Malaysia - Perentian Paradise and Cameron Highland
Trip Start
Aug 21, 2007
1
9
27
Trip End
Dec 20, 2007
Kota Bahru,
Malaysia
Monday, September 24, 2007
A German poem to mark our first month travelling:
Schon fast vier Wochen sind vorbei
doch war es keine Hetzerei,
es laeuft gemaechlich fuer uns zwei
und dennoch seh'n wir allerlei.
Schon reichlich Urwald wurd' durchschritten
und mancher Biss und Stich erlitten,
wir haben Elephant geritten
und uns noch nicht so recht gestritten
Hot boogie chillen
.Der Tempel zahllose besichtigt,
auf weit're wird zunaechst verzichtigt,
stattdessen Strandurlaub - so richtig!
bevor wir wieder wandern tuechtig.
Wir denken viel noch an zu Haus,
ja, etwas Heimweh bleibt nicht aus.
Wir freu'n uns schon auf Weihnachtsschmaus
mit Eltern, Freunden, Nikolaus!
Smuggling Bjoern back into Thailand from Siem Reap in
Cambodia by taxi was uncomplicated. We then took the public bus back into
Bangkok and the pristine and ultramodern subway to the central station
OUR place
. Therewe wanted to arrange travel to the Malaysian border. A friendly official
advised us to take the train the next day, the only train that went straight to
the border town of Sungai Kolok without us having to transfer to buses on the
way. He recommended this as the safest option to quickly bypass the 4 southern
muslim Thai provinces where separatists regularly bomb the Thai authorities. In
fact only last week a teacher was killed in one such terrorist attack. We were
only too happy to oblige.
This also meant that we could stay in Bangkok a
further night and that we would be able to attend the German guided tour of the
Thai National Museum the next morning (only once weekly on a Thursday morning).
This was led by Tina and Michaela, two wives of German managers in Bangkok
Civet cat having a climb
.Thailand has a policy that does not permit the spouses of foreigners employed
in the country to work. This seems very harsh, but Tina and Michaela were ok
with the situation and said they kept well busy with, e.g., charitable work.
The tour comes much recommended as it gives good insights into the history of
the Thai culture and also present customs such as the royal funeral rites.
Highly interesting stuff!
The 22 hour night train journey was uneventful. In hindsight
we were glad that we did all of our traveling between Thailand, Cambodia and
mainland Malaysia by land, even if it did drag on a bit, in the light of last
weeks' plane crash in Phuket that killed over 90 passengers, mostly travelers...
Perentian Paradise and high altitude training in the Cameron Highlands
Once in Malaysia we traveled straight to the Perentian
Islands off the east coast of Malaysia
Robinson Crusoe Oasis
. We purposefully avoided any islandsoff the west coasts of Thailand and Malaysia due to the present stronger
monsoons there. In total we spent 10 days on Pulau Perentian Kecil, a small
Island with several budget resorts and a local fishermen's village surrounded
by coral-rich seas. No internet, only generator power at night to keep lights
and fans going, no roads. This was to be our proper relaxing beach bumming
honeymoon. And it truly was!
Our first resort, D'Lagoon, was on a secluded lagoon with
incredible snorkeling. We met 4 German "Regional Sciences Southeast Asia"
students from Bonn on an expedition, one of which knew Berni's girlfriend Olga
who's presently in Jakarta and whom we sadly cannot visit. A recurring true-ism
on this journey is: the world really is small! We also met Melissa, Campbell,
Mike and Laura from (predominately) New Zealand who gave us a great
introduction to the local wildlife.
