Dear Bob... A letter from Malaysia

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Dear Bob,

Guess who? That’s it you've guessed it... its me...Bob. And guess what again?? No Bob I'm not getting a dolphin-plasti... I'm in Malaysia. Yeah I can't believe it either but I'm here. Honest. No joke of a lie. Anyway Bob I thought I would write you a little letter to tell you about some of the stuff I’ve been doing...

I arrived in Malaysia in a little bus often referred to as a "mini-bus" from that place called Tie Land. My first port of call was a place called Penang. Pulau Penang is the oldest British Straits Settlements in Malaysia and has many colonial buildings and stuff. Know what I mean like?? It’s an island off the west coast of Malaysia not too far from the Thai border. The capital is Georgetown and that’s where I went. On arrival I headed to a guesthouse in China town with some kiwis I met on the bus. It was pretty basic but well cheap and generally clean. Clean is good me thinks. Anyway, after dropping off our stuff we headed straight out in the rain for my first taster of Malaysian food. There are lots of street food vendors in Georgetown mainly Malaysian, Indian, and Chinese or a mix. We headed to a place in a back alley that we were recommended. I don't know if the cooks were Malaysian or Indian or what but they had the usual turbans, white and pale brown gown type things, and beards. You know what I mean don't you Bob?? Anyway I didn't really have a clue what any of the stuff was and I don't understand Malaysian, or Indian or any Asian language really. But... it all looked pretty much like curry. I don't know what type but I know curry when I see it. The kiwis, Alex and Peter went for something known as 'Roti-Canai". It’s basically an unleavened flaky bread, kind of like a naan bread but at the same time pretty different. It came with some sort of curry sauce, which was basically the juice from a curry. The idea is you dip the bread in the curry and then gobble it up... and I’ll tell you what Bob... it was lush... delicious. I loved it! Something I also discovered was that these Malaysians only use their right hand to eat the meal. Their left hand is used for the wiping of their bottom! Now, I’m not sure whether they literally just use their hand to wipe their bottoms or whether they go to the effort of using toilet paper. I assume they wash their hands after - I hope so anyway. Maybe it is just being extra hygienic to not eat with your bottom wiping hand. Then I got thinking... What if you are left handed? Does that make a difference? Do you still have to eat with your right hand or do left handers end up eating with their bottom wiping hand? I don't know. It’s all pretty confusing stuff. Anyway Bob, I tried using my right hand only - I found it very difficult ripping bread and scooping up curry with one hand. Made a bit of a mess really but I guess it just takes practise. I had quite a bit of this Roti Canai as it was very lovely and well cheap. That was about it for that.

For my next day in Penang I started off with more Roti Canai and some sort of chicken curry in a little backstreet food joint. Curry for breakfast - perfect! :-) It was then time to explore some of the old Chinese shop houses in Chinatown and change some of my Thai Baht at the Chinese money changing guys. Lots of colourful buildings here in Chinatown. I then headed to a place called Penang hill which is 821 metres above Georgetown. That's a big hill to climb isn't it - that’s why I took the tram. Now rumour has it that Penang hill was first cleared by Captain light after the British settlement in order to grow strawberries - lots of them! Maybe there are still some there I thought!? I had to wait ages to get on the tram and when I did, it was a slow 30 minute journey to the top. One bonus was that we went through a rainbow on the way up - never done that before. It was pretty cool. I arrived to some good views of Georgetown and the surrounded countryside - it was a bit cloudy but still good. At the top I searched around for some strawberries in the hope that one may be nearing perfection. Unfortunately not. No strawberries anymore. :-( I explored the top for a bit, ate some curry like food, checked out a temple, and enjoyed the views before taking the tram down again and the bus back to Georgetown. It was a bit of a mission trying to find my way back from where the bus dropped me off but I got there in the end with the aid of my trusty map. When the sky turned dark I went to explore little India and some of the colonial buildings in the area. Little India was pretty cool and it reminded me of... India. Not that I’ve been but it felt and smelt and sounded like India, or one of those Bollywood movies. Loud uplifting Hindu music, turbans, saris, colourful stuff, Asian babes, smells of sandalwood and curry. You would love it there Bob and would feel right at home. There were some cool Colonial buildings scattered about near the pier... There was something going on. I'm not sure what.. some kind of event.. A Malaysian, Colonial, Murder Mystery... or something. Anyway Bob... guess what I had for dinner??? Yes curry again. This time in Little India. Curry for every meal today. Yum. You can't beat a good curry can you Bob. Well actually yes you can.. with an amazing pizza. It's kind of like a game of cards... a King of Hearts beats a 3 of hearts. An amazing pizza beats a good curry. This is one of the simple rules of food politics. I headed back to base via Love Lane and managed to work out why it’s called Love Lane. Lots of prostitutes here. For some reason though I didn't fall in love. Oh well.


