Blog – Page 80 – Where is Phil now?

Melaka

Day 43, Wednesday 08 Feb, Melaka (Malacca)

I woke with a mild hangover, but surprised myself by sleeping very soundly – it was a great couch. Had a good cooked breakfast as it is part of Trefor’s serviced apartment deal, an awesome skin pealing shower and then hit the road before the day got too warm. I took the tube to the south bound long distance bus terminal about 20k south of central KL. I arrived in the bus terminal just before the 10:30 bus to Melaka so perfect timing, and for a change the advertised two hour journey only took one forty five. The long distance terminal in Melaka is about fifteen minutes from town by local bus, which also conveniently was leaving in five minutes. The day is going so well !

We soon arrived in Melaka’s old town and I was instantly in love with the place. When I booked my morning flight to the Philippines I forgot I had to get from Melaka to Singapore, massive Doh ! So I had to reduce my two days in Melaka down to one, I so regret that now. Unlike me, I had booked my accommodation ahead and have a massive room in the Oriental Residence Riverside Guesthouse, and it is a charming place with very welcoming, helpful and friendly owners. Once I had settled in my room they spent a few minutes with me and the map explaining how to get to all the various sites, great service.

After a coffee and a quick bit of sink clothes washing I set out to explore Melaka. With a couple of sweaty days and carrying the backpack everything I have, including the fresh washing seems to be greasy and sticky and sweaty and my day bag smells, it is just not nice! I have booked the nights in a guesthouse in Puerto Princesa, my first stop in the Phillies, and when I get there I am going to have a major cleaning session. The sandals are still good though !

Since its founding in the 1300’s by a Sumutran prince, Melaka (or Malacca)has been kicked around by most of the usual suspects, Chinese in the 1400’s, the Portugese in 1511, the Dutch in 1641 and finally the good old English in 1795. As you can imagine the town has some interesting architecture and the old town is now a protected place and is very attractive. I think the next thing they need to do is pedestrianise a couple of key streets, or maybe ban parking as it does ruin the view ! The old town is on the Melaka river, just inland from the straits of Melaka.

I wandered around the town for three hours in the very hot sun, including a visit to the local mall to buy myself a belt, my pants keep falling down, I think it is me that has shrunk not my pants that have expanded !

I took a number of photos as you would expect.

Over the past couple of weeks have really taken an interest in snapping photos of old bicycles so got a few examples today – I will do a bicycle photo special one day when I have time. But here is a genuine Chopper, oh man I have not seen one of these for years. I coveted one when I was young.

I also visited a “war is a crime” exhibition at the muslim museum and there was a presentation out the front. The exhibition seemed to be largely anti-American more than anything else, definitely lacked perspective. However in the presentation, which was in Malay I did here Bosnia and Rwanda mentioned, so maybe it wasn’t just yank bashing.

The bulk of the properties backing onto one side of the river have murals painted on river side walls, some quite amazing.

My hostel is the one with the pink flowers up the wall.

And I loved this shrine stuck to a corrugated iron wall (of course!)

By 4.30 I was starving so popped into the local laksa house for a great home recipe laksa and the coldest beer I have had in months, lovely stuff. After a wee lie down I wandered out again and up Melaka Hill, must be at least 20 metres high! To look at the ruins of St Pauls church and wait for a largely uneventful sunset.

Back to the hostel for a beer and a blog.

The Melaka river from the back of the hostel.

Reading back on this post, I have been a bit unfair on Melaka, it deserves way more attention than this , it really is a nice little town, stunning buildings and a nice feel – so sorry Melaka ! I am tired.

Thaipusam – Day time

Day 42, Tuesday 07 Feb, Kuala Lumpur

I didn’t get a huge amount of sleep, paid a lot of money for this bed and was only in it for four hours! I got up at nine and packed my stuff up and headed downstairs for breakfast and got a call from Trefor, he is back in KL and I can stay the night on his couch ! Awesome. I checked out of the hostel and left my bag in the locker and headed back out on my own to see what Thaipusam (TP) looks like during the day. I had to only walk meters before finding the first bus heading to Batu Caves, as I was one of the last on board we pretty much went straight to the highway and were off. The traffic was a lot worse today and there were cars angle and double parked a good kilometre up the motorway from Batu…. Crazy !

When I arrived there seemed to be a lot less people than last night, still tens (or hundreds) of thousands around the site, but the main entrance to the caves was relatively calm today, it was only thinly packed ! There were a lot more stalls selling souvenirs and the usual cheap Chinese crap that seems to find its way into every market I have been to. There were also a few stalls selling the dreaded horns that were a real feature last night, bit seemed quieter today.

I walked back up the motorway ramp where we saw the small procession of guys with the hooked ropes in their backs. It was pretty deserted but I could see there was some action at the end of the ramp where we spent most of the time last night watching the blessings and the garlands being made and the guy being pierced. I snapped a couple of shots from the bridge.