After 3 days there the prevailing insect species, aedes aegyptii mosquitos, motivated us to move to Mira beach
Restaurant sign
. This was a lovely, equally secluded sandy sunset beach with only 8 chalets. We managed to get a cozy chalet right at the seafront for an incredible 30 ringit (9 dollars) a night!!! Our neighbours and fellow honeymooners Ron and Vinske from Holland had a similarly fantastic view as we did. We spent our days snorkeling, kayaking, hiking, playing volleyball, eating local cuisine (Mama's restaurant at Coral Bay comes much recommended) and drinking fruit and Snickers and Mars milk shakes. Ahh, what a treat. On the downside I lost 300 Ringit out of my pocket while snorkeling. This could well have lasted the two of us 5 days of full board...The people we met were lovely and well traveled. We got lots
of advice for our onward travel from the lovely Lenzinger family from Zurich
and their friends Lena and Zena as well as from Leandra (see link to her blog)
and Aaron.
The animalistic highlights were:
- the abundance of reef fish, and being engulfed in a cloud of
fish trying to all nibble at some crackers we were feeding them
- swimming with 1.5m green turtles: what an experience!!
Morning gym
! - veryleathery and ever so wise and majestic
- soaring amidst a school of about 25 1.5m double headed parrot
fish, true giants of the sea and major coral munchers as well as sand
producers, churning great amounts of misty ground coral out their rear end.
- Finding Nemos: lots of different types of anemone fish and
especially the inquisitive clownfish (a.k.a. Nemo) that come out of their
anemone as you draw closer (just like in the movie!) and may even rest on the
palm of your outstretched hand.
Other animals we saw:
On land: countless geckos, tree frogs, monitor lizards (up to 2m in length), red-bellied squirrels (chewed through many fellow travellers' backpacks), bats, a black snake, quazillion ants from miniscule pin-point to (I kid you not) 3 cm length, a giant moth, crabs and sand lice, pet monkeys used for climbing trees to harvest coconuts and to scale Regines to harvest hair ties. I in turn was scaled by a semi-tame civet cat, a nocturnally active mix between a cat, a ferret and a squirrel
High altitude training
.In the water: colourful hard and soft coral, sea cucumbers
(for novelty value: impress the ladies and take 'em out of the water, hold em
to your groin and they "pee" a good strong stream out of their front end -
immediate popularity guaranteed!), colourful tube worms, clams and anemones.
Several 2m long black-tipped reef sharks (Regine saw much more than we did in
the murky water as she watched them circle us snorklers from the shore...),
blue-spotted fantail stingrays, moray eels, a giant 2m barracuda as well as
multiple smaller ones, giant 1.5m Napoleon wrasses as well as their colourful
smaller cousins; numerous parrotfish, batfish, angelfish, butterfly fish, sleeping big eyes, dutiful cleaner fish, a swarm of electric fish (emiting arcs of bright light when they turned) and a boxfish as well as many species I would never be able to name
Cameron Highlands
. On leaving the island we sparked an outright mutiny on board the fast boat ferry. When we got on it was already overloaded with 22 people and pretty lopsided. We started grumbling about capacity overload and when we reached max occupation of 28 and the skipper was still letting people board our concerns bubbled over to the other passengers some of which insisted on getting off. It didn't help the skipper when he admitted he wasn't insured at all or when one of the other passengers found the ship's licence certifying a maximum capacity of 10 passengers (!!). We shoo'd all other prospective passengers away and insisted on an immediate departure to the mainland 15 km away. Boy, were we glad to be back on firm soil!
