Langkawi - Wed 10/03 - Fri 12/03

Langkawi…Our final destination in Malaysia before slipping over into Thailand, Langkawi is a much hyped tax free island that seems to exist purely for the sake of luring local and foreign tourists. The island’s tax-free status came about in the mid-eighties and was designed to encourage development and deliver prosperity to the local inhabitants and, of course, the Malaysian government. Development has certainly been gifted upon the island and this has taken the form of enormous hotels and busy shopping precincts some complete with turrets and looking as though they’d be more suited to residing in Disneyland. The first thing you notice as the boat pulls into the pier is the giant statue of an eagle which is supposed to be a symbol of good fortune and prosperity. Langkawi has a formidable reputation amongst the Malaysian people with nearly everyone we spoke to saying how fabulous it is and how beautiful the beaches are. I have to say that the beaches pale in comparison to the ones we had encountered on the West coast and on the whole we both felt the island didn’t live up to the hype about it but there were still a few things that made Langkawi worth visiting.

Before I get to those things though I will just mention how we managed to sort our accommodation after our debacle that we brought upon ourselves by missing our ferry from Penang. As we had to catch a boat, then a bus, then a taxi and then another boat to get to Langkawi we had of course arrived a lot later than those who had actually caught the morning ferry over from Penang. We had heard there was not a lot of budget places to stay on Langkawi but the places that were cheap were all along a beach on the west side called “Cenang’. So this is where we arrived by taxi from the ferry terminal and not surprisingly almost everywhere was full. We had been used to paying around 20-30 ringgit per night (about $6-$10 AUD) so we were not very happy when the only budget room that was left in Cenang was going to cost 40 ringgit ($13 AUD). It may not sound like a huge difference but when you’re on the road for nine months these little increases have the potential to add up to a more significant amount in the long run. The room however was pretty nice and had a bathroom attached (a rare luxury) and a TV that couldn’t receive any channels, not that I would have been able to understand any of the local programmes anyway.

From here it was to the holy grail…the duty free shop. The island has many of these and they have a variety of goods that are a mixture of duty free and goods that you could find in any store on the main street. As we all know duty free only means two things, cigarettes and alcohol, and I don’t smoke! Neither does Kate so it was off to the beer fridge I ran, ahem, walked briskly. Due to Malaysia’s official Muslim status drinking for the locals is strictly prohibited. In fact on our last night we were chatting to a local bloke who worked at a jet ski operation on the main beach and he informed us that he loved drinking with foreigners in the bars. This is not because he’s crazy about us but because if the muslim police, that’s right they have their own police, catch them drinking or drunk in a bar then they fine the guilty party 3000 ringgit!! That’s about a grand Australian and more than most of the locals would earn in six months I’m betting. Therefore if a local bloke gets caught in the bar he simply pushes his drinks towards the foreigners and makes it look like it’s their drinks and hopefully saves himself the kind of financial hangover he may never recover from. None of this was my concern however as I strode up to the well stocked beer fridge that seemed to be emitting some kind of golden aura to my beer starved eyes. Malaysia has meant a bit of a dry spell for me as the beers have been so ridiculously expensive…until now. 50 cents. That’s right, dear reader, tax free cans are 50 cents AUD rather than the $3.50 they had been everywhere else with the exception of Tioman island at the beginning of our trip which is also tax free.

With my checkout bag bristling with golden goodness it was down to the beach to check out the scene. Pretty disappointing really. There was the obligatory reggae bar (complete with the local Malaysian guys donning their best Jamaican accents-rasta mon!) and a plethora of rather expensive water sports such as jet ski’s and para-sailing, but the beach itself was nothing to write home about. Cenang is touted as being one of the better beaches on the Island so this didn’t fill myself or Kate with a lot of confidence. After a very quick dip and a night spent wondering around the main street shops and markets, all which sold the exact same goods as virtually all the markets we had seen so far, it was time to plan our next day. When the beach is average and you’ve got all day in which to amuse yourself there’s only one thing to do-hire a scooter!