The river here is where people were bathing last night, the rubbish was just everywhere.

You will see more of this guy later.

And this guy !

Fortunately there were still a number of devotees getting ready to do the walk and I got a number of shots of the hooks being pushed into the skin. One thing you will notice, and it was not obvious last night was there is no blood. Writing this the next day I do not recall seeing any blood at all during the festival. I will let these pictures speak for themselves…

I spent a bit of time just watching and walking around, as it was extremely hot and sunny I finally wandered off with the intent of getting to the caves and doing the “steps”.

In one of the shots above you will see a guy standing there with a large curved sword, I didn’t see any weapons at all last night and was wondering what it was for, I soon found out…

The devotees come to the steps from a number of preparation sites but all end up walking along the final section of road to enter through the main entrance to the caves, I am guessing they probably walk around a kilometre to the steps. As I said above the day was very hot and the closer we got to the steps the more breaks the devotees we taking. As they walked people mainly women stopped and gave the pierced guys drinks of milk from the cups they were carrying as part of their worship. The pierced guys then ‘blessed’ them – or something anyway !

This guy has three spears through his cheeks, everyone of those chains ends in a small hook in his skin. He is also carrying a large feathered kavadi (offering) that must weigh many kilos.

At the bottom of the steps, you can just see it in one of the photos below, there s is an entrance way the devotees must pass through, for those with the tall kavidas, they have to bend their tortured bodies down to pass underneath. In the middle of the entrance they stop to dance with their supporters, watching this was an absolute highight of my day, but we soon got moverd on by the police.

The devotees then climb the 272 steps the temple inside the cave. It was incredibly hot by the time I got to the walk through the crowds, and the suffering the devotees must be going through would be incredible.

The skewer through the cheeks or tongue is to prevent the devotee from sharing his pain with others.

Remember this guy from one of the early photos !

Once their offering has been presented the piercings come out.

I wandered around the cave for a little bit and then literally dripping with sweat I went back down the stairs, skulled a warm bottle of water and caught a bus back to the hostel. And there ended my TP experience.

The day was interesting certainly, so much easier to take photos than last night but it did ‘feel’ the same for a witness, I am sure the devotees and their friends and family do not share my simplistic point of view though ! The heat got to me definitely, the level of commercialism was frustrating, not that the festival was in anyway commercial, but the number of stalls and people trying to sell me cell phone contracts and pirated DVD’s was just not what I was there for.

Don’t get me wrong, it was still amazing ! and I am extremely glad I came bacthe day, was gok t KL for it. The night experience definately rocked my boat.

I grabbed a shower before heading off to the Petronas towers to meet up with Trefor.

Ah, NZ – famous for its curry houses

We went and dumped my gear in his 24^th floor apartment, (the lift shows 23a as 4 is unlucky !) and soon headed for a wee lager at some of the local bars. Trefor had two old work colleagues from his London days in the 90’s also turn up in KL as well so the four of us spent a few hours sucking down suds before heading back for some (for me, much needed) sleep.

An interesting final day in KL !

Thaipusam – night visit

Night 41, Monday, 06 Feb, Kuala Lumpur – Thaipusam Festival

As at least one person has probably guessed, I have been really avoiding trying to write this post as I just don’t know how to document in written form the experience that was attending Thaipasum (TP) at Batu Caves (BC) at night.

I wrote notes on the night to capture some of it, but it is now four days later and I am in Singapore. I picked myself up a (relatively speaking) cheap bottle of Shiraz and have some sounds cranking so hopefully the words will fly. I am hoping that my pictures have captured a tiny bit of the essence and intensity of the night, but I am no National Geographic photographer !

TP is a Hindu festival, primarily celebrated by the Tamil people, though each year there are more and more people of other races celebrating and this was quite obvious in KL with many Malay and Chinese people actively involved. The festival is celebrated in a number of centres but one of the biggest is at BC in KL, with well over a million people attending over the four days. The eve of the first day and the first day are the two most popular times. To save me some time describing the history, here is the wiki….

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaipusam

Right, back to the beginning of the night, which is roughly 7.00 PM, and lets crack straight into my daily whinge, it seems there is always one, and as usual it is going to follow a similar path – information ! Information on the festival is surprisingly sparse on the internet as well as locally. Much as I really liked the hostel guys they were totally useless when it came to information on anything, I would have thought they would have the details on such a major festival (and public holiday) that starts less than a km away !!! . Surprisingly most of the other travellers in the hostel were not interested in it, so they were not much use either – why do people visit foreign countries with no interest in their culture ?