The Malaysians are an interesting people. They consist of three major ethnicities: indigenous Malaysians, Chinese and Indian Malaysians. This goes back to the former British rule which encouraged Indian and Chinese immigration. There were major racial clashes in the 60s, but since all ethnicities and religions work harmoniously side-by-side
2 methods of tea picking
. There are laws to keep ethnicity ratios at schools and universities as well as in major companies in accordance with their respective percentage of the population. This may make sense to keep the balance if you observe, e.g., the difference in the traditionally very competitive Chinese mentality as opposed to the extremely laid back Malaysians. As it's Ramadan at the moment, the country's muslim majority has gone into a one month-long grand siesta. And you sure can't blame them considering you're not aloud to drink or eat during daylight ours in the scorching sun of late summer...This year Malaysia is celebrating its 50 year independence from Britain. It is great to see the display of national pride with flags soaring everywhere! This ethnic mix is alluring when you walk the streets of Malaysia where Chinese, Malaysian muslims with white hat and headscarf and Indians with forehead bindis and traditional saris mingle in a dazzling display of colours and fashion. And then there's the food. We chose the countries we're traveling based on the food we liked and Malaysia, like the others so far, is a tastebud thriller par excellence. Peanuty satay skewers,
spicy sambal dishes, salty and lemon-honey fish, doughy Roti canai in chili
sauce, Chinese pork soups and so-called "steam boats", similar to a meat
fondue, chilis, curries and then the deserts: unexplainable taste-explosions
based on dough, rice and voodoo-esque secret culinary magic zest-o-rama
tea fields
.And the people are really friendly and not pushy at all. That makes Malaysia a great place to take your kids and just relax. In fact, they're so laid back, you almost have to convince them to sell you something when you've been hovering in front of their stand for a while.
Another interesting factoid while we're reminiscing on a common theme is that Thailand, Cambodia and Malaysia have all borrowed the red, white and blue tricolore colours from the grand powers of France, UK and the USA to also make up their flags...check it out.
We are now in Tana Rata in the Cameron Highlands in central mainland Malaysia. This is a much cooler area at between 1300 and 2000 meters above sea level. We even got out our sweaters for the first time since The area is best known for its tea plantations, but is also the site of various fruit, vegetable and flower farms. A bit like Holland, only with hills. All these are embedded in the jungle which in turn makes for excellent walking without the stifling humidity of the lowlands
Malaysian street food - note the blue rice
. Our main reason for a stop here is high altitude training for our upcoming climb of Gunung Kinabalu, at 4101m the highest peak between the Himalayas and New Guinea. We did an adventurous hike today which brought us through the jungle, villages of friendly indigenous Orang Asli people and through vegetable as well as one of the local teaplantations. We treated ourselves to some delicious local Orange Pekoe black
tea as well as a lemon ice tea almost as good as mom's. On the way back we stumbled across the Christian cemetary. This only consisted of a mere smattering of graves of mainly Indian and Chinese Christians of which no-one seems to have surpassed their 60th birthday.
It's great here and we again have a lovely guest house: "Father's" with very friendly and helpful hosts in a beautiful location incorporating some old British army Nissen huts as dorms across from a Christian convent school. A great place! The whole area is somewhat of a mock-tudor theme park . There's even "Ye Olde Smokehouse" serving up scones and English food. Locals and foreigners alike love it here and the whole area is very well kempt.
25/9/07:
Day two of high altitude training: We met Feng from Zhengzhou in China at the base of our trek and were surprised to converse with him in German and English. Thank God, considering the state of our Chinese so far... He joined us in our ascent of 2100 m high Gunung Birchang which for some parts was a four-limbed scramble up steep roots and good fun
throughing dough for roti canai
. The hill was shrouded in cloud. This just intensified the mystique exuded by jungle overgrown with mosses of all kinds. To my utter delight we also succeeded in tracking down a pitcher plant. These are carniverous (insect-eating) plants that trap insects in a pitcher of sweet sticky acid which then slowly dissolves the insects. The plant then absorbs the nutrients set free in this process. A long and painful end to the unsuspecting insects in question. Fascinating. We then walked to another extensive (BOH) tea plantation where we were introduced to the tea making process: First the tea is cut by hand or by top-of the-hedge lawn mowers. Then moisturised in a mist, then ground and left to ferment for a few hours. The fermentation is undertaken by an enzyme in the tea leaf and the process turns the ground leaves an ocker colour. The fermentation is then stopped by denaturing the enzyme in a kind of huge hot hair dryer. This turns the tea black. The tea is then sieved and according to it's weight and size sorted by leaf quality. Then it's packed, sold and drunk. Slurping the local tea on the backdrop of the shimmering light green expanses of the plantation was once again very enjoyable.
That's it! Pictures will trickle in over the next few days. Off to Kuala Lumpur, the capital, next.
