Eating and trekking
Trip Start
Nov 01, 2004
1
4
51
Trip End
??? ??, 2006
Where I stayed
Cameron Highlands,
Malaysia
Friday, November 12, 2004
Once again the food has been a major highlight. In a Chinese restaurant we got the local speciality - Steamboat. A boiling pot of Chinese soups (Tom Yam and Chicken in our case) is put on a heater on your table. Then they bring out plates and plates of food that you cook yourself. Our steamboat had beef, chicken, noodles, eggs, tofu, vegetables, fish, prawns, oysters, cuttlefish, jellyfish and loads of other stuff I've forgotten. Cooking food at your table yourself probably breaks ever health and safety rule going but it was delicious - and only 15 ringits (3 euros) each
Brian Picking Tea Leaves
. It took us two hours to eat it all.All the local Chinese in the restaurant were eating steamboat accompanied by their favorite drink - Guinness with ice. We've seen it everywhere in Malaysia. There was even a can of the stuff in a Hindu temple as an offering to the god.
The other food highlight (yes - we do spend most of our days either eating nice food or discussing where we should go to get the net meal) was a delicious Indian meal served on as huge banana leaf and eaten with our fingers. Messy and nice.
When we weren't eating we visited a lot of farms - tea, bees, butterflies, flowers, cactus, etc. But the best thing we did was a jungle trek through the mountains. Our guide Kali was 62 years old and hiked 20 kilometers every day accompanied by the guesthouse dog and any guests that wanted to go along. That day there was myself and Brian and five Germans on the trip. We had met two of them before in Melaka. The trek was hard work in the heat and we were walking for about 7 hours in total.
For lunch we stopped at a waterfall and pool for a picnic and swim
Buddha tiles in Chinese Temple
. Only myself, Brian and one of the German girls wanted to swim. While us Irish tried to change into our swimming gear without exposing an inch of indecent flesh the German girl just stripped off and stayed naked. It didn't really bother us although when she wanted photos of us all hugging in the pool it was a tad awkward. In fairness to the girl she had a great body and Brian even noticed an unusual piercing that she had. Our guide was mortified the whole time. This is a country where 60% of the women where veils. And the public indecency laws are quite strict - I think they even banned Ally McBeal a couple of years ago. If we weren't in the depths of the jungle at the time she could've been sent to jail for a couple of years or at least got a few strokes of the rotan (Malaysian whip used for official corporal punishment). We're now headed for the island of Penang - and so are the German girls. I'll keep you updated on any future naked events.
