As is often the case, I'm writing this blog post far after the fact. Many of the entries in my personal travel journal are the same way. A lot of them begin with the words, "Sorry I didn't finish that last entry," or "Sorry to take so long to write about..." Don't really know who I'm apologising to though. I am sorry to write about Malaysia several weeks late, but only a little bit. I would say I'm about 15% sorry. 17% tops. Anyway, I've got to, because now that the school year is finished (!) there will be a new trip coming up.
Now that we're done quantifying my regret, on to Malaysia! Happily we spent every single day of vacation there, from 22 March to 31 March. On the 22nd we didn't do anything but to fly to Kuala Lumpur that night and find our hostel. We were starving though, not really having had dinner, and wandered to a nearby street with big Chinese banners and lanterns. It looked like a typical Chinatown street and at the end there was one little place still open with a number of people eating late night noodles. So we enjoyed some street food at 2 am and went back to the hostel to sleep for a few hours.
The next day was the first full day of our trip. We set off early to go to the bus station, which was only a couple of blocks away. We had booked bus tickets to the Cameron Highlands, further north. The bus ride was pleasant one and I started to really enjoy myself. Malaysia, despite being very similar to Indonesia in a lot of ways, feels a bit more, how shall I put it, polished? A bit more tourist friendly, more green and open, more modern, with less of the chaos and crudeness of Indonesia. Not all of Indonesia is crude of course (and by crude, I just mean unpolished.) Bali is very polished. But, that's about it (so far as I know.) The bus trip only took a few hours, the last one being a series of hairpin turns right up into the highlands, and then we were in the town of Tanah Rata.
Tanah Rata is a wonderful town that I would love to build a summer home in if I was a wealthy person with summer homes about the world. It's lovely and beautiful and green and... cool! Up in the highlands it can be downright cool and sweaters are not unjustified. It's also very diverse. Like most of Malaysia, it seems to be a melting pot of Malay, Chinese, and Indian. Nicole, Kristina, Lynsey and I ate at this one terrific Indian restaurant for at least three of our meals during our three days there. Nicole and Lynsey hadn't really tried Indian food before, but quickly fell in love with it.
When we got off the bus we headed to the place we thought our hotel was. It wasn't quite the right place, but it was another hotel owned by the same people, Gerard and Jay. We only met Gerard on our last day, but we met his wife, Jay, right away. Jay is an awesome person. Immediately friendly and welcoming, she personally drove us to our guesthouse in her jeep. (First though, she showed us a Pitcher Plant growing on the garden wall so that we would be able to recognise them when we were out and about hiking.) After we had dropped our things at the guesthouse she showed us the trails we could hike on our own. The Cameron Highlands are a prime hiking spot. The trails are only a little challenging. They do take some physical effort because they can be rough or narrow or steep in parts, but they're really not too bad. Most of our hikes lasted about four hours or so, which I think is a perfect length. Although the paths are worn enough to tell where to go, they are not exactly the sort of things that are actually maintained by anyone. Instead, they are just worn down by other hikers. Sometimes there were forks in the path and then you just have to dig out your map and try to determine where you are, because although having a map certainly helps, it doesn't make it immediately obvious where everything is or where you should go.
Hiking through the jungles was great. It was beautiful and peaceful and it felt great to be surrounded by greenery. We ran into other hikers only once in a while. The first day we headed toward the neighboring town of Brinchang. We took a wrong turn at first, but soon got back on the right path and ended up at a neat strawberry farm. The place grows lots of strawberries and lettuce hydroponically. They have a great assortment of all the strawberry desserts and drinks you could want at their cafe and we even picked some strawberries ourselves. Before heading home, we stopped at the night market to look around had some delicious corn on the cob.
The next day was a day-long hike. We took a cab to Brinchang again and began on Jungle Walk #1. It was a couple of hours to the top. Somehow I ended up muddier than any of my friends (maybe not so surprising after all) and once we reached the top, some random tour guide gave me a rag and bottle of water to clean off my legs and feet. There were plenty of people at the top who had taken the road up. But hiking was much better! We also saw a man at the top who had started hiking at the same time as us. He looked like a fit old man, and he seemed like an expert at the hill. We asked him if he had done this trail many times before and he said, no, first time. Crazy old guys, climbing mountains.
On the way down we walked along the paved road. We came across an absolutely beautiful scene: a tea plantation sprawling down the hills, more green than you can imagine. It was breathtaking. I couldn't stop taking photos and they don't even do it justice. We had to stop just to admire the scene for a while before continuing on, looking for the Boh Tea Plantation visitor's center. Still using the map we got from our guest house, we cautiously made a left-hand turn at an unmarked fork in the road and hoped we were on the right path. Turns out we were just walking through the "backyard" of the tea plantation, through greenhouses and along winding paths. We asked for directions from someone to confirm we were going the right way, but, typically, the guy we were talking to just said "Yes," and I don't think he really knew what we had said at all. Lesson learnt: Many people will just try to tell you what they think you want to hear lest they disappoint you or make conflict. Doesn't mean there's any actual communication going on. So, eventually we were at a dead-end in a greenhouse, realising we weren't headed for the visitor's centre after all, and heard thunder in the distance. "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!" We turned back but got caught in the downpour anyway. And it wasn't just a light rain, it was truly a downpour. After a few minutes we realised we were going to get wet one way or another. There weren't any taxis (or any vehicles) around so we said, "Screw it," and walked along the road in the rain, getting completely drenched. Once we got back to the fork in the road and went the right way, we found the road to the visitor's centre really wasn't that far away after all. We stopped for a minute underneath a little shelter. There were lots of people crowded there, trying to avoid the rain. We got lots of funny looks, but already being soaked to the skin, we just continued on.By the time we got to the visitor's center, we were cold, wet, and hungry. The place was packed because people were sheltering inside and there was a traffic jam leading up to the plantation. We had some hot tea to warm us and I scarfed down a sandwich faster than I think I ever have in my life. Next, we had to figure out a way back to Tanah Rata. The first tactic was to politely ask other tourists who looked like they could help us out. No luck. One couple turned to each other and discussed secretly in German before telling me no, they couldn't help. (We later saw them leaving with room in the backseat of their car. Jerks.) So then we tried to get a ride on a bus full of Tamil-Malaysian tourists. The driver was very cranky though and absolutely put his foot down on that. That's when we met Arjen.
Arjen is a very tall, Dutch guy (I know, "tall" and "Dutch guy" are redundant) who was about our age, early 20s. He too had hiked to the tea plantation and was stranded. Immediately we bonded over our shared predicament. We stood around, trying our luck again with the Tamil bus driver, while a visitor's centre employee berated Arjen (only partially joking) for all the Dutch shortcomings on proper tea making. Eventually we had to give up and started walking back to town (about 8km away if I remember right.)
The next day was more hiking. I really enjoyed walking along the jungle paths. We ran into people occasionally, but not too often. That night I walked around the town a little bit and ran into this tourist who we had kept running into over the past couple of days, right from the time we arrived. He was a backpacker from Russia, so we chatted a little bit at the night market. All in all, I enjoyed every minute of Tanah Rata and would go back at anytime. The next morning we left by bus for the city of Penang, further north.
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