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Welcome to the Jungle!
Entry 13 of 40 | show all | print this entry |
I barely escaped the sweltering dirty heat of KL and Melaka for the cool misty mountains of the Cameron Highlands.
I got back to KL just fine and went to buy a ticket up to the Cameron Highlands for the afternoon. Due to the Chinese New Year, all tickets were sold out. I really didn't want to spend another day in Kuala Lumpur, so I asked the girl behind the counter if there was any way to get there today. She said I could head to the restaurant where the bus would leave from and try to standby. So wearing my huge backpack I hike on over to the restaurant in the midday sun and am dying of thirst and dripping with sweat by the time I get there. I think it must have been over 100 degrees F - the kind of heat where standing still in the shade you sweat. I had some time to kill so I ordered a nice dish of Mee Goreng (spicy fried noodles with veggies and tofu) and had lunch. Here's the real problem with traveling alone - there isn't anyone to watch your stuff when you need to use the bathroom. Of course, this situation arises often for me as many of you probably know, but usually I don't have my huge backpack with me. You've never done a real squat, no matter what the trainer at the gym says, until you've tried to use an Asian toilet (read: Hole in the floor) while wearing a 40 pound backpack because there's nowhere to put it down and trying not to touch anything because it's disgustingly dirty.
Anyway - it's getting crowded outside of the restaurant, and I ask the guy taking tickets if it's possible to get on the bus. He tells me it's very full, and I should hope to have luck. Not a good sign. There were several other Westerners waiting for the bus: One couple (an American from North Carolina and a Brit) are teachers at an international school in Vietnam. They're living there for 2 years in Ho Chi Minh City and traveling the region while they're there. They met while teaching at an international school in Switzerland. The other girl there was a happy, cute French Canadian from Quebec. She is also traveling alone, though her Indonesian boyfriend with dreadlocks will be meeting her in Bali. She's going to meet his family for the first time, and she was repeating words from an Indonesian phrase book when I met her. So back to me baking in the sun and praying to get on the bus. The bus comes 15 minutes late and the sidewalk is packed, but still I don't give up - I'm getting on this bus. Everyone gets on and another guy and I are waiting, hoping. The ticket guy is taking his time and we're both standing there like beggars at the door of the bus. I had even asked the ticket guy if I paid him a bit more than the ticket, would it help my chances? He laughed but didn't say no. Finally he comes to the door of the bus and says - OK I have two seats and I could have jumped up and down for joy if I didn't have my huge bag and wasn't melted to the pavement. The seat he indicates for me is next to the French Canadian, Marianne. Perfect! I plop my huge bag next to the driver and practically skipped down the aisle - so relieved.
The bus ride was about 5 hours with a short toilet / food stop along the way. Marianne and I were feeling adventurous, so we bought a bunch of local food to try on the bus. The soy patties in a pastry wrap were a little odd, and the durian (huge smelly, spiky fruit) candies were as unique as the taste of fresh durian. It's prohibited in many public places and hotels because it has an almost rotten smell that's extremely potent, but it's everywhere the street vendors are in SE Asia and worth a taste.
The outskirts of KL are really interesting - it's like the suburbs only just began. There are cranes everywhere and a bunch of tall condo-looking buildings that seemed to repeat over and over again. Honestly, it was a brighter colored, vertical version of a new American subdivision. I guess it's a testament to the newness of the city that the suburbs are only just springing up. We passed palm plantations and climbed into the hills. The road is extremely narrow, and since people tend to drive wherever they please on the road, the huge bus honked every time it rounded a corner - which was about every 30 seconds. The drive up and around the mountain seemed never-ending. You couldn't sleep due to the rocking and turning of the bus (you had to hold on to stay in your seat) and it was dark by this point so you couldn't read or anything. Finally we arrived in the Cameron highlands, and Marianne and I almost got off with the hoard of locals at the first stop until a French couple stopped us and told us the town was Ringet, not Tanah Rata.
With only the Western tourists left, the bus continued on to Tanah Rata and we arrived at the small bus station with 3 little counters in the cool highlands. By now it was about 8:30 at night and there weren't any guesthouse vans waiting to greet our bus like we expected. There was a tour agent open, so we stopped in to ask where to stay. He said that almost everything was full, but offered to call around for us anyway - no charge. On the 5th call we had success and we were so relieved. The guesthouse was nice - a bonfire outside the small restaurant and TV room, and the owner knew everyone staying there's name and introduced us all to each other. I never expected to say I sat around a bonfire in Malaysia, but it was actually almost cold at night and you need the added warmth. It was a fantastic change from the sweltering city - I can see why KL residents come up here. Marianne and I shared a room that could be described as basic at best, but it was clean and the shared showers were hot (a necessity here). We threw our things down, had an uninspiring dinner and planned for the next day.
Up and out early in the morning, we booked a day tour to go to the highest mountain and the tea plantation, as well as some trekking. The beat up old Land Rover jeep picked us up and who was on the same tour but the couple from the KL bus up - too funny. There was also an Aussie and another British couple - all very friendly. The tea plantation was really cool and our guide explained how tea is grown and the different kinds of tea harvested. We tried the different teas - they have a sweet tea drink called tea talik that I really liked. I think it's basically just condensed milk and tea, but it was quite good. FYI - the tea they put in tea bags is often the dust left over from the processing of the good tea. Sometimes it's even swept off the floor. The flavored teas are the lowest grade of dust because the taste is masked anyway. I won't think of my grocery-store tea the same way again!
