A short stop in Malaysia

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I arrived in Malaka in the afternoon and was shocked by the difference. I know it’s a different country but its still Asia. Malaka is just Bizarre and I feel like I’m in a European town with its clean non-pot holed streets, European architecture, and the lack of motor cycles. People speak perfect English and are really friendly in a way they can only be when they are wealthy enough and don’t rely on tourism for their livelihoods. You can ask all sorts of questions without being bullied into going on their tour or on the back or their motorbike for 5 times the price of public transport. I lapped up the Western comforts (lap swimming in the local pool, drinking tap water, walking down the street without choking, etc) although one day plus the evening were still enough for me. My hostel has free bike hire so I took a bike and rode around town, discovering that past the cute but touristy center it’s a pretty bust city after all. It also has an out of control amount of shopping centers and you could easily spend a week trying to get through them all if that sort of thing interests you. I went up to an old church on a hill with views of the city and up another hill full of Chinese graves. I also spent a lot of time wandering around China town which seems to be the main tourist area. There are bus loads of package tourists (I’m guessing from Singapore but not sure) and they are pretty hilarious and in full force from about 7am!

I left early in the morning for Kuala Lumpur with a girl from Holland. We caught the local bus to the station then the 7am bus. Once in KL we separated as she was going to Taman Negara and I was headed for the Cameron Highlands with a slight detour to embassy road. I went to the Cambodian embassy to try to get a 3 month visa (since I've read this is what you need to apply for a Russian visa in Cambodia) but they wouldn't give me any more than a one month one so it's easier to do online (which you can do for Cambodia). But since the Vietnamese embassy was just up the road, I went there and applied for my Vietnamese embassy which was really easy and quick but very expensive. I always end up applying for visas at the end of the week so I have to wait the extra 2 non-working days so I payed extra for the 2-day processing. I can't help but love KL a little if only for its increadibly efficient, extensive, and easy-to-use public transport system and excellent Chinese embassy. I mastered it in the trip to the embassies, went to the train station to book a ticket to Hat Yai for the day I come back to collect my visa, went back to the bus station to pick up my big bag, then went to another bus station to catch a bus to Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands. Although this was just a regular Malaysian bus, it was 10x more executive than the 'executive-class' buses I caught in Indonesia. The driver even does a head count after toilet stops so you don't have to worry about being left behind (not that they would have ever left me behind in Indonesia - if the whitey everyone liked to stare at was missing I'm sure they would've let the driver know). It was a nice ride and a huge change - long gone are the slow windy drives on roads with pot holes big enough to swallow a truck (for now). Here we're on a 3 lane, perfectly smooth highway. I stayed at a really nice place up on a hill but I've noticed a big difference in the kind of travellers you meet in Malaysia compared to Indonesia. They're much less adventurous, have enormous backpacks full of nothing but clothes and electronics, and all have laptops which they seem to be using constantly.

I went on a half day 'countryside tour' which is not my usual style but it was really cheap and a good way of seeing everything in the area which is quite spread out. We went to 'the rose center' which sounded really boring but it was a massive terraced garden going right up a hill full of all kinds of plants, not just roses. You could walk to the top to get some nice views of the area (although there's a lot of development so it wasn't so pretty). We also went to a honey farm, strawberry farm, butterfly house, local markets, an old Chinese temple and a tea plantation and factory. The butterfly house also didn't really interest me at first but it had some crazy insects like leaf insects, giant rhinoceros beetles, and 'dead-leaf' mantis! I went a little crazy and bought too much fruit and veg at the markets. They have some unusual fruit that only grows up here like the Cameron apple (which tastes like honeydew melon) and lots of cherry tomatoes. The tea plantation was also really cool with a little cafe giving views of endless tea covered hills. It's almost like a little village with houses for the workers, a school, a min-mart, it's own mosque, church, and hindu temple, and a medical center even though its only a 10 minute drive into town. Workers can use motorised picking machines but they have to buy them themselves so many people still use simple shears attached to a small bucket (at least until they've saved up enough to buy a machine which I think would take quite some time if your cutting with shears and getting paid a (low) per kilo rate).

