a mad dash in the dark to get petrol and bring the bikes back before the shop closed. Sadly, my bike didn’t have lights, so it was a very mad dash. I basically drove within touching distance of Rob, which was probably not all that wise, as he didn’t have rear lights, so every time he braked, I nearly rear ended him! We made it back in one piece and even got back just in time. Phew.

The next day, Anna and Tara departed, leaving Rob and I to our own devices. We tried to go hiking, but found that the hikes that were on our printed map were not as accurate as the drawn one from the guesthouse. At one point, we bumbled out of the jungle, expecting to be near the top of a mountain, but were actually in someones back garden, down in the next valley to Tanah Rata! We hiked back along another annoyingly short trek and spent the rest of the afternoon chilling out in the guesthouse. I had a nap because apparently Tom Clancey is a wonderful soporific!

The next day, after we had had our obligatory breakfast of pancakes and Masala tea, we caught a bus to Kuala Lumpur. This may have been the most comfortably luxurious bus I have ever been on, with air-con at the right temperature, a comfy reclining seat, and LEG ROOM, something, even for a short person, I have come to crave on these long bus and train journeys. Sadly, the journey through the Highlands was over very quickly and we arrived in KL by mid afternoon. We found our bearings and made it to a guest house pretty quickly, before heading straight out to get some food in the local market. As we were eating, a thunderstorm erupted over our heads, like nothing I have seen. Within seconds of the first drops falling the locals had pulled all of their wares under umbrellas and tarpaulins and lifted everything off the street, including us! This was a good thing, as within 4 minutes the air had turned to water and the street had become a rapid river. We stayed in the cafe we were in for about an hour, watching the tide slowly rise above the kerb, before making a mad, soaking dash back to our hotel. This became a regular feature of my stay in KL, and as the clock struck 4, pretty much to the minute, the heavens would open for a few hours, saturating the city, and making it virtually impossible to do anything but sit somewhere comfortable with beer. No problems there then.

That night, Rob and I donned our glad rags and headed out to paint the town red. I say glad rags… Rob is rather more refined and dapper than myself and had nice jeans, a clean (and ironed) shirt and shoes, nice, black dress shoes. My best was a pair of very obvious hiking trousers, complete with knee pads, a ratty old Chinese shirt I had bought in Beijing, and the only pair of shoes I have owned in the last 8 months, a pair of well worn Merrells. But I suppose it’s not about the clothes, it’s about how you wear them!

We took a taxi to the nightlife hub of KL, with the intention of meeting up with my friend Omar, who I had met in Ho Chi Minh City, so many months ago back in Vietnam. We didn’t find him at first, but when we did, he was somewhat busy with a girl, so we let him be and went on. The night was alright, but it was not until the lights came up and we were about to leave that the fun happened. As we were walking out, we passed a group of very attractive local girls and we got talking to them. After a little while one asked if we would like to join them at an all night book fair. A what? Yes, a 24 hour book warehouse, with knock-down priced books. By this point it was about half 2 in the morning, and nothing sounded better than getting in a car with 4 complete strangers and going across Kuala Lumpur to an unknown destination with a potential book sale. At half 2 in the morning. I still struggle to believe it actualy happened, as it was such a very surreal experience.

We all piled into one of the girls cars and off we went, 2 in the front and 4 of us squeezed in the back. The journey there must have taken a good hour all in, and we had to pass various check points. At one of these check points, a policeman pulled us over and shined his torch into the back. The 4 of us grinned inanely, well aware that not a one of us had a seat-belt on, and were sitting on top of one another. The policeman smiled and waved us on, with a shrug. Why did he even stop us? What was the actual point? Finally we arrived at a vast shopping complex and we parked and entered. The bookshop was everything that had been promised; a gigantic warehouse full of books, open all night, and it was packed! There were people wandering around with TROLLEY loads of books, armfuls and boxes full of every title you could think of. To my shame, I didn’t get any, as none piqued my interest, but Rob managed to find one to add to his already ridiculously big traveling library and the girls joined the throngs of mass book buyers, filling the car. It was a singular experience to see these glamorous girls in their best going-out gear, high heels and short skirts, struggling under mounds of books on cooking and philosophy and gardening and a plethora of other subjects, as well as the mounds of novels they had picked up, surrounded by people in tracksuit bottoms doing the exact same thing, waiting in cues in a gigantic warehouse, at 5 o’clock on a Saturday morning, bathed in the sterile glow of halogen strip lighting. Certainly one of the odder experiences of my trip to date.

We arrived home as it was getting light, and slept for a good portion of the day, before going to meet Robs friend, Chris, who had traveled up from Singapore for the day to meet him. The 3 of us spent the afternoon in a bar, carousing and generally making nuisances of ourselves, before heading back out to the clubs. We did managed to meet up with Omar this time, and he joined us in our merrymaking. Back at Havana we met a bevvy of local beauties and danced the night away with them, separating off to go to a different club, all of us failing, and then somehow rejoining again at a night food stall. The abilities of the human internal radar when drunk are astounding! Either way, it was a very good night, and not a book in sight!

I spent one more day in KL, doing very little other than nursing a 2 day hangover and organising my travel up back to Thailand. This was the beginning of my trip back on myself, up to Luang Prabang for Christmas and New Years. I organised a bus to Hat Yai, a travel hub just north of the Thai-Malay border. This is supposed to be in the official “No-Go” zone, as there are some troubles on the border, but for the few hours I was there, I saw nothing of this, and actually regretted not staying for longer, as I didn’t see any other falang! I arrived into the town and within half an hour had booked my onward travel to Koh Tao, another long bus journey followed by a 4 hour boat. In all, from KL to Koh Tao, I was traveling for 24 hours, of which I slept for about 3. A good way to show up on a paradisaical island and begin to do a serious qualification in diving! But I will rest here for the time being, and will impart my aqueous adventures to you in the second part of this post, which shall be up, hopefully, in the next week.

Travel Well,

And remember, come back to find out what happened in Part II; Islands.