Adventures in Malaysia

Hi all

Pleased to inform you that we have made it as far as Kuala Lumpur after following the backpacker route down through Malaysia. There appears to be a big three in Northern Malaysia of: Cameron Highlands, Tama Negara and the Perhentian Islands. We had about a week ten days in total and ended up spending the majority of it on Coral Beach on Kecil the smaller of the Pehrentian Islands. We have already been to some stunning tropical beach locations, but i would say that Coral Beach takes some beating (photos to come) and unlike the Thai islands it is wonderfully chilled out and relaxing. No one is stressed out about selling you things on the beach, there is just glorious silence to go with the glorious sunshine, sea and sand.

In fact it is actually quite difficult to pay for anything - restaurants work on the honesty basis where are the end of your meal you tell their cashier (assuming they have not wandered off) what you ordered and how much you owe. There were a few difficult moments where we could not remember, but as none of the restaurants are allowed to sell (brace yourself for this one) alcohol these moments are reduced. Booze is available, but you end up having to ask a few different people if they know anyone and you end up with some kid coming to you table, who can sort you out. It is, I assume, very much like scoring drugs back home.

Cameron Highlands were founded by the British. The area is at the top of the mountains and as a consequence has temperatures more in line with the UK; someone described it to me as a cross between the Cottswolds and the Austrian alps, which is a fair description. For the first time we found the need to wear jumpers. The other great thing about the area is that the growing conditions are right for strawberries, tea and roses. This gave us the opportunity to spend an afternoon sipping tea, eating strawberries, cream and scones, while sitting on a grass lawn surrounded by flower beds - beautiful.

Tama Negara is the opposite. It is hot sweaty and full of little monsters, most of which will kill you. Great fun though. It is the largest section of rainforest in Malaysia and is protected as a national park. To ensure that it makes money they have put on a few tourist shows, one of which being the longest canopy rope bridge in the world. Despite the pictures which make it look like Jo was having fun, she was absolutely pooing herself - I guess I should not of been shaking the walkway!!.

We were joking when we were up there that they were doing their best to turn a rain forest into Alton Towers and that in a couple of years there would be a log flume. Well little did we know that they already have one. We were able to go on a boat trip down the river in a long tailed boat (which resembles a log with an outboard motor). To spice up the trip the company running it decided to have two boats per trip which spend the entire journey doing their best to sink each other. It gets so wet that they employee someone on each boat just to bail water!

Best wishes to you all.

John

PS we will try to upload photos soon.

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