The festival starts with a parade from the Sri Mahamariamman Temple, just up the road from the hostel and ends at BC about 15km away. The parade kicks off around 12.30 am on the eve of the festival. I was not expecting vast hoards on the street at 7 pm so was patient. Over the next three hours I went out numerous times and saw nothing on the street. At 11.30 PM two other guys from the hostel were heading out with a plan to stay out so I asked if I could join them and off we went. Mike from Canada and Giovanni from (you guessed it) Italy and I wandered up to the temple and it was still closed and dark, not a great sign. As we were standing around wandering what to do a car pulled up, I went over and asked the Indian driver what time the parade left, he said it had – 23 hours ago…. Apparently the parade does start on the eve of the festival, just really really early on the eve. (Tip for anyone going in the future – you need to be there 24 hours before the official start date !). He also told us to head up to BC as there will be plenty happening, he also told us the train was running 24 hours a day during the festival.

We shot back to the hostel so I could grab my camera and some water and then hit the streets again to walk to the station, as we arrived on the main street near the station we found a bus with BC written on it so jumped on board, we were the only passengers. After waiting for a while we found that the bus doesn’t actually go to the caves until it is completely full. The bus finally left and did a few laps of little India and little China as we got increasingly twitchy. Eventually we stopped outside a closing restaurant and a busload of very ‘happy’ Hindu men piled on board and we were off !

We arrived close to BC about 12.30 am, the traffic was appalling and after a while of virtually not moving and BC well within site I got up and walked to the front of the bus and said we wanted to walk, this seemed to start a rush and we all got off the bus into a heaving throng of scooters, barely moving cars and throngs of people heading in all directions at once, scores of people had plastic horns and the night air was a blast of noise. I know it kind of sounds like going to Eden Park on the train to see the All Blacks play a test against the Aussies but it wasn’t anything like that at all

We followed the crowd that was heading into the site and soon found ourselves packed into a massive scrum of happy, smiling people, lots and lots of men, but numerous family groups and many dressed in what was their finest dress. The three of us are all quite tall so stood out like sore thumbs in the crowd. Before we left I was a bit concerned that some would see us as voyeurs to their special, holy moment and we would be made to feel unwelcome, but this was so far from my experience, a lot of people smiled, waved and said hello and seemed so pleased that we were interested in their celebrations. We spoke to many people over the night, got some good viewing tips (would never have ended up by the river without being told to go there) and people were so keen to hear what we thought of the event and our experience, one of so many things I found humbling.

Our first viewing point was almost opposite the entrance to the temple area, and it was heaving with people, being quite tall we sort of had some sort of view of the proceedings. The devotees come from numerous start points around the site but all come down one final section of road into the temple grounds.

It was very hard to take photos here, quite dark but lots of bright lights to throw exposures off, and well, it wasn’t if I was going to set up a tripod and ask people to stand still for a long exposure ! flash was used on occasion. We soon saw a number of devotees coming through with their kavadi (offering). As you would have read in the wiki (you did read it didn’t you ?) these can take many forms, and the first of these huge feathered towers (I can think of no more apt description) came past.

It was quite warm – a woman collapsed in front of me from the heat, but we all formed a circle around her, someone produced some water and someone else a fan and she was soon helped up and off – I am so glad I am six foot and reasonable access to air. These men were carrying a large, completely top heavy, weight, with hooks piercing their skin, in this heat and for hours. We were watching the parade for an hour and it moved less than 50 metres.

Finally I managed to get close enough to get a couple of shots of one of the devotees with hooks, which to put my voyeuristic hat on, was what I was there for.

After an hour in the throng we decided to move further up the road way, as were passing through one of the many small areas where families were sleeping the night a man stopped us for a chat and pointed out a spot we should head to down by the river, where the men are blessed and the hooks and skewers are done. He was so pleased to find that three strangers from three different continents had come together to visit his people’s festival in his continent. The atmosphere was amazing, I know my photos do not show it at all, but there was a real feel of joy and celebration in the air.

We walked down what appeared to be a motorway onramp which had a mix of devotees who were heading to the preparation area.

And some on their walk.

When I saw this group approaching I jumped over the mid-lane barrier in the motorway to get some closer shots, others were there and no-one seemed to mind and I ended up being extremely close, I didn’t want to offend by taking a million shots, so snapped a few and left. But I was very close, I could feel the intensity from these men, the shared pain and purpose, the devotion, it was unlike anything I have experienced before and I really cannot describe it at all. I have never seen or head anything like it in the flesh before. It was just amazingly intense, powerful, alien, but also full of life, of celebration. It looks painful, and you could see pain in their eyes and in their bodies, but mostly you could feel pride, I won’t say joy – maybe celebration is more apt… When I crossed back to Mike and Giovanni I was almost shaking with the experience.

We carried on down the road until we reached a smallish area partially under the on-ramp and by the canal, it was utterly heaving with people and this area encapsulated the TM experience. It was complete sensory overload, with every sense being assaulted all at the same time, it was confusing, it was extremely intense it was everything.