And that was it for Penang Bob. I quick stay yes but I wanted to move on. The Cameron highlands were my next destination of choice. The Cameron highlands are Malaysia's most extravagant hill station. Basically, lots of tea plantations high up in the highlands from about 1300 metres to 1829 metres. The bus journey there was absolutely mint... the buses here are really comfortable and when they say a comfortable air con bus they mean it. :-) I arrived at Tanah Rata the main town of the highlands quite late in the evening when it had already darkened. It is a lot colder up here and I was even able to make use of the one jumper that I brought with me. Perfect. I headed straight for Fathers guesthouse. I don't know who's father he is but he must be someone’s, and he's lucky enough to own this lovely little place on the top of a hill. There are lots of old bunker style huts here left over from the British occupation. I however would be staying in a little room attached to the main farmhouse. The journey up here was an experience - lots and lots of bends with some steep drops. As we headed up the weather progressively got worse and worse until it was just pure cloud everywhere and we were just in the clouds. Well cloudy Bob! On arrival at Fathers I decided to book a trip for the next day to see some of the tea plantations and cool scenery and stuff in the area. I headed back into Tana Rata for some more curry and had a quick look around. Not much here really... some restaurants, a few shops, and accommodation type things.

I awoke early the next day ready for an adventure. We headed out in a jeep with a couple of guides, the main one being.. "kumar". A pretty cool name me thinks. Now you know me Bob - I'm not the greatest fan of tea in the world and I don't really understand the whole tea thing. What's it all about? What's gonna happen to me tonight? Maybe I will find out why this brown leafy drink is so popular? As we left Tana Rata we started to drive through some amazing scenery. There are tea plantations everywhere here. Rolling hills of tea bushes everywhere - they look pretty amazing. It's the way they grow them in little rows and the shape of the hills. Miles and miles of these bushes everywhere. It looks pretty mint. We stopped off at some scenic spots and the other guide told us a little bit of stuff about how the tea leaves grow. A couple of tea facts for you to use when your down the pub Bob... The tea leaf pickers pick the leaves every 3 weeks. After the 3 weeks they will be ready to pick again. So there’s a constant supply of tea. There’s no tea season as such. It just keeps on growing. Lots of tea. Tea pickers get shit wages. Tea tree oil does not some from the same plants that you make tea from. Thats all for now.

We then headed up higher to visit the Mossy forest and went on a trek through this mossy place. As the name suggests there is loads of Moss here. The forest floor is like a bouncy castle - bouncy bouncy. Some mad flowers growing up here in the forest - lots of wild orchids and other strange looking growths. It was a good little walk. Kumar is a pretty cool guide and new lots about the stuff growing. Lots of plants here that are used for every day stuff... Deep heat, ginger, antiseptic, murder, tea tree oil. After the trek we went up to the highest point in the highlands accessible by road. The visibility was a few metres - lovely! I love clouds but they look much better from the ground than they do when you are in them!

Boh's Sungai Tea Plantation was our next destination. Mr JA Russell first planted tea here in 1929 and whilst he has now perished his family are minted. We explored the factory and watched the slaves making the tea... pretty mad. If you like tea you would love the smell here. I explored some of the tea fields and watched the pickers - some of them use their hands, others hedge strimmer type things. Whilst I am still not the greatest fan of tea in the world I like the fields they grow in. Some cool patterns. Good for a picnic me thinks and maybe even a great place to have a cup of tea for those tea lovers out there. When the croud say "Boh".... Tea Centre!

Sometime after noon we headed back to Tana Rata for more food. I’ll give you one guess what we had. It starts with a 'c' and ends in a 'y'. A mad selection of stuff... pretty tasty. Then after our filling we headed down to the lower altitude forests. Lots more driving through tea plantations and amazing scenery, some off road forest driving and walkies in the forests. It’s a lot hotter and more humid and the plant life is completely different. We headed to a traditional Malay village where I gave the chief a gift of tobacco for his smoking pleasure. We played with some of those blow dart things, ate some tree roots and drank some tea! Yes tea. It didn't taste or look like tea though and actually tasted quite nice. Must have been a special blend of tribal tea. Maybe I like tea fater all. Not really.. don't be silly Bob! We stopped off at one of the many orchid farms before heading back to fathers place. A good day finished off with some Roti Canai and curry. It seems to be different everywhere I go but always nice.

I then decided that my time here was up. It was time to visit Kuala Lumpur. Despite common belief Kuala Lumpur, (KL), is not where the Ewoks live nor is it a city from one of the star wars films. It's the capital of Malaysia and home to the (ex) worlds tallest building. I took the afternoon super duper VIP bus which was quick and comfortable. On arrival I was greeted by about 6 guys all trying to get me to stay at there guesthouse. It took me lots of looking and walking around, and sweating to find the perfect place but when I did I found a cool place. Le Village guesthouse is run by these Indian guy's who like to burn lots of incense sticks. When I say Indian I mean they look like red Indians who run in the desert and make that noise with their mouths. I have tried but I can't spell it. It’s a pretty chilled out place with some cool paintings, furniture and music. I got the last room available which had just been painted. The smell was pretty strong but I took it anyway.