We went up and up to the mossy forest just below the peak. It was silent - nothing lived there except plants and a few insects, and all you could hear was the wind. It was only an hour long trek but it was muddy and we frequently had to climb over fallen trees and up and down the hills. One guy was wearing flip flops (don't know what he thought he was doing that day) and he was sliding everywhere until eventually one gave out and broke. He had to walk barefoot out of the forest - it looked pretty unpleasant. The forest is like something out of Jurassic park - it seems ancient. The trees don't grow tall because of the wind, but it's a solid canopy above, and they're all covered with hanging moss. The ground is spongy because it's not dirt but a carpet of thick moss that gives quite a bit as you walk on it. The mist is everywhere - it was like being in the middle of a cloud all the time. We went to the highest peak and couldn't see a thing for the mist but I guess it was cool anyway.
We stopped at a butterfly and insect farm on the way back - I have a funny picture with one of the gentle but huge residents that I'll put up when I can find a place to connect my camera again. We stopped for lunch at an indian place - very good - and were off again for the afternoon.
After a short trek to a small waterfall we went to visit and Aboriginal village. I hope that it wasn't at all authentic. There was row after row of government built housing - nice for them to have electricity and running water, but usually they have a village that they live in until the chief dies, then they bury him in the village, pack up and move to a new location with the new chief. Our guide told us that the chief and the high officials don't live in the government houses, but we didn't see their village. We pass many children staring at the car, many of whom looked about 7 years old but were holding even younger babies in sarong slings around their little bodies. We were supposed to have a demonstration of the blow pipe they used to hunt - a 6 foot long pipe that they fire little poisoned darts from. The man comes out to demonstrate for us, and Marianne and I laughed at how ridiculous the whole thing was. He's carrying a huge, rustic wooden tube but wearing plastic flip flops and a Polo tee shirt. He showed us how it was done and our guide made us try it - we both just wanted out of the absurd village.
We stopped at a beautiful Buddhist temple on the way back, and arrived just before prayers began. There were 6 huge gold statues in the entryway to the main temple, and the place was beautiful. We headed back to the town (one main road about 5 blocks long) and went directly to Twin Pines to get out of the muddy clothes and into a shower.
They have this fabulous dish / experience at some of the restaurants here called a Steamboat, and Marianne and I decided to go for it. It's basically a fondue-like thing where they put a huge divided pot on the table with a gas burner under it. There's Tom Yam (spicy soup) on one side and a chicken broth on the other. Then they bring out 2 plates piled high with raw food. One has several kinds of noodles, tofu and eggs. The other is a bed of vegetables completely covered with raw meats (chicken, beef) and seafoods (fish, squid, jellyfish, prawns, crab stick, fish balls - doughy looking ball about the size of a donut hole which are totally disgusting, and mussels). Surprisingly, I wasn't disgusted about this at all. It was fantastic. We put whatever we wanted into the spicy soup to cook and loved it. The huge Chinese family at the table next to us kept laughing and looking over at us - I'm not sure if it was the fact that these two little white girls were using chopsticks to eat the steamboat or what, but it was pretty funny. We where the only non-Chinese or Malay people in the restaurant. It was amazing if labor-intensive, and I highly recommend it - just steer clear of the fish balls.
After that we chilled by the bonfire drinking Tiger beer with the other people staying at our guesthouse - mainly Aussies and Swedes with a few Germans thrown in as well.
We really hadn't hiked that much the day before, so the next day we decided to do one of treks along the paths leading from the village into the jungle. Two Swedes wanted to do the same, so Soren, Soren, Marianne and I set off on our "medium" level trek. We found the first path no problem, and it was paved for a while as it lead next to a nice little waterfall. Then we saw the turnoff to the path we were planning to take - a steep vertical series of "steps" made by treeroots - each with a rise of > 2 feet. We couldn't see much beyond the first five vertical feet and we set off. Don't ever listen to a local's description of a trail. They drastically underestimate the difficulty foreigners that aren't used to the altitude. The first half of the trail had been described as an uphill climb with flat intervals - it turned out to be a 2 hour vertical scramble where you often had to use your hands to climb up the tree roots. Plus, we had no idea of how far we had to go so it was quite disheartening and we talked about whether to turn around several times. The path also wasn't clearly marked, and the few times we had options to turn we always went with the one that looked bigger or more worn and luckily ended up right. The thought of having to backtrack was enough to make Marianne and I send the boys ahead with instructions to come back to us if we were on the wrong trail. Plus, we were moving much more slowly - it's not easy to do the steep climb at this high of an altitude! I thought I was going to die from the exertion. The guys were experienced and fit, and even they were struggling.
Finally, we made it to the top where we found the trail we were supposed to take back down and we were all overjoyed that the trek was halfway over. My legs felt like jelly and I had to push myself up off the log when we had to get up from our rest. Going down was much easier, but by the end my legs had started to scream with the effort of not tumbling down the hill. Back in town we rewarded ourselves with ice cream and showers then went to lunch at an Indian restaurant where they serve your meal on a huge banana leaf instead of a plate. It was fantastic and we all felt great that we made it through the entire trek. That night I shared a pizza with an Irish guy - my legs were too sore to get up and walk to a restaurant. Surprisingly, it wasn't half bad - or maybe it was just that I really needed a break from Asian food.
Marianne headed North to Penang (beach resort island on the Western coast- hit by the Tsunami but back to normal now) and I went back to KL the next day so I can catch my early morning short flight to Singapore!
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