Imagine every sense being battered at once – a number of the devotees had a drumming group and leader who would lead a chant and there were a large number of seemingly independent groups going as well. As we were all jammed together it was a cacophony of sound, like being at a rock festival and having five stages playing around you all at once, somehow it all made sense. Adding to the noise were a number of supporters blasting toots from the ubiquitous (and eventually very annoying) plastic horns. Each devotee had a small shrine with incense burning and a number had small fires going, so there was a good layer of smoke rolling through the site. It was so packed that we were constantly jammed up against the people around us and none of the people around us looked like us, or us them, and they didn’t mind at all. And finally the sights – just so much, colour, action, scenes so un-western that you didn’t know where to look. Every sense was in action, almost overwhelming, very intense, very powerful, very alien.

A small group of women were making garlands, I am not sure how they weren’t crushed.

Blessings

A devotee being hooked up.

We watched this guy preparing for his walk for a long time. He was part of a small group, they danced, they hugged, he blessed some of his supporters. The intensity of their preparations, which include fasting, special diets among other activities over the preceding days puts the devotees into an elevated space, the look in their eyes is just the most amazing thing, they call members of their entourage out and bless them and the fervour passes on, sorry I cannot describe it adequately at all, but it was amazing. This man had a very slow and special walk he undertook as his devotion.

These guys were in the same group

My fave shot… there was something massively primal in this hug, you could feel it from ten feet away.

It was soon almost 4.00 Am and we were hungry and tired so decided to head back into town and the hostel. We wandered back past the entrance to BC and it was still packed so changed direction and aimed for the train station, which we discovered was not running!

To get across the tracks we followed a crowd and climbed up the side of a locked over bridge, squeezed through the fence, crossed the tracks, then through another fence to drop down on to the road on the other side. This just added to the whole radicalness of the experience for me, loved it ! We found our way to a bus and got to bed about 4.30…

So, what did I think ?

The most intense thing I have done, ever. Words cannot describe it. There were a lot of people, hundreds of thousands – and I would have seen maybe a dozen other westerners. It was loud, it was full of smells, it was close and tight and I was constantly banging into people, the scenes were amazing, the ‘feel’ was one of celebration, of a shared pain and a shared joy. It was utterly alien to my wee sheltered New Zealand world.

On the bus on the way in I was – hmm, scared is not the right word, but almost. This put me into so many places I don’t like, and the crazy thing was I think I was the least concerned of all of us when we arrived. So rising above my own discomfort and enjoying the festival for what it really is, a huge celebration of the human spirit, where race and wealth or caste seemed to irrelevant and celebration was the order of the day (or night in this case).

It was fucking awesome ! and I am so utterly glad I went – I almost didn’t, so thanks Mike and Giovanni !

PS. Excuse the swearing mum.

Updated Plan

In a burst of new found enthusiasm, plus a large amount of fear of the unknown as I move to a new country, I have booked flights and some accomodation and made some plans for my short assault on the Philippines.

I have allowed two weeks, which I am really hoping I am going to find is too short as I am loving the place…. But I took the easy option and went short, guess I can always go back or even cancel my flight out to Bangkok if I am having the time of my life.

Tomorrow morning I farewell Malaysia and head to Singapore by bus and then fly to Puerto Princesa on the island of Palawan (away from the recent earthquake in Negros), via Manila on Friday.

Puerto Princesa, Palawan, 3 nights at Banwa Pension
Van bus to El Nido, Palawan, 3 nights – snorkel, dive, maybe mountain bike ?
Puerto Princesa again, 1 night
Fly to Cebu, Visayas, 2 nights
Malapascua Island, Visayas, (diving) Ocean Vida Resort, 4 nights – yep another resort, though this is a cheap(ish) one and I wanted to be on the beach and near to the dive shops.
Cebu again, 1 night
fly to Bangkok !

so yeah, getting organised.

Now to get on to doing the blog posts for Thaipusam and Melaka, plus edit the photos, I have had a couple of “when are we seeing the photos” emails… Don’t expect anything tonight, though I may reply to some emails. Booking flights and accommodation is time consuming!

Back in KL

Day 41, Monday, 06 Feb, Tanah Rata – Kuala Lumpur.

Happy Waitangi Day folks back home, I hope you all had a good day and the weather was kind to you all.

So, back to KL and the hostel where I had my cash stolen, wise move? Who knows ! but it is close to the start of the Thaipusam festival early tomorrow morning.

Up at 7.00, though I had been awake most of the night, I had to wait until shops open, this is a muslim hotel. There are a number of exclusively muslim hotels in Tanah Rata, but this one seemed to allow any paying customer. What it did mean was no loo paper and my stock had run out, I meant to buy some yesterday but forgot, a lesson learned as I am not yet ready to use the hose method yet.

