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April 11th 2007

Published: April 11th 2007

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Jennie T

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A nice view of Singapore and the famous Merlion from the mouth of the Singapore River

I'm back from my spring break in South East Asia! I took so many pictures to put here on my blog, so I hope you enjoy. I'm splitting this blog up into two different blogs since there are too many pictures and stories to tell. This first blog will be about our first week in Singapore and Malaysia. The second blog will be about our time in Thailand. I'm going to try to report on some of the events of our two weeks, but so many things happened, that I'm sure this will end up more of a list of events than an account of the details. We'll see.

So, on March 24th our plane landed at Changi Airport in Singapore. It was apparent from the moment we got off the plane that there was no true “Singaporean” person. Yes, there are people who are born and raised in Singapore by Singaporean parents, but the city is just as much made up by Indians, Chinese and many other kinds of people. We boarded the MRT tram from the airport traveling to Bugis station in Little India (this is where we were planning on finding a place to stay the

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Missy walking on the touristy streets with expensive restaurants adjacent to the Singapore River

night). Missy and I just sat on the train in silence, shocked by the diversity of people getting on and off the train. There were people dressed in everything from traditional Indian clothing, to Muslim hijab scarves, to miniskirts.

We got a bit confused with how the MRT operates, so we spent more time on it than necessary. When we finally got off at Bugis station, we were immersed in the chaos of crowds of Indians, mopeds, blasting bollywood music, fabric, gold, and bangle shops. We were both starving, so we stopped in at one of the hundreds of cheap banana leaf Indian restaurants. Luckily there is no problem with getting vegetarian food at Indian restaurants, so we were served up some delicious, extremely spicy food on a big, flat banana leaf. The problem presented itself that we were given utensils with our meal, but the restaurant was packed with Indians eating with their hands (the norm in India). If we used the utensils we were afraid of looking like pompous Americans, but if we ate with our hands we were afraid of looking like two weird foreigners trying to eat like Indians. So, we dove in with our

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At an expensive, but very tasty Indian restaurant

hands, and I used a spoon every once in a while for the hard-to-scoop-up bits. Either way we were being stared at by everyone in the restaurant!

After dinner we checked in at all the cheapest hostels around, but they were all booked for the night (and overflowing with foreigners). We finally gave in and stayed at a bit more expensive hotel. We fell asleep to a thunderstorm.

The next day was our only full day in Singapore since we were planning on taking the night train across the border to Malaysia that night. We checked out of our hotel and walked through little India some more to find some cheap breakfast. We found a place called Tekka Hawker Center where lots of food stands are set up with cheap, greasy food. We ordered some Chinese rice and noodles and chatted with a strange, but friendly Singaporean man who gave us advice on how to keep safe in Singapore. He also warned us that Malaysia was “no good.” He spoke in the heavy Singlish Creole that is spoken in Singapore (English is the official language). It reminded me a lot of my Chinese-Malay boss from back in Morgantown.

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Traditional Theatre. If you've seen the movie Farewell My Concubine, they sang in that same high-pitched voice.

We then boarded the MRT again and made our way down to the train station to reserve our tickets for the evening. We wanted to find a locker there to stow our heavy backpacks in while we explored the city, but when we asked about it, we were shown to something a bit sketchier. We gave our money to two men who took our bags and put them in a big storage closet. Were they safe there? Were those two guys trustworthy? Our shoulders were too soar to worry about it, so we convinced ourselves that it would be ok, and left.

Ok, now I realize that instead of making this blog into a list of events, I am getting way too detailed. So, for the rest of the day we went to the picturesque Singapore River, ate at a more expensive Indian restaurant, and stumbled upon a big cultural event outside a museum where we watched traditional theatre, music, and dance. I also made it a point to visit the famous Merlion at the mouth of the Singapore River. The merlion is the symbol of Singapore because Singapore actually means “lion city” and it began as a

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Traditional dance and music

small port and fishing village.

In the evening before our train departed, we spent some more time in little India. It was even more overwhelming tonight than the first night when we arrived. We weren’t sure why, but there were no women on the streets, instead flocks of men were overflowing all of the shops, restaurants, and streets. Missy and I didn’t understand what was going on, but we thought it best to get out of there asap, as we were the only women around. We quickly ate some more heavy food at the Tekka Hawker Center and went to catch our train by 10:15pm.