Scooters are extremely cheap and as long as you take it easy (which is guaranteed if you have Kate on the back pinching you if you go too fast!) then you should have a lot of fun. We had heard there was a cable car/gondola on the north western corner of the island not too far from where we were staying. We could see some very steep very high hills in the distance and it turned out this is where the cable car was located. This place was freaking awesome! It was by far the best thing we did on the island and pretty good value for around 28 ringgit ($9 AUD). Now this was no ordinary gondola and makes the smallish one in Christchurch look pretty feeble. It was a behemoth monster of a gondola that went up almost vertically to about 600 metres above sea level in a matter of moments. Looking down the cable at the ground below was certainly pretty nerve-racking. You then got off and had a look around the ’sky deck’ where you could buy food or drinks, take pictures and even get a Chinese massage if you had found the trip up particularly un-nerving! You then boarded the cable car again and went up to the top station which was somewhere around the 750 metre mark above sea level. The cool part was that between the first and second stations the cable car turned and crossed between two peaks and to the right there was a huge suspension bridge floating above another enormous chasm that you could walk across to from the second station. It was a real eagle nest and you certainly hoped whoever had built this thing had really paid attention during their math lessons as the whole thing was perched on the top of these enormous peaks and looked like it could tip or slide over at any minute. The views were insane and walking around the viewing platforms and across the suspension bridge was a vertigo inspiring thrill. After we had done the laps and taken all the obligatory holiday snaps it was down the sheer vertical cable to the bottom which I think was even scarier than the trip to the top!

While we still had the bike we decided to cross to the northeast coast of the island to a place that was supposed to have the best beach on the island. It turned out that if you weren’t staying at the resort there then you couldn’t even get a blade of grass to yourself under the trees in the shade so you were forced to turn into some kind raisin/lobster hybrid in the blistering sun on the sand. The beach was nice and was probably the best one we saw on Langkawi but it was still nothing worth selling the kids for and the idea of spending the next two weeks in a Malaysian burns unit courtesy of the midday sun didn’t really appeal much either.

After a dip and some pretty ordinary lunch it was off on the beast again to our next destination-a traditional Langkawi folk village that harboured some unusual birds and wildlife and the legend of a girl named ‘M’ something. Yes, the name escapes me, probably because her story was not particlulary interesting but to the people of Langkawi it holds some special mystical significance. The jist of the story is that a long time ago a young girl came from Thailand to Langkawi and the head chief/king guy was smitten with her. Echoing the sleeping beauty classic, the wicked step-mother hated her because now she was no longer the ‘fairest of them all’ on the island. So while the King guy was away slaughtering the neighbouring tribes or clans the step-mum framed the young girl for adultery and she was promptly put to death, the usual stuff. However the only interesting part really is when they tried killing her with their spears none of them would pierce her skin so they had to send back for a spear from her place of birth in Thailand and this apparently did the job. But here’s the kicker. When they carved her up she bled white! This was allegedly because she was innocent and, not one to go quietly, the girl put a curse on the island of Langkawi and it’s inhabitants for seven generations whereby their crops would die, people would become sick and the island would be a become a barren wasteland. She certainly wasn’t the forgiving kind. Top stuff and now everyone of course will tell you that the curse came to fruition, the island went to the dogs but now happily the seven generations have long since passed and the island is now free to prosper without the hindrance of a dead Thai girl‘s vengeance. Unfortunately the ’museum’ was deeply average and had a few relics of not much importance and some old shacks that the people used to live in, they must have been from the time during the curse. There were some caged birds with cantankerous attitudes that were pretty cool (and easy!) to rile up but on the whole the place was a scam.