Back to my favourite Indian for some free wi-fi and for coffee and banana and honey naan for breakfast, love that stuff and to the now open convienience store 🙂

The bus left late and it took almost an hour and half to get down from the highlands to the flat low land area. The road up from Ipoh a couple of days ago was reasonably straightforward compared to this, this road was seriously windy and quite narrow in parts. I was sitting at the back on the left hand side and watched one of the rear wheels go up over the curb as we went round a tight corner, it was a looooooooong way straight down and I had a wee butt clenching moment ! The driver knew what he was doing anyway and we made it to KL alive and in reasonable time. There was the great sign on the bus though snapped shot as I was walking!

Once in KL I made my way easily from the bus station to the hostel, checked in and had a wee lie down, got some laundry organised and did stuff all else. So nice to stay somewhere where the toilet and shower do not share the same space , the water is hot and the shower head is connected to the wall where I can stand up !

After a wee bit of blogging i headed out for a walk to see what, if any, pre-Thaipusam stuff was happening, apparently nothing, as the streets around the temple were deserted. Things are supposed to kick off tonight so I will head out again later on to see what the haps is. I did see a great lion dance, complete with fireworks, though I wasn’t close enough to shoot the fireworks, but did get the stall holder making his offering.

Some dragon dancers off to the next eventAnd this cute little shrine

I had dinner and then went back to the hostel to await some chaos later on tonight. And finally I am up to date with blogs 🙂

Cameron Highlands Adventure tour

Day 40, Sunday, 05 Feb, Tanah Rata, Cameron Highlands.

Up earlyish for an omelette and coffee breakfast and to get ready for my adventure tour. There are a load of tour companies in Tanah Rata and I just picked the one next to my dump of a hotel, Kangs Tours. Kangs are pretty big in the backpack scene in town, running the last remaining big hostel as well as an inn and the tours, this meant there was a large bunch of people on the tour and a good mix of young and not quite so young, so people to talk too – yay, it seems like it has been a while.

I thought my tour had 4wding but it didn’t, which was probably OK as it seemed to be a very short 4wd trip and the vehicles came back clean, considering it was wet in the jungle I have no idea where they went. Anyways, back to my day. We non-4wders piled into a reasonably comfortable van and were driven for about an hour and half (as you would expect with no info on where we were going or how long it would take !) We eventually stopped on the side of the road and waited for the 4wds unlike the rest of Malaysia, I would say the temp was around 18/19 degrees even in the sun. I had my trail shoes and was gagging to go run !

I hooked up with a couple of young Belgian guys, one of them had a tiki tattoo on his leg so I went and asked him about it and introduced myself as a kiwi. We chatted for most of the early part of the walk up a 4wd track, I was really hoping this wasn’t going to be the two hour jungle trek as it was like walking along Long Rd in the Waitaks, so not particularly interesting or challenging. We soon got into a bit of nice single track, in parts it was a bit like how I remember Gibbons Track with a free flowing stream running down it ! that was really the only mud though.

There were a couple of nice and rickety bamboo bridges to cross. (I should have sucked that belly in a bit harder!)

The forest surrounding here is heavily infested with bamboo and wild ginger (not referring to the girl in the photo) and the bamboo is massive with huge trunks and very tall, there was still a good amount of native forest to see.

The bamboo has been lain on the track in a lot of the muddy patches.

After about an hour of walking we got to the fun part with some rocky, rooty trail and a couple of cool log bridges, needless to say it took a while to get the whole group through! The water is reasonably “clean”, just looks like coffee due to the colour of the sooil washed into it.

Our guide, happy fellow !

The rafflesia is not a flower, it is a fungus, the biggest in the world (maybe ?) they are unique to SE Asia, are quite rare and intensely studied. They take 6-7 months to bloom from a bud and only bloom for a few days, as they die they emit a pungent stench, akin to rotting flesh apparently, which attracts insects to it, than then take the pollen and spread it.On the walk we saw two rafflesia, this one was four days old and was on the verge of dying, it had to start to smell.

After another ten minute walk further up stream we came to the site of the second one, which was two days old, and you can see how big they are!

From there we walked back down to the vehicles about an hour away, the day was warming up a bit but was still comparatively cool, If only Borneo had been this temperature!

After a drink and shoe washing stop we walked over to the local village, the tour included “an aboriginal village” – this turned out to be ten or so concrete houses with no one about and was a complete waste of time ! But we did get a demonstration and brief talk on the blow pipe. Some of us had a go but most of the group didn’t. Weird…

The ride back to Tanah Rata hit the traffic from yesterday though it was a lot worse and took us almost two half hours to get through. Still I had nothing better to do.

After a shower and a wee lie down I wandered back to Sri Brinchang, my favourite eating place in town and had a most delicious paneer masala and naan for dinner. I had discovered at breakie that they had w-fi so I posted an older blog post I had prepared earlier over a beer.