We got back around lunch time and after spending 4 hours being herded around I felt like escaping into the forest on my own. I got some directions from the staff at my guesthouse and set off for a few hours hiking. There are many trails around but they aren't marked so it's easy to get lost except the path is so obvious most of the time it doesn't need to be marked. I hiked up to the top of Gunung Jasar but obviously missed the trail coming back down and ended up on another (but very clear and big) trail that went down the hill along the power lines (yes, very scenic) then through some farms and past some small houses and eventually onto a road about 6km out of town but I got a lift back this last bit. I know I totally missed the trail but this way I got to see abit of real Malay life, some massive cabbage plantations, and chat to funny little Nepalese farmers. Once back in town I went back and did the trail again – this time just the easy lower trail along the side of the mountain. This was nice but comes out onto a regular road quite far from town and its a slow and boring walk back. This well and truly took up the rest of the day.

I went hiking the next day too - planned on a full day ending up in the next town but I couldn't find the right trail (no big suprise really) so I just went up Gunung Beremban, back down the other side on the wrong trail, back up and down again the way I came. The trail was very very steep and muddy. With aching knees and swollen, blistered toes I went back to my guesthouse (unfortuntely up the top of another hill and a few staircases) then walked to the next town to see the massive market - I got there just in time to watch them packing up so I at some food (to make the trip worthwhile) then walked back to Tanah Rata.

I caught the bus back to KL the next morning and spent the afternoon wandering around China town and the central market area marvelling at how expensive everything is. In the evening I went vegetarian laksa hunting and found out a lot of people actually don't speak English (or Malay which has similarities to Indonesian) so I failed and ate at one of the Chinese places. It's really hard to find Malay food - the place is run by Indian and Chinese people!

I picked up my Vietnamese visa in the morning and the stupid people got it all wrong. I applied for a multiple entry visa so I can go into Laos and back but they have only given me a single entry visa. I showed them that my application form had ‘multiple entry’ ticked but the lady said ‘but you only paid for a single entry’. Well that’s not my fault, I just paid the amount you told me. Arrrg. The form also asks for ‘approximate date of entry’ so I picked a random date only to find out its printed on the visa and I can’t enter before that date. Stupid stupid Vietnam. I would have tried to fix it up but I wanted to apply for my Chinese visa and for the same day service it had to be in by 10:30 so I just stormed out. This is ok, I’ll just have to skip South Vietnam and enter after Laos. I had a better experience at the Chinese embassy. I got there at 10:05 thinking I probably didn’t stand a chance of getting it in on time but I had all the forms ready and my number got called before I even had time to take a seat. 5 minutes later I leave the building with a receipt to pick up my visa after 2pm. Amazing (but expensive). I also splashed out and had lunch at an organic, macrobiotic, vegan restaurant. It actually still only cost about $5 but since I’m used to paying $1.50 to $2 for a meal it felt expensive. I’ve got a bad cold and a really sore throat and the healthy, non-greasy food made me feel a little better. This and a search for new pants took up the whole day so I didn’t see any of the KL sights but that’s ok – Asian cities don’t interest me much, I’d rather be in the wilderness. In a few hours I will hop on the night train to Hat Yai in Thailand in a sleeper cabin – a final luxury before getting back into the real Asia.

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Photos

Strawberry farm
The strawberries are grown out of plastic bags full of coconut husks and produce constantly for 2 years

Comments

[m.i.a.]

how come you never find the trail?
yay i really likes this entry this would my all tome favourite line: People speak perfect English and are really friendly in a way they can only be when they are wealthy enough and don’t rely on tourism for their livelihoods - poignantly perceptive mado! melecca seems interesting - the tea plantations were amazing and i can see why you were frothing over those bugs. its funny how you were saying that you couldnt find malay food because everywhere was chinese/indian - it makes me wonder what 'malaysian' is anyway, its like asking what 'australian' is. i know that there are small number of indigenous malaysians some of whom still live out in the forest, but apart from that i dont really know what malaysian is? good job on the visa scoring! and i hope you get over the cold soon :) (i also see that the hair cut is growing in and that part of it is kinking! im sorry - i think i cut it a tad too short!)

[MadeleineY]

I think the east coast maybe has more Malay people - it's definitely the heavily religious region anyway. Indigenous Malaysians are also supposedly still much poorer than the Indian and Chinese communities so either live out in villages (and I didn't so enough exploring to discover them) or do the crappy work behind the scenes in places - cleaners at hotels, dishwashers in restaurants.

[MadeleineY]

oh and yeah, I have a massive kink, but its the long bit at the front that does it - I want to cut it back but itll be a disaster if I do it on my own. The back is too long to kink now - I can already put it in a ponytail!

[Karen]

Malaysia
It looks beautiful, wish I was there with you