That is a pretty apt description of the island in general come to think of it because for all the hype surrounding it Langkawi does not really deliver the goods. The cable car was cool but most everything else was average to deeply average and it was with no great sadness that after a couple more days of lounging around we boarded the ferry for Satun in Thailand with the idea of making our way up to an island by the name of Koh Lanta. This place, we had heard, was more of a family destination but with the promise of Thai food, nice beaches and reasonable prices we thought we’d give it a try. But more about that next time. ‘Til then.

Cows grazing on the grass. We were told by a Langkawi local that this year has been a very dry year. Her father usually plants rice around this time of year but this year it has been dry.


More of the country side. I didn't think that Langkawi was very beautiful however this might be because of the time of year - the dry season.


This is us going up the gondola. Looks like Tim is a bit anxious!


Here is me looking a bit nervous!


The view of the forest below and in the distance you can see the steep cliff we have to travel up to the first viewing platform. The first viewing area was about 650m above sea level.


The very steep incline to the first veiwing platform. You can see in the distance a (very) small gondola.


The view from the first platform - on one side you could see out to the ocean and the other side was very steep, pointed mountains.


The very steep mountains. In the distance you can see a bridge you can walk out onto from the second viewing platfrom. The first viewing platform is to the right with another gondola joining the two platforms together.


The bridge you could walk along to see more of these stunning views.


Me posing for the camera! Behind me are the gondolas that connect the first and second viewing platforms.


Tim and I striking a pose! You can see the mountains in the background.


A rubber tree - you can see they are collecting the rubber in the white cup at the bottom of the tree. I often saw rubber tree planations between cities - this tree however was near a touristy cafe and not part of a planation.


The scars on the tree from rubber tapping.


This is supposed to be the most beautiful beach on Langkawi! I hopped in but then I jumped out just as quickly because the water was yuck!!

Penang - Sat 6/03 - Tues 9/03

Penang…Now here is a place that surprised me immensely. I had assumed that Penang would be a quiet sort of a place. It is a relatively small island (70km’s around) off Malaysia’s West coast which I thought would be kind of similar in character to Melaka, which is back on the mainland but further south. We had heard that Penang is unusual by Malaysian standards because it is the only place where the ethnic Malays are the minority. It is the Chinese that are the majority here and Penang is the only place in Malaysia where this reversal of the majority and the minority occurs. Once we were on the ferry to Penang from the port of Butterworth on the mainland we could see just how different from my expectations this place was going to be. The main city of Georgetown far from resembling the quaint fishing village I had envisioned was actually a modern city with towering apartment and office buildings lining the island’s foreshore as far as the eye could see in both directions. It was reminiscent of the Gold coast and Surfer’s paradise in some ways as the buildings had the same brash appearance and gave the impression of Georgetown being a very prosperous city.

Once arrived we checked into the super popular ‘Travellers lodge’ where we got a room for 23 ringgit (about $8 AUD) a night and then went and took refuge from the oppressive heat in a huge nearby shopping mall for the remainder of the afternoon.

Penang is a mixture of old Chinese style shops and businesses crammed into narrow lane ways which is similar to Melaka. In amongst these historical buildings are enormous high rises filled with apartments, hotels and offices.

On our second day we decided to rent a motorbike and this was easily one of the most fun things we have done on our trip so far. We picked her up, a snazzy new 125cc automatic and after sussing out a few places of interest to visit it was off into the maniacal traffic we went. Zooming around on the little bike was heaps of fun and we soon found our way to Penang National Park. This is on the north west of the island and had some nice beaches (although nothing close to the pristine beaches of Malaysia’s east coast) and we went for a walk to a quiet beach and chilled out reading books in the shade for an hour or so. The heat in Penang is something else and the middle of the day is somewhere that must be spent in the shade or you will really suffer. Once we had recharged our batteries we were off to the ‘Canopy Walk’ which was a series of swing bridges set amongst the tree-tops in an isolated section of the national park forest. This was pretty cool, although I think I enjoyed it more than Kate and even though we were about 15 metres off the ground there were still some enormous trees stretching towards the sky far above us. We then walked back to the park’s entrance and zoomed off with a vague idea where we were going but not really sure what to expect.

