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Published: August 29th 2017
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Geo: 5.41721, 100.336
People use a lot of poetic license when describing (places in) Malaysia - quiet beaches in a national park actually means smelly, polluted beaches at the end of a long hike. City beaches actually means beautiful beaches more commonly found in a national park. Great public transport means good buses that spend hours stuck in Georgetown's terrible traffic, and, well you get the idea.
People seem to have very strong views about whether they prefer Georgetown or Malacca. I think they are very different places. Malacca is more about the heritage and tourist sights crammed into a small area. Georgetown, named after King George III, also has the ubiquitous heritage sights, mosques and temples but is spread out over a much larger area- a whole island to be precise. My first day here was spent wandering around the city, taking in the Chinese clan houses built on stilts (similar to the island a few days ago), checking out the former colonial houses and buildings that the British so kindly left here and eating so much food I was fit to burst. I'm a big fan of the Indian food here- the curries are amazing.
Day 3 of this trip
involved a trip to see a Burmese and a Thai temple located on opposite sides of the road. The Burmese temple was definitely the larger of the two and contained smaller temples, rooms with shrines to dead people, and a handful of beggars - rather surprising in a temple I thought. The Thai temple, although smaller, contains one of the largest reclining Buddhas in the world. Her toenails were painted a beautiful color. After this I headed up the coast towards one of the beaches with a view of staying there for one night. On arrival I realized that the tsunami/recession had hit this area hard- about 2/3 of the buildings were shut/derelict so another night in Georgetown it would be. After a few hours on the beach I headed further up the coast to the Spice Garden. For someone that is not particularly green fingered or who possesses particularly good culinary skills, this might seem like an odd choice of places to visit. However, it was really interesting. From being sprayed with especially fragrant mosquito repellant at the entrance to exploring the spice, jungle, oriental and perfume gardens and then drinking citronella tea at the the top of the
hill. There was a hammock and a swing in the middle of the nutmeg and clove trees too where the smell was mouthwatering. Apparently when they area was first discovered, the British took the nutmeg and cloves for export purposes. Then Singapore, with its deep water port came along, and stole Georgetown's export industry (as the locals say!).
Today I left fairly early intent on finding the tropical fruit farm where you can pick you own watermelons, strawberries and pineapples etc. The food here is great but there's a definite lack of fruit and vegetables so it was quite excited about some vitamin C. I was feeling quiet proud of myself; I found the right bus stop, negotiated the whole ticket buying process, and was happy as Larry on the 1.5 hour journey. Pride comes before a fall they say. I realized this when the bus driver told me I'd missed my stop and then very nicely did a short detour back to it. Here I was supposed to change buses, however the bus I needed apparently only leaves twice a day -8am and 1pm. Being as it was 11am this was not very useful for me. Time for plan
B. I walked back up the road, into the national park where I thought I'd find the turtle hatchery on the beach. I started the steep scramble through tree roots and very humid rainforest to the top of the hill. Expecting a nice easy day of fruit picking I was dressed in the very unpractical shorts and flip flops-oops, I did however bring bug spray. After an hour or so I bumped into the guy I met yesterday who told me that the 'hatchery' was about 10 baby turtles in a pen. Deciding that I see this in the supermarket often enough and therefore did not need to continue hiking this way, we headed back to the start and then onto 'monkey beach' and the canopy walkway. About an hours hiking later we realized that the canopy walkway does not open on Fridays (eh?!) and that monkey beach is very dirty and does not actually contain monkeys. I guess they were all too busy emptying the trash cans in other areas of the park. Back to the bus station and to the old town again then.
I've decided to skip the next part of my trip- Langkawi. Sunburn and a
few hours on the beach yesterday kind of put me off spending the next week with nothing to do but lay on the beach. So I'll spend a few more days in Georgetown and at one of the nicest hostels I've ever stayed in - the owners have just returned from studying in Manchester and are currently plying me with peanut butter candy! Tomorrow I'm going to attempt to reach the topical fruit farm again- wish me luck!
P.s. 5173km travelled!
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