We had reserved beds on the train for the overnight trip across the Malaysian boarder, but didn’t really sleep at all because of the screeching and swaying train. Still, it was nice to lie down. We also had to get out of the train in the middle of the night to go through immigration at the boarder. I was excited every time I got a new stamp in my passport. Our train let us out at Gemas station at some rediculously early hour of the morning (3 or 4am I think). From here

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Traditional theatre/dance

we would wait until 8am to catch the local train to a town called Tembling from where we get on a long boat down the Tembling River to Taman Negara rainforest. We tried to doze off a bit in the uncomfortable chairs at the train station, but no luck. Eventually some worker showed us an empty room at the station we could sleep in. At least I could roll out my sleeping bag on the bench there and doze off a bit. That sleeping bag never felt so comfy!

One or two hours later we were woken up abruptly by a station worker who slammed the door and switched on the light not knowing that there were two foreigners sleeping there. We went back outside and waited a while more for our train. The train ride into the jungle was beautiful. We passed field after field of palm oil plantations. The air felt as thick as the vegetation I was watching outside. We experienced for the first time something that we would enjoy for the rest of our trip. That is, often when trains or buses make a stop, some shop keepers from around the area will get on

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Veggie market in little India

with trays of fresh fruit and snack from their shop to sell to the passengers while they are stopped in front of their store. Before we depart, they will jump back off and wait for the next train or bus to come around. Quite a nice, refreshing treat when you're sitting on a hot, crowded train or bus.

So this is where the trouble starts. At the train station where we bought our tickets at, we had asked for tickets to Tembling. They asked, “Are you going to Taman Negara?” We said “yes.” Then, when I looked at our tickets later, they were to a town called Jerantut, not Tembling. On our map, it looked like Tembling was just one stop north of Jerantut. So we decided to stay on the train passed Jerantut and we could pay extra, if necessary, at our stop in Tembling. Well, the next stop was not in Tembling, but passed it in a small village that didn’t have much of anything but a school, mosque, a couple of food markets, and houses. We were two foreigners in the middle of nowhere unable to speak the local language. We wandered around for a while

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Indian fabric shop

asking people about buses or taxis, but no one understood us. It looked like we had pretty much run out of ideas. I remained pretty calm as I usually do in these situations, because it feels like something always works out….and it did!

Fortunately we were sitting on the roadside at the same time school was letting out. It was entertaining enough to just watch the cute little children in uniform make their way from the school back home. All the children were staring at us like we were the first white people they had ever seen (quite possible!), and several brave ones would say “HELLO!” in English, then giggle and run away. Then we met our savior, a little nine-year-old girl. She said “HELLO!” just as all the other children had, but then proceeded to ask us questions and tell us all about herself in English! She was so cute! She said there were no buses that went to Tembling for a while and no taxis came to their little village. She wanted to know all about us. She also loved telling us that the other little school boys or people passing buy on the street were our

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Colorful flowers

boyfriends or dads. Several other children were around listening in, so I asked them if I could take a picture. They were really excited about that, and our little helper wanted to take a picture (with my camera) of me too.

Eventually, we stopped playing around and got down to business. We HAD to get to Tembling or we would miss the boat to Taman Negara! The little girl escorted me back to some of the markets Missy and I had asked at earlier. She asked everyone she saw if they could give me a ride, but nobody seemed interested. Finally she said, “These people don’t know anything! Let’s go to my house!” So I followed her to her home. She introduced me to her mom who was a school teacher and seemed to speak a lot of English. She was nice enough to agree to take Missy and I to Tembling. Yay!

We arrived at the dock in Tembling just in time to catch the last boat down the river. The ride was about three hours on a long, thin, wooden motor boat. The views were amazing and we saw so much wildlife on the banks. I

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The chaos of the streets in little India.

couldn’t help but feel like I was on one of those jungle safari rides at Disney World, except this was the real thing! We saw monkeys swinging from the trees, wild boar, wild ox, monitor lizards, and all kinds of birds. There are also elephants, tigers, and leapords living in this jungle, but they said we were lucky if we didn't see any of those (so I guess we were lucky). We arrived at a small village across the river from where the official national park (supposedly the oldest rainforest in the world) is. We stayed in a small bungalow there that night, and ate at the restaurants they had set up over the water. It was a beautiful place to be.