We had found in the brochure a temple that looked interesting to visit back around in the hills above Georgetown but we weren’t entirely sure how to get there and, to be honest I was thinking ‘great, another Buddhist temple’. Wrong again! The place we found was far and away the best temple I have ever been to and I must say I have been to a few! It was set in the hills high above Georgetown and is a very famous Chinese Buddhist temple. It consists of many buildings but the two main attractions are the amazing pagoda which is about 50m high (imagine the leaning tower of Pisa without the lean) and the main attraction, an enormous statue (maybe 30m high?) of a female who is obviously significant to Buddhists covered over by a huge structure decorated with all manner of carved pillars, lanterns and mind blowing illustrations. Words hardly do it justice but this place was insane. The views over Georgetown were amazing and the whole of the city skyline was laid out below us. The walk up the spiral staircase of the Pagoda was spectacular with statues of the Buddha inside on every level as you went up. Hopefully the pictures will show just how cool this place was as it is just too difficult to describe using words alone.

On our way home we found an awesome food stall market outside a group of shops on a main road. There were heaps and heaps of little stalls selling all kinds of delicacies and we were both in foodie heaven. This is also where the first of our less than savoury encounters with some of the locals occurred whilst in Penang. Now on the whole Penang was an awesome place but we also met some odd-balls. As we munched away happily on our food at the stalls market some old Chinese bloke started screaming at us (in Chinese of course) and at first we didn’t realise he was targeting his rantings at us. No-one around us batted an eyelid as this bloke screamed and screamed from a few metres away at us. He then wandered off a bit and we thought he’d said his bit, but he turned around and kept shouting from a little further away. This pattern kept repeating until he was half way down the street and he was still going! By this time we were trying hard not to laugh but it had been a bit unsettling at first. Luckily all he did was yell but it certainly shook us up a little especially as we had no idea why he had chosen us to go off at.

Unfortunately he wasn’t the last bloke we met with a few screws loose and even worse most of them resisded at the place we were staying! For some reason the ’Traveller’s lodge’, although very cheap, resembled a rest home as the majority of tenants were a bit ’aged’ shall we say?? Unlike the nice old folks you usually encounter in a rest home this lot were a bit different and from our limited interactions they just seemed a bit odd. Most seemed to be the type that reside in Asia almost permanently, like an old Aussie bloke we met who talked so much his tongue got just about got sunburnt, and they seemed to have just lost that grasp of reality a bit. The majority seemed harmless but it was always unfortunate when one got talking to you and then that was it, there was no stopping them. They’d talk about all sorts of odd things, like the Engish bloke who had had a row with a guest house owner round the corner and was now plotting to buy the guest house next door to it with the idea of running the bloke who had offended him out of business. And on and on it went, mad rambling after more mad rambling, it definitely got a bit much in the end and I was glad in some ways to be moving on.

All this brings me to the least savoury moments of our trip and it all starts with a place called ‘shit alley’. Ahh shit alley, what a grimy lurkway you are. It all began when we were on our way back from breakfast on the second day. First let me describe shit alley. It is a walkway running along side of a ditch that all manner of filth is piled up in and flows into. The ditch is next to a walkway which is next to a block of flats. As we ambled along shit alley on that sunny morning we saw a bloke squatting above the ditch. Now I thought to myself ‘that’s odd’ and no sooner had this thought had popped into my head and I, very involuntary had seen his doodle! We both saw it and carried on walking and after we had turned out of said alley we both said ’Yuck!! We just saw that old bloke’s wang!!’ He had obviously just taken a dump earning ‘shit alley’ it’s name in the process. This was only the beginning however as on another walk along shit alley later that night we saw a huge rat on the other side of the ditch so I took great delight in throwing some sticks I found nearby at those disgusting vermin. Top fun! Why you may ask would we walk down shit alley in the first place I hear you ask?? Well, simple. It was a good shortcut and saved us a long walk around the block to get home. Also we weren’t expecting to encounter any trouble as Malaysia has always seemed like a very safe place for travellers. That was until our last night.