Back to the hotel early and watched “Fast and furious 5” which was as bad as it sounds but did keep me entertained till I turned the light off and failed to sleep again.

It was a pretty good day, but I am really missing company at meal times now. Hopefully once I am in the Phillies in a few days I can settle into a hostel for a time and hang, it has been almost two weeks since Jerome and I parted company.

Ipoh to Tanah Rata, Landrover heaven

Day 39, Saturday, 04 Feb, Ipoh – Tanah Rata, Cameron Highlands.

I didn’t rush out of bed, not due to the beer and whisky but because I didn’t need to be anyway particularly early for a change and I wasn’t going make the other cave temples in time to get the bus. I went back to my favourite global restaurant, McDonalds for some breakfast and to use the wi-fi to try and book some accommodation in Tanah Rata and back in KL on the 6^th. I managed to get a room in the place I stayed in (and got my money stolen) last time I was in KL. I chose the place as it is close to the start of the Thaipusam parade, so easy to get to. According to the internet there are no free beds in the Cameron Highlands….

With that info in mind I checked out of my hotel and took a scorchingly hot twenty minute walk to the local bus station to catch a bus to the express bus station about ten km away. I was told by information I needed to get bus 66 which was “due”, I saw bus 94 had where I wanted to go on its list of destinations so asked if I should get that as time was kinda pressing on a bit, I had allowed an hour for this exercise, I was told no – bus 66 and it was due. Fifteen minutes later I ended catching a cab, the traffic was bad so I was glad I did I think bus 66 would have got me there too late. As I arrived in my cab (at 10 times the price) bus 94 was pulling out of the express bus terminal… At least I made my express bus!

Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands is about 95km from Ipoh and the ride is scheduled for 3 hours, which seems ludicrous considering we were at the start of the Highlands in just over an hour. The road winds up through some serious hills, but is in very good condition and felt perfectly safe so we were making good time. However…. there is always a however in my posts ! There is one road through the Highlands and a LOT of traffic, mixed with a lot of street markets, small towns, strawberry farms and the Malay habit of parking a car where ever they feel like it (double, triple, whatever) the last 27km took almost 2 hours..

For the most part the journey was quite scenic, with plenty of jungle covered hills.

The Highlands are famous for their tea plantations and strawberry farms, but all sorts of fruit and vege are grown here and once we hit the central highlands the view was blighted by plastic glasshouses everywhere.

I came here thinking I would visit one of the tea plantations but in the end decided that was way too boring so I booked myself on an “Adventure” tour for tomorrow – bush trek, including a rafflesia (more on them tomorrow) and a blowpipe demonstration.

Bizarrely some of the hotels have a vaguely alpine flavour, bearing in mind I was last in the alps in the eightie, so recall could be a bit flawed.

The highlands is also where Land Rovers go when they die, I have never seen so many beaten up old Landies in my life, I saw dozens, some of them were even working.

We arrived in Tanah Rata just before 3.00 PM and it was a quick mission for the five other tourists and myself to find a bed as soon as possible. All the hostels and guest houses were chocker, so I ended up in another fleapit hotel for a lot more money than it was worth, but it had a bed – pretty much all it had really.

Tanah Rata is the most boring place I have been ! it is one street lined with shops and hotels, there is no “bar” and only a few cafes that sell expensive beer with cheap (but good) food, my hotel has no internet. I was bored by 4.00 so had an early dinner of dhal and naan bread. By 7 I was bored again so had second dinner of rice and veges. I was in bed by 8, started watching a movie on the laptop and ended up watching Arsenal hammer Blackburn live on ESPN. My hotel room has a TV but ESPN is the only channel in English, thank God I like football.

Cave temples of Ipoh

Day 38, Friday, 03 Feb, Penang – Ipoh

Ipoh is a city of 700,000 in the state of Perak, inland and south of Penang. The city was started in the 1870’s to support a rapidly booming Chinese population that came to develop, own and work in the nearby tin mines. It doesn’t really have much of claim to fame and I going to say the much smaller Penang was a lot more lively, though it is Friday in Ipoh so a lot of the Islamic businesses are closed.

Anyway, back to the start of the day ! The night wasn’t too bad considered the volume and sheer awfulness of the cacophony from next door, thankfully after some long and rambling, but still loud, speeches it all shut down around midnight and I slept like a dead man till the alarm went off at 6:30. I had allowed myself thirty minutes to brush teeth, get dressed and walk the couple of kms to the bus station. I am going to say even at that time of day power walking with a 15 kg pack on your back and a day pack on your front works up a sweat. On the subject of day pack on the front backpackers, I used to think they looked stupid, I still do, but I am now one of them – it works.