The next morning we ate breakfast at the same floating restaurants, then took a boat across the river to the National Park. From there, there are several trails that can be taken around the jungle. We chose one trail that would bring us to the canopy walkway (rope bridges) and supposedly on to a nice vista of the Tembling River and the rainforest. As soon as we started walking on a trail we ran into a wild

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An Indian temple

boar. We yelled so it would know we were coming. We waited for it to get scared and run away, but it didn't. It just stood there facing the other way, eating some grass, and paying no attention to us. We threw some sticks in its direction (making sure not to hit it), but still it just stood there like it could have cared less. So, I thought as long as it was just going to stand there, I should at least take some pictures of it. So I did. After a while it meandered off the trail. We continued along the trail, with caution, in awe of the over-sized vegetation...not to mention the over-sized ants! We finally made it to the canopy walkway where we climbed up a wooden tower to a series of rope bridges hanging high in the trees. The bridges were made out of ladders tied together long-ways from one end to the other. It was terrifying! Signs warned to keep at least five meters away from other people on the bridges, which I was sure to observe. There were also signs that said not to sway the bridge from side to side, which I would

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On the sleeper train to Malaysia

never even think of doing. However, at one point in the series of bridges, where I was probably at the highest level, way up in the canopy, some other hiker started to make his way across the bridge behind me. Up until then Missy and I had been walking across the bridges far apart and as smoothly as possible, but this guy started bouncing, and swaying the bridge, and walking way too fast. This caused me to panic and run to the end of the bridge without being able to observe the great view. Still I managed to take a couple pictures with shaking hands.

After we decended from the canopy walkway, we proceded on to the trail that we thought would take us uphill to the nice vista. We walked for what seemed like forever and eventually ran out of the water we had brought with us. Walking in the rainforest only for about ten minutes feels like you've been walking for hours with the thick humidity. We were out of water and far away from the trail-head we had started on. We decided to head back rather than continue trying to find the vista with no water.

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The wonderful school children in the small village in Malaysia where we got lost. The girl in the front-center is the one who saved us.

As soon as we got back to the park's entrance we ordered a ton of water bottles at the only (therefore very expensive) restaurant at the Taman Negara park's headquarters. It was the best water I had ever tasted! By this time we had been walking and getting lost pretty much all day, so we crossed the river back to the village to rest at our bungalow.

The next day we left early on a bus headed to the Cameron Highlands, northwest of Taman Negara. In contrast to the lowland rainforest of Taman Negara, the Cameron Highlands is a rainforest at a much higher altitude, and is famous for the huge tea plantations there. When we arrived we could feel the temperature change immediately. It was noticably cooler here, and provided a nice break from the extreme heat and humidity we had experienced during our trip so far.
We stayed at probably the most comfortable and helpful hostel that we found during our whole trip. We also went on a tour of the Boh tea plantation there. The Boh brand of tea is a major export to Japan and the U.S. Their tea plantations were beautiful and the tour

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Long boats on the Tembling River waiting to take us to Taman Negara rainforest

was free but a little too short and lacking of interesting information. In addition to tea, all kinds of other produce, honey, and flowers are made in the Cameron Highlands. We also found one of my most favorite restaurants that we ate at while on our trip, T's. They had a huge vegetarian selection and delicious original homemade food. Unfortunately, it rained quite a bit while we were at the Cameron Highlands (typical for the region), so once we got our fill of tea, we boarded a bus to our last stop in Malaysia, Georgetown.

Georgetown is a major city in the most Northern part of Malaysia, close to the Thailand boarder. It is on the island of Penang a short ferry ride away from the mainland. After coming from two beautiful rural areas, the town looked terribly polluted, and with the heat, smelled aweful too. Still, it was an interesting city with an interesting mix of cultures, just like in Singapore (just smellier). This city also has a little India (not as overwhelming as the one in Singapore) and a chinatown. We stayed in a hostel in the chinese side of town and ate at another banana leaf

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Our boat filled of passengers on the way to Taman Negara

indian place in little India. Other than that we mostly just walked around the city doing some souvenir shopping and admiring the brightly painted residential buildings with elaborately decorated entrances. I had thought we would stay in this city for about two days, but with the heat and the smell, it didn't make much sense to pospone our arrival at the deserted beaches of Thailand any longer. So, we left the next day on a train headed across the boarder into Thailand. A new country, language, food, and culture awaited us there.

To be continued...

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