Let me set the scene. We had just eaten again at this fantastic Chinese restaurant we had found earlier that is probably the best Chinese food either of us has ever had. They brought food around to you on trolleys and you just picked what you wanted, brilliant. We were walking back to our accommodation when we saw some lightening flashes and felt a few spots of rain. Now we were really eager to get home. What better way than a quick jaunt down shit alley? As soon as we turned into the street that shit alley runs off of things went a bit pear shaped. Some of you may know that Kate isn’t particularly fond of dog’s she doesn’t know and as we turned into this street there was a gang of about six of them roaming around. Kate froze and I said something along the lines of ’don’t worry, they’re just someone’s pets, it’ll be fine’. At that moment two of the dogs started having a massive fight and all the dogs went nuts. Kate went white and nearly ripped my hand off saying stuff it we’ll go the long way round and me thinking damnit now we’re definitely going to get wet! So we turned about face, left the street and abandoned the weaker dog to it’s fate but wait! As luck would have it there was another entrance to shit alley further along the main street that we hadn’t noticed before. I said ’Sweet’! So we turned and went down shit alley ignoring the shadowy figure siting a little down the lane holding what appears to be…a bag?? Oh great. Just a moment too late I realised it was a glue sniffer who was sitting there watching us approach through unfocused eyes. Sensing I may have made a slight mistake (what is it they say about alleyways on dark nights??) we strode past projecting as much confidence as we could and that is when the gluey got up and started following us! I let Kate go in front of me and put myself between her and the gluey. She (that’s right it was a woman!) started walking behind me like a shadow and at any moment I expected to feel a glue encrusted hand against my back or shoulder. She skulked silently behind us for a few metres while Kate practically broke into a run to get out of the alley as fast as she could. I looked over my shoulder into the shadowed face of our pursuer and said something staunchly heroic along the lines of ’…umm are you owwright mate???’ With that the phantom stopped and gave me the death stare and launched into another incomprehensible diatribe consisting no doubt of the finest foul expletives that the Chinese language has to offer! Our second for our stay in Penang. I replied something along the lines of …‘yeah, no worries, we’ll get it off you next week…’ and kept on waking trying to catch up to Kate. We both felt pretty freaked out by this incident and by now, with the collection of odd-bods that we had met, we were both pretty keen to move on. I think we were lucky as the alley situation could have ended a lot worse but it was enough for us by that stage and I guess we learned a valuable lesson. Malaysia has seemed so safe wherever we have travelled but it just takes one encounter in a dark alley to make you a lot more careful.