Highly unusually for Malaysia, the bus was late… something that is very usual though and one of my big annoyances is, I asked how long it takes to get to Ipoh, I was told 2 ½ to 3 hours, which in fact is pretty much the driving time to Ipoh. What they don’t say is the trip actually takes about 4 hours because you stop and wait for 30 minutes in other bus depots, twice. So my expected arrival in Ipoh was around 10 -1 10.30, we arrived at 11.45, at the express bus terminal which is about 15 minutes from town by local bus, which I caught for the first time today ! Yes…

My other pet gripe is lack of information. We got to the first bus stop and were ushered off the bus, no reason why, nowhere to go, even the Malay girl was confused. We stood vacantly around for a while until someone came and swept the bus, we then all got on and sat there for 20 minutes, waiting…

I had planned on staying at the Station hotel in Ipoh, as it was supposed to be a lovely old English colonial hotel, though a bit run down, hence a reasonable price. In fact it was so run down it was closed….

The station cafe was open so I headed in there for my first coffee of the day and to check the guide book for more hotel options – of which they are not many apparently. I met this older American guy in there (and have forgotten his name) and he gave me his map of Ipoh and directions to the hotel he was staying in, in case my chosen one from Lonely Planet, the Embassy didn’t work out. Which it almost didn’t, I couldn’t find the Embassy, so after over an hour of wandering around downtown Ipoh looking for accommodation that was not too expensive I realised there are two roads named Sultan and I had been looking on the wrong one, so put right I soon stumbled dripping sweat into the Embassy Hotel and took my 12 dollar room. Once I changed the sheets, chased out the geckos and realised that all water, including I suspect some from the loo ends up on the bathroom floor, the room was sorted and mine for the night. For a change I had somewhere to hang washing !

As I had pretty watched seen all the sites of Ipoh, I had planned on being brave and taking a local bus to the temple caves just out of town. As I had lost a few hours with the bus and finding my hotel I just decided to take a cab as it was only $4. My cabbie, Sam, was a great guy, sister lived in Auckland and he was a retired cop with Ok English, nice to chat with someone after quite a few days of being alone.

All around Ipoh are a number of small limestone hills, randomly dotted about, I would love to have been here to see them before they stuck a small industrial city in the middle of them. A number of the hills have Buddhist temples and shrines in them. The Perak Tong temple complex was amazing, not particularly old being started by Perak Tong in 1926, but built inside and above a cave system in the limestone hills.

Inside there are a number of paintings on the cave walls, along with half a dozen large statues of Buddha figures.

Come here young man !

The alien scared the crap out of me though, I thought it was just a movie!

There is also numerous steep staircases to pagodas scattered around the top of the often jagged hill and this quite cool shrine.

Sadly the view from the top is dominated by an ugly industrial wasteland infront of those beautiful limestone hills, tragic !!!

I was quite impressed with the place, especially as it was one of my key reasons for coming to Ipoh. I will aim to get to one of the other temples tomorrow. After the temple it was 4.00 PM I was very hot and dehydrated and had not eaten all day so when I went outside to wait for a ride back to town I decided whatever came by first would be ride, bus or cab. I got a cab, it was the shittest cab I have been in in my life, I am fairly sure we just made it back – it is only 6km.. I snacked at a hawker stall on the local speciality Kway teow, which I happen to like, bonus ! and then went to McDonalds for a shake as I knew it had free wi-fi from when I had walked past it earlier in the day.

Strike action ! Just like home.I then wandered back to my room about 6.00, and did not much, but I did have a hip flask of Famous Grouse scotch to keep my spirits up as I watched The Mechanic on my laptop, what a great movie, well all things considered, a great movie…

Am currently in Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands. My hotel does not have any internet so I am in one of the Indian restaurants that has free wi-fi. I have just had the best paneer mattar ever !

Georgetown

Day 37, Thursday, 02 Feb 2012, Penang.

A good day in Penang !

Day started really early with one of the other hotel guests coughing up both lungs for about an hour from 5.30am. I got up about 7.00 and started my day. I had planned on going via bus to the Kek Lok Si Temple which is about 10km from town, I also wanted to suss the time of the of the bus to Ipoh tomorrow morning so I headed to the bus station a km or so down the road. The sun was low in the sky and the day looked like it was going to be a good one.

This area is a working commercial part of Penang, lots of small businesses run out of shop houses, I love the mix of businesses in these lovely old buildings, food shop, bike repairs next to rice wholesalers and Angry Bird t-shirt importers. In the main they are in wonderful condition though they are outside the heritage area. Occasionally I came across some that are about to renovated.

