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Published: August 10th 2008
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Arriving back in Kuala Lumpur it seemed that Malaysia still had a few spanners to throw into the works; this time in the form of giving me stomach trouble again - yes it was like going back to the early days in Bolivia but this time I think it was worse! I hardly had time to sit down in between my visits to the toilet, even though I didn't eat for 2 days, something kept coming out!! Steve was very good and looked after me well, getting supplies of Gatorade and water in to replenish my fluids and he kept me company in our room whilst there was nowhere else I could go! Finally after an extra 2 nights in KL things started to look up and we ventured to the Cameron Highlands, which is where the tea plantations are. The temperature up there was a lot cooler more like English summer weather which was much appreciated after the sweaty climate of Borneo. To make the most of our time we went on a tour organised by the hostel we stayed in. We visited one of the tea plantations and learnt all about the process of collecting and processing the tea,
which actually was very interesting! Next we were off on a forest walk where our guide insisted that we got muddy by taking us through every boggy trail he knew. Luckily at the end we were rewarded with a cup of tea at the plantation cafe; Steve went for the standard Cameron Gold variety and I the lighter more delicate Palas tea - both were very tasty and refreshing. After grabbing some lunch in town we were then driven to one of the traditional settlements in the moutains inhabited by the Orang Asli tribe. The kids all came out to see us and we had a go at the blow pipe which was very similar to our experience in the Amazon in Ecuador. The following day we relaxed in the grounds of the hostel as my stomach was playing up again and on the last day we went for our own walk through the jungle before kicking back with a game of Jenga and Scrabble in the afternoon!
Moving on from the Highlands we visited Kota Bharu in the North-East of Malaysia; from reading our travel guide we were expecting to find a lot of culture here, but in
fact it was rather dead! The journey up was the most interesting part as we travelled on the jungle railway with all of the local ladies carrying and selling their wares. In the town itself we did catch a bit of 'Spinning Tops' which is one of the traditional past times in Malaysia but apart from the throwing of the spinning top it was fairly sedate just waiting up to an hour for one of the tops to stop spinning - not my idea of fun!! We also caught a group of men playing on large drums and Steve very luckily got picked to have a go at it himself, although I am not sure he would agree with me on this one!
From Kota Bharu we got a boat over to the Perhentian Islands on the East coast and checked ourselves in to a beach resort for 5 days. We had our own chalet that was right at the top of the hillside with a balcony that overlooked the jungle. It was a little over cast when we first arrived so we went for a walk to the nearby fishing village but by the afternoon the sun was
shining and we went for our first snorkel. It was very shallow so we had to be careful not to damage the coral but once we got out further we saw Parrot fish, 'Nemo' look a likes and trumpet fish. That evening we had a BBQ meal of Barrmundi another white fish and tandoori chicken, all was very nice but the best bit was the potato salad - a change from rice and noodles!! That night Steve woke to a rather mysterious noise coming from the side of the room, after waking me and discussing the possibilities of what it could be it became clear I was going to have to get up to turn the light on and inspect the room as Steve was scared of getting out of the safety of the mossie net! Once up there was nothing to be seen but in the day that followed we discovered we had a resident squirrel that we lovingly named 'Nutkins'. Nutkins liked to crawl in through one door go into the bin and then run out the other side but on his way he would leave us little gifts of his droppings!! The following 2 days Steve and
I booked to go out on snorkel trips around the 2 islands; we saw so many different fish some of which were huge, a turtle and we saw a massive shoal of fish that seemed to stretch for miles underneath us. On the last snorkel trip we went to one area where there were a lot of colourful small fish which at first I though were really pretty - however when the guy in the boat threw bread in the water right in front of my face all the fish charged for it and started to nip at me, this I was not so fond of - I had to start hitting them off of me. On the last day Steve went for a discovery dive; he managed to learn all of the initial skills very quickly so much so that he got to have just under an hour under the water with his instructor looking at all the coral and underwater life. When he came back he had a big grin on his face and I think this may be an activity he pursues in the future. Whilst he was away I lay in the sun and very stupidly
burnt my stomach which is making it incredible painful to wear anything with a waist - when will I learn!
Today we have been sat on a bus for 9 hours to get back to KL but all was worthwhile as tomorrow we fly to Bangkok for 2 nights and then we fly home........oh yes I have to say I cant wait to see everyone again and to have my own bed back - well I hope to if Dave has got out of it by then!!!
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