Anyway we were due to leave in the morning for Langkawi, another island about two hours to the north by ferry. Langkawi is a tax free island so I was looking forward to buying some tax free beer at long last as it has been relatively expensive to drink everywhere else in Malaysia, with the exception of Tioman which is another tax free island. Unfortunately things didn’t go to plan and we were 45 minutes early for our ferry that cost us 120 Ringgit for our tickets…at the wrong ferry terminal!!! We missed the ferry to Langkawi, the only one that day and then had to muck around getting to the mainland and then catching a bus, taxi and then another ferry over to Langkawi. A costly mistake! My limited patience for even the slightest mishap was sorely tested here as it dawned on me just how much we had lost and how much longer it was going to take to get there!! I blame shit alley!!! Well anyway we arrived in Langkawi hours after most of the other travellers so we got just about the last cheapish room on the island, about 40 ringgit ($13 AUD). After all the highlights of Penang (the scenery, the food) and the lowlights (the nutters!!) we were glad to be somewhere a lot more chilled out and with cheap beer!! More about that next time. ’Til then.
View of Georgetown on Penang Island. We took a short ferry from to Penang Island which was really cheap (AUD$0.70).
The lame canopy walk we went on in Penang National Park. It took like 5 minutes to walk through the tree and cost us $AUD3!!! A total waste of money as you didn't see any birds or monkeys. A floating fishing villiage we saw while on a stroll in the National Park. I did not even attempt to put my toes into the water as it didn't look swimable!
Tim found a chicken foot in is soup!! He was not very impressed.
The bronze statue of Kuan Yin in Kek Lok Si Temple.
Kuan Yin statue. On the pillars are many intricate carvings which unfortunately we did not get to see up close as their was construction happening to the shelter.
These carvings are at bottom of the structure that holds the statue and I am sure the carving would have been similar on the pillars.
The seven storey main pagoda of the temple or the Pagoda of 10,000 Buddhas (the white tall building in the background)
The view from the pagoda. You can see there were many impressive buildings. I heard that the temple is the largest Buddhist temple in South East Asia.
The monks/nuns or workers were growing pumpkins like they are beans! I assume it must be easier for them to pick the best pumpkin to offer to Buddha. Some obviously had grown quite large so they had been tied to the pumpkin to the wire structure. Mum - I thought you might like this picture.
Ceilings inside many of the buildings were lined with Chinese lanterns.
This is the street stalls we found after our visit to the temple. People on motorbikes would drive up to a stall and order food - this was a new meaning to 'take-away' food for me!
Me eating a pork bun at the street stalls. Pork buns are now my new favorite food! yummy.
Shit alley with all it's lovely rubbish.
A typical street in Penang - it has no foot path so you have to walk on the road so we often walk one in front of the other. If you walked side by side then you would get knocked over by a car or motorbike.
So you can imagine our excitement when we found a foot path!
Our favorite Chinese restaurant in Penang - Tai Tong.
Drinking a burning hot cup of Teh Tarik (translates to pull tea) in a take-away bag!

Cameron Highlands - Wed 3/03 to Fri 5/03

Cameron Highlands…After the sun and sand of the Perhentians, we thought it might be nice to go somewhere a little cooler and without a beach. The Cameron highlands is in central Malaysia, a couple hours drive from the West coast. It is unusual compared to the rest of Malaysia as it is (obviously) a mountainous region and it has a much cooler climate. The average daytime temperature is between 16 and 28 degrees, unlike the almost permanent 35 degrees throughout the rest of the country. The landscape is dominated by misty peaks ranging in height from about 5000 to 6500 feet above sea level. This makes the highlands the highest place in peninsular Malaysia and a bit of a contrast to the rest of the country. As we stepped out of the bus we were greeted with a nice cool breeze and a much more comfortable temperature than anywhere we had been before.

The Cameron highlands is a very popular place for tourists, both local and overseas and there are hotels galore. Most are very tall apartment like buildings but as usual there was no chance of us staying anywhere like this. We did however find a great guesthouse called ‘Father’s’ that had awesome facilities, such as a movie room, internet access (albeit quite slow) a back bar and a full range of tours and services on offer. On our first afternoon we decided to walk into the town and have a look around. I was surprised by how many ‘palangi’s’ or foreign tourists there were. It was also nice to be back in a place with an abundance of cheap restaurants and good Indian food as we had been quite limited for choice on the Perhentian Islands.