I booked a 7.15 am bus to Ipoh, I don’t think it is one of the fancy VIP busses I have been getting so will see in the morning, another early start though ! I also managed to get a bus OK to Air Itam where the temple is located. I got off the bus at a local market and picked up some curry puffs for breakfast. I passed this specialist physician on the way…

The Kek Lok Si temple, is the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia, and contains a 36.5m high statue of Kuan Yin, goddess of mercy. The Ban Po Thar Pagoda which is also in the grounds was closed unfortunately. To access the temple, you, naturally, have to walk up a number of stairs, though these were fully enclosed and surrounded by shops primarily selling cheap tat, Angry Birds t-shirts etc. From the main prayer room of the temple you take a small funicular up to the Kuan Yin statue, which is mighty impressive ! I spent a couple of hours in the temple area, it was all quite interesting and being slightly up a hill there was a nice breeze blowing too. I even bought my first souvenir, as small Buddha!WTF !! This was in the temple complex.

I loved these windows I shot on the way back down.

I discovered the way to catch a bus when you cannot find a bus stop is to step into the road and hail it, well it worked for me ! I had lunch a great kaoy teow for lunch at the New World Park food court as it was on the way back to the hotel and highly recommended. I then spent a couple of hours at the hotel and did a bit of email and blogging while the worst of the heat left the day.

After lunch I headed towards the heritage area of Georgetown to see more of the sites. The weather wasn’t so kind with a constant off on rain. With Georgetown having such a mix of people there were a large number of temples or religious buildings from all the big regional faiths, Christian, Hindu, Muslim and Buddhism. I took photos of a quite a few ! But the highlights, which I will share were the little things.

Trishaws

A record shop – no cds here… (pity it was all old school Indian music).

I have seen a number of armed guards, usually with shotguns, at jewellery stores around Malaysia, but this guy was awesome, nice uniform, revolver and beret, I asked before taking a photo.

This guy was making some quite interesting sounds as I walked past so I asked if I could take his picture too !

There a lot of small street shines all over, and I have a few photos of them, but loved this one in a tree best.

And of course I had to show some colonial architecture ! The town hall.

I wandered back to the hotel about 6, it was raining fairly constantly so I just decided to chill in the hotel for the evening and just eat some of my snacks for dinner – slacker I know, Alex will be so disappointed – all that good food !

I have enjoyed Penang, a good place to wander around, I hope Ipoh is good and I am not wasting a final day in Penang for nothing.

I had a call from Trefor tonight saying he is heading back to Brisbane for a few days so I wont be able to stay when I am in KL next week. Bugger –I was looking fwd to catching up, and now I will have to find a bed for a couple of nights.

Langkawi to Penang

Day 36, Wednesday 01 Feb 2012, Langkawi – Penang.

The day started much the same as the last two did, got up when I felt like it, just before nine and went to the restaurant and ate like a pig for forty minutes! More fruit today though. Spent a couple of hours in the lobby using the wifi and booked myself flights to Puerto Princesca on the Philippine island of Palawan for the tenth of February. I am flying from Singapore and going via Manila. I screwed up slightly and forgot I needed to allow time to get from Melaka to Singapore, so I have cancelled a nights accommodation in Melaka and will leave there a day early now.

The ferry to Penang was not until two thirty so I dragged out my departure from the resort until five minutes before checkout then got a cab to the ferry terminal in Kuah arriving there at one.

Damnit ! The two thirty ferry was full, so I had to get a ticket for the five fifteen, this meant a few extra hours at the Jetty with not a heck of a lot to do and too far in the sun and heat to walk a long way to town. I walked around the jetty area for a bit and then slobbed in Starbucks and used free wi-fi for a couple of hours. Langkawi means reddish brown eagle.

Yes I was bored, so here is a bridge.

The ferry was very full, every seat taken, so luckily the three hour ride to Georgetown on the island of Pelang was smooth ! We even got to go out on deck for a week bit. Inside the ferry it was absolutely freezing cold, I had my jacket on but my feet and legs were like ice by the time we arrived just after eight pm. I was originally planning on getting to Georgetown in daylight so I could more easily find my hotel without resorting to a taxi, but decided to give the walk a go anyway.

Penang’s location has made it one of the oldest trading ports in the area and has been heavily populated Chinese and Indian immigrants. Georgetown is the oldest of the English settlements in SE Asia. A part of Georgetown is now a world heritage park area and has apparently been well preserved, I walked through a section of it on the way to the Georgetown Hotel, my lodgings for two nights. I am looking forward to exploring the town tomorrow.

The hotel is a wee bit further away than I would have liked and took me a good thirty minutes to find it, though surprisingly it was fairly easy, even in the dark. The room is ok, small, but clean and tidy, paper thin walls though! I have never seen this before, everything in the room is for sale !

Frustratingly the wi-fi only works in the lobby, which they are decorating at the moment, so perched on the edge of a couch while they wallpaper around me.

I went for a stroll back towards town and had dinner at the Red Garden food court, along with a thousand other people !

In Malaysia, Vegetarian basically means no red meat, so chicken and fish are in vege meals.

Love this vege fish head mee toon