By the time I got myself sorted I was pretty knackered and it was quite late so I just went for a walk around the market, grabbed some munchies and went to sleep. The next day was hot. Extremely hot. I tried to a walk around the colonial district from my LP book tour but it’s not that pedestrian friendly here and I decided to give up and try another day. Instead I headed to the KL sky tower, the worlds 4th tallest communications tower at 421 metres high. I headed up in the lift to the viewing tower at 276 metres for some amazing views of KL. They also gave me this headset and a mini handheld video screen for a guided tour of the city from the viewing deck. Pretty handy. I then headed to the Petronas towers which until 2004 were the tallest building in the world, now outdone by the Taipei 101 in Taiwan! The Petronas twin towers stand at a height of 452 meters. Pretty high. You can’t go up to the top unfortunately but you can go up to the sky brige about half way up. However, you have to get tickets and queue from half 8 in the morning. Not really my style - I don't like queues and i don't like mornings unless I've been up since the previous day. The tickets were all gone so I decided to leave that for another day. Instead I headed to the KLCC shopping centre underneath the towers... I don't know why cos I hate shopping centres. It had air con though and wasn't that busy so was "cool" to walk around in for a while. Didn't buy anything - just food. I checked out Petronas again when it got dark - me thinks it looks even better at night Bob. And guess what I had for dinner? Yes.. Curry. I've now had so much curry that I am gradually turning into an Asian, or in this case a Mal-Asian. I think it has to be some special ingredient they put in it. My hair has graduually turned back and into a style you would only associate with someone from Asia. My chin and neck has suddenly grown into a long dark beard, and when I woke up the other day I had a turban on my head. How weird is that?? For some reason I feel that I have to wear a kind of cotton dressing gown/pyjama outfit type thing in pale brown colours. Anyway Bob... that’s all I’ve got to say about that...

I awoke early the next in an attempt to get a ticket for Petronas arriving at around 9.30am. I failed. They were all gone. Bollocks. Instead I headed to the Batu caves on the bus. The Batu caves are like caves basically - big ones. Every year the worshippers come and shave their heads and pierce there body in lots of strange places and have a big religious gathering and walk on fire and eat frogs and stuff. Something like that anyway. The best thing about this place though was the Monkey's. There were loads of them everywhere and they were pretty tourist friendly! Pretty cool monkeys and they attacked kids with food. Safe. Oh yeah and even though it wasn't the day of the big gathering, there were still quite a few worshippers there who were cybered up to the max. The Daddy's and the Mummy's had painted their kiddies faces with dots and patterns and shaved their little heads and put paint on them as well. I'm not sure why but it made me smile. :-) Later I managed to complete my walk of the colonial district - hot work. On the way there were "drag" races going on with scooters and small motorbikes. It was pretty funny, especially when the thunderstorm came. Anyhoo..

The next day I failed to make it to the Petronas towers again. Grrrrrr. Instead I checked out the big buildings, bars and shops of the Golden Circle. For some reason on this day on more than one occasion, Malaysian men tried to get me to marry their daughters and take them back to England with me. Pretty weird. They even had a little picture of them in their wallets. For some reason I declined. Was that a mistake? I'm not sure. It was a difficult one. I also tramped around China Town checked out some temples and shop houses and ate some mint Chinese food. Good stuff.

And finally on my last day in KL I finally made it up to the sky bridge of the Petronas towers. Whilst it was not as high as the KL tower the views were better - pretty amazing actually. It's still the highest sky bridge in the world and I felt slightly dizzy looking down. Good though. Then in the extreme heat I headed to the bus station booked a ticket, packed up my cargo and moved on. And that was it for Malaysia Bob. Time to leave. Whilst I wasn't here for long I've seen some cool places and eaten lots and lots of curry and met some pretty mad people.

My next stop is Singapore Bob so I’ll say goodbye for now. Hope the gardening is going well and you are keeping the cabbage patch in good order. I can't wait for the next batch of cabbage water to be ready!

See you soon

All the best

Bob :-)

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Photos

Street seller - Georgetown, Penang
"I aint getting on no plane!"

Penang Hill view
Stormy skies

Guide, Cameron Highlands
"I aint getting on no plane!"

Boh Tea Plantation, Cameron Highlands
When the crowd say "Boh".... Tea Centre

Comments

[Bob]

Hello bob
Malaysia looks amazing, i've been stuck in Stevenage with Martyn, it's not very fun and there are no big towers, tea plantations or mad crazy forests. I don't know, it's not fair, you got the best split personality. Anyway, enjoy yourself bob, from bob