The afternoon had another unexpected surprise in store for me as we were wandering along near a park just off the main street. I heard a noise, it was a very familiar noise and like a whippet my head shot around in the direction from whence it came. What I saw was something so wonderful I nearly broke into a sprint straight towards the source of this heavenly sound. I had heard, of course, the sound of people skateboarding! A small concreted area surrounding a fountain in this small park was home to the Cameron highlands skate crew. Not much of a spot I must say but it is was all these kids had and I certainly wasn’t complaining. Within seconds I had commandeered a board and was off skating around like a little kid again. The locals had a couple obstacles and two grind rails and some pretty rough ground. I didn’t care though as I was just so happy to be rolling again. The kids seemed genuinely surprised to see some random foreign bloke skating around in their little spot but they were happy to let me use their boards and asked me heaps of questions. I don’t know if I did much to impress them skating wise as the board I was riding wasn’t the best, the spot was pretty average and I hadn’t skated for a month but I certainly didn’t care and they didn’t seem to either. After a bit of a skate, and an obligatory photo with them all we said our good-byes and I skipped away a lot happier than when I arrived.

The Cameron highlands are known for their bush walks and mountain treks and so on the second morning we thought we’d give one a go. We chose an easy one (relatively) called Mount Jasar and the peak was a mere 5500 feet above sea level. It would take us an hour or so to reach the top and sounded pretty straight forward. So after some fluffing around trying to find a shop to sell us some water and snacks we headed off up the mountain. The first part of the trek was pretty simple and not too steep. The last half an hour or so involved clambering up a near vertical track climbing over tree roots and ducking under branches. The view at the top however was pretty awesome and we could see all the peaks around us and the town and giant hotels in the valleys below. After a hip jarring climb down the same track we decided that this would be enough of a walking experience for us and the rest of our stay would be devoted to doing something that didn’t involve walking up incredibly steep hills. We succeeded in this by booking a ‘countryside’ mini-van tour for the next day.

The tour cost 25 RM (about 8 bucks AUD) and consisted of visiting a Buddhist temple, rose farm, tea plantation, a butterfly enclosure, a strawberry farm and a bee farm. I must admit at first I thought this tour sounded pretty lame but once we got going and we met our guide ’Mr Singh’ it was actually pretty cool. Our guide had a funny habit of saying some English words very slowly so they sounded like ’rooose gar…din’ but he was a nice guy and had good knowledge of the places we visited and the Cameron Highlands in general. He did get very stressed though when one of our group went missing and our schedule got delayed while he went to look for the missing person. This was pretty funny as he started stressing hard out (the guy was 5 minutes late) but in the end the missing party was found and we were on our way again.

Highlights were the enormous tea plantation that covered about three hillsides in this certain valley. We could see people picking the tea (they earn about 40 RM a day (about $13 AUD) and it looked like back breaking work. You feel a bit bad sometimes as you know the people that live and work here get paid stuff all and compared to these people we are all so fantastically rich it makes you feel a bit guilty. Anyway the tea place was cool and the cup of tea we had very tasty and with that we were off to the butterfly farm. Now I thought of all the places we visited this would be the least interesting. How wrong I was! You see only the first little bit is a butterfly enclosure, the back two thirds is full of giant bugs, spiders, snakes, lizards and (my favourite!) scorpions. Now we all know that at home if you go to a zoo or a animal enclosure of any kind they will not in a million years let you touch any of the animals. Not so in Malaysia. Within seconds Kate had a giant Rhino beetle on her arm and I was eyeing up the tank with about 100 scorpions in it. The bloke that worked there was a bit of a character and he was grabbing bugs, snakes and scorpions out of their tanks for us to play with. I wore a couple of scorpions as lapels for a little while and it was definitely one of the cooler things I have done so far on this trip. They are pretty placid and just kind of sit on you. One started crawling towards my neck but the handler guy grabbed it by it’s tail and flipped it around so it went the other way. He assured me that they’re not dangerous if you know how to handle them but they were real live poisonous scorpions so I never thought you could ever handle them safely. The handler told us that he was so hard that if the scorpions bit him the scorpion would die and we all had a big laugh while surrounded by deadly snakes and other dangerous critters.

