City Homestay Ipoh

... right one! No one checked our tickets though.....
2 and a half hours later we arrived in Ipoh and went to a hotel recommended in the Lonely Planet - not a great recommendation and very over priced.....it was in a bit of a dodgy street - rooms rented by the hour next door and the "Wild Kitty Massage Club" across the road (and not a cat grooming establishment I understand ...

... Vooral een gesprek over de boze geesten in het regenwoud zal ik niet gauw vergeten. Bijna allemaal hadden ze het over concrete ervaringen in de jungle waarbij een geest de persoon in kwestie aanspoorde om een bepaalde richting uit te wandelen in het woud wat bijna gegarandeerd tot verdwalen en wanhoop zou leiden. Ze vertelden me dat het prevelen van enkele koranverzen en opperste concentratie de enige middelen zijn om de de geest weg te jagen en dat lukt meestal ...

... Highlands or Perhentian Island or vice versa) - No. 38, Jalan Besar, 39000, Tanah Rata, Cameron Highlands. http://kangtravels.googlepages.com or email kangravellershotel@hotemail.com). The tour and guide were great. It cost 88 R per person for the day. The morning was spent on a jungle trekking where we took a mini van to the jungle than transferred to a 4X4 ...

... Tom and I instantly smashed our heads against the side of the ride at quite a speed! Neither one of us knows quite how it happened, or who hit their head first, but it ****ing hurt! When Tom smacked his head, (the top side of his head), his vision went white for a few seconds, whilst I cracked my temple and the side of my face leading all the way down to my eye. I don't think I got hit as bad as Tom. All I remember is smashing my head, the tube flipping right over, then sliding ...

... minor uses, but eitherway are still a nice English tradition. After our one game of bowling we decided to have one more, only to find out that a bowling tournament (Tom: The local prison guards (at least I hope they were guards and not inmates!) vs. the Ministry of Trade!) was about to begin, so we couldn't play because it was for Muslims only :( (Tom: I asked if I could join and Mr. Chong said I would have to convert and change my name to Ishmael Tom Bin Abdullah ...

... various people. The bar usually shut around 03:00 but we managed to keep it open until around 06:00 and were dropped off by Murthy, a friend of Ganeson's who lived in Penang. He became a good friend and invited us to join him ...

... as she felt I needed to eat (maybe she knows me from another life?!), which was very considerate of her. After half an hour or so we were summoned to go and a nice man also travelling on the bus, ushered us one by one under the drivers umbrella to... the same bus! And in the torrential rain we set off to KL - I never found out what was supposedly wrong with the bus, but it got us there and that's all I cared about! There were 6 students on the bus who also invited me to ...

... LY purposely bought Chee Cheong Fun for us.. wa... thank you~~~! too bad you couldn't join us. Dinner was settled at a hawker centre, and YF, BY and I went to bought some Secret Recipe's cake secretly and wanted to give YS and LP a surprise. Two June birthday girls... Back to YS house, play the 'car racing' board game again, and BY said cannot play chess anymore, because she couldn't play, and she was sien~ ha...Played Loco Roco before sleeping.

What happens when you take Malaysia's most extensive hill station at 1300 meters with a cool climate valued by the british colonials, western tourists, and farmers for its cool climate and then fast forward it into the modern day third world? You get the Cameron Highlands which is a very interesting place whch we had heard quite a bit about but didn't really know what to expect. The good news is that the weather lived up to its reputation ...

... before. The next afternoon was lunch in old town, trying the local take on gu chung fun (a noodle dish), a visit to the old railway station (oh yeah, along with all the other cultures going on, Malaysia also used to be an English colony), and some semi-famous caves. And, that night, I went to a Chinese temple for the local version of the Vegetarian Festival where I saw a little Chinese opera. The next day was more ...