Once back at the guest house I was yarning to the owner and she said that all the deadly animals that they have at the butterfly farm are poached by people around the Cameron highlands. This means that if someone catches a snake or a scorpion they can take it to the butterfly farm (or another one like it) and sell it to them. So all the cool snakes and scorpions I had seen had actually been stolen from the wild and put into captivity for the viewing pleasure of foreign tourists like….me. This bummed me out a bit but the lady said not to worry, it’s just how it is here. She also told me that they get a lot of snakes in the storerooms of my beloved Indian restaurants in the town. Naively I asked why? The answer I didn’t want to hear. It’s because they’re filthy of course! The snakes go in to catch the rats that are foraging in there and the poor bloke who goes in to get some more supplies gets a heart attack. They have spitting cobras, vipers and all manner of dangerous and deadly snakes in the highlands and we had seen but a small selection.

The owner also told me a funny story about when a snake made it’s way into the back bar of the guesthouse. While all the guests ran to get their cameras a snake handler was called. This bloke thought he had the snake under control until it made a lunge for his hand and latched on by it’s considerable fangs to that webbing of skin between your thumb and index finger. As the guests all shrieked in horror and the snake handler turned white the snake began to coil itself around the poor blokes arm. With the cameras of the guests furiously clicking the man was escorted to the car and transported to the hospital with the snake still firmly in place on his arm. Once arriving in the E.R ward of the local hospital the man did not receive any medical help unfortunately, quite the reverse. The power the snake had over the people at the hospital was so considerable that everyone who saw it immediately ran screaming from the building leaving only the man and the snake to remain together alone! Thankfully the only creatures like this we saw were at the butterfly farm and we made it away from the Cameron highlands without any encounters of this sort ’in the wild’.

The next day it was time to move on again and we caught a bus to the West coast island of Penang. This is the centre of Chinese culture in Malaysia and is the only place in the country where the Malay people are the minority and the Chinese the majority. It is a historically significant port on the Straights of Malacca and is very prosperous with tall apartment towers reminiscent of the Gold Coast overlooking the ocean. Anyway more about this place next time. ‘Til then.
The Cameron Highlands skate crew. Tandoori chicken cooking it a claypot. We've had the best indian while we have been in Malaysia. The best was in Tuala Terenggganu and Malaka. A cricket on a beautiful flower. I found this on one of our walks around the city. At the butterfly farm there were heaps of insects and reptiles which the owner would take out of their small enclosure so you could pet and/or take a photos of them. Tim was keen on the scorpions while I preferred the insects!
The scorpion pit! This is the animal handler. In this picture he was tormenting a tourist with a poisonous snakes. Me with the stick insect that looks like a leaf. A close-up of this beautiful stick insect.Me and the rhino beetle. One of the many colourful and beautiful butterflies from the Butterfly farm.
Tim being an Orang Utan.
Us at the BOH tea planation.
The tea planation. Every 3 weeks the new tea shoots are cut by a machine and after 3 years the trees are given a good prune to stop it turning into a tree. The tea plant produces tea shots for about 120 years - these plants on the BOH plantation are 80 to 90 years old. The plantation is self efficient - the workers and their family live on the farm where they have a shop, doctors clinic and even a hindi, buddist and muslim temple.
The strawberry farm. We ate some dried strawberrys, strawberry cake and strawberry shake - all very yummmmmmy. The farm produces 30kgs of strawberries every day which are sold to the local hotels. We were really surprised to hear that the plants continously produce fruit all year round. As you can see the plants are risen to minimise pests and are planted in this plastic tube which contains ground coconut husks (the husks have heaps of minerals).
The view from the Rose Gardens. You can see the terraces in the background - the hills are sooo steep that they have to cut terraces into the hills in order farm the farm as well as the hot houses filled with either flowers, cucumbers, strawberries or tomatoes (white buildings).
The famous ugly green rose. This isn't a hybrid - it is natually green.
All the hotels and many of the buildings look like this in Cameron Highlands.
The view of the misy mountains from the top of the Mount Jasar.
The view of the town from Mount Jasar.
A mountain side filled with hot houses.