Jungle Trek - Malaysia

First of all we would like to say that a jungle trek is not easy. As we wrote earlier we found it quite hard to know where we were going, as you are surrounded by overarching trees, disappearing paths and some quite steep climbs. However, when we first tried it out we were in the relatively cool Cameron Highlands. Having bravely faced up to those challenges, why not head to the National Park Tama Negara, where temperatures are never below 30 degrees C and the humidity is around 80%? And as we're there, why not go along this wobbly bridge that takes you through the rainforest at a height of 30m?
Seemed like a good idea, seen it on all the posters, got the camcorder, camera, digital camera, poncho, first aid kit, ready.
Well, it IS quite high, AND you had to wait for 2 hours, so we decided to do it the following day.
It goes without comment that by then Martine had decided that it is a silly thing to do, far too long, far too high, why would anybody volunteer to walk along these 500m at top end of the trees to look down, if you can stand there, feet on the ground and look up. So, we climbed another mount... hill instead, which proved to be quite a challenge with this climate anyway, sweating before, during and after the shower, in fact constantly dripping. Of course we got lost again and had to wave down a boat to take us back to the village, where we bought a poster of the bridge and a ticket to take us out of the jungle.

Shocked, confused then pleasantly surprised.

Shocked: After learning about the proud tradition of Tea Production in Malaysia, during our visit to the Cameron Highlands, I have been shocked and dismayed to discover that in other parts of the country, tea (or liquid gold as it referred to due it always rising in price) is made with some kind of instant powder. Moreover, if you order it with milk and sugar it comes looking like an upside down cup of Guinness, which you have to stir to make it look like tea. And I can assure you, it tastes nothing like a cup of Cameron Highlands Tea.
Confused: Due to this truama I did not want to make the same mistake twice, so the next time I needed a hot drink I asked for coffee. Only to be served a cup with a bag full of ground coffee floating on top. Confused? Dazzled more like!
Pleasantly surprised: However, on this occasion my cup of hot brew was absolutely delightful and I was abe to restart our trip with the knowledge that not all Malaysians have lost their mind.
Conclusions: DON'T MESS ABOUT WITH TEA!
You can put anything in a bag, but you cannot make liquid gold in an instant.

Travelling with a Scot

After we fled Cambodia (the land of $1 Sir, Madam, Tuktuk, $1 for everything) for which you still have to pay $25 each at the airport (but it's worth it), we arrived in Malaysia , not having a clue what to expect. I must say that after our bad luck in Cambodia, where people generally only smiled at us when we flashed a Dollar note to pay for something worth 30 cents, pulled us into their tuktuk or made us walk over disabled people literally sitting in the mud and... in the street so that we wouldn't get run over by their trucks, I gave Malysia the benefit of the doubt. I was very quiet for once, some may say an exceptionally calming experience, but the wrinkles on my forehead were more than prominent. This changed, however, as we arrived in Kuala Lumpur and were told to get on a bus, a real bus, with a ticket that had a real, definite price, and sat down. As Stuart asked the driver how far the hotel was from the bus station, he simply answered 'It isn't far, you may want to get a cab, you can also get a bus, but this might be more inconvenient for you.' Despite being an English teacher, I have never ever melted so much at a complete English sentence, using advanced vocabulary, the words CAB, and INCONVENIENT were just magic to my ears, and I thought, hier bin ich Mensch, hier m'ochte ich sein... :) I could stay here... I was even more fascinated by the fact that they had roads, even road signs and as the skyscrapers drew closer, we realized that Malaysia was just the right contrast to Cambodia. Kuala Lumpur is a modern and busy city, there's a great mixture of Malay, Chinese and Indian people, all selling fake Louis Vuitton purses and bags, but all very friendly and helpful. I thought it was still quite exotic, until Stuart got me to travel north, to the Cameron Highlands. As you read on, you might wonder what travelling is all about, if you can get a Scot to take you to a place called CAMERON HIGHLANDS, to walk in the rain and the mist and have tea...
We are now in the Cameron Highlands - named after a Scottish fellow who discovered/colonised the area a few years back (yes, they are everywhere). The weather is cool and rainy and once you have finished walking in the hills you can find shelter in one of the local tearooms and talk about your adventures over a nice cup of tea and a scone. It's great-even our favourite Indian restaurant sells Rock Cakes and Shortbread. It also serves some of their curry dishes on a cut out piece of Banana Leaf. At first, we thought it was a nice table mat until the waitress spooned rice and various other dishes on to it. Itwas absolutely delicious. To round ofthe day, we got lost in the jungle (a very entertaining experience for Stuart, who was rediscovering his childhood, not so for Martine, who just thought 'we will never get out of here'). Maybe our mistake was to follow trees with three red lines on them, maybe sings for an official path, but at hindsight, a sign for 'road leasding to death' or 'road not to take'- not even you Stuart....' We nearly escaped death and all the snakes,had a cup of tea (again) and headed of for a visit to the waterfall. There we met a nice elderly Indian guy, a former guide of 63 years of age (picture: we, that is the Scotsman, in the raincoat because it started to rain and he started to melt), with a huge backpack full of water, first aid kit, plasters, biscuits, fleeze, camera, and then the guide, with walking shoes he had inherited from a traveller who had left them behind in a guesthouse, and merely a handful of sweets and a basic poncho which he squeezed into his pocket. He was very kind and offered to walk down a path with us. He gave us lots of explanations, cut us walking sticks (given our fantastic level of fitness compared to this 63-year old...shame on us) and led us down the way to the bus stop. How do you know it's a bus stop? Because it is...no sign, no comment. We waited for the bus (one per hour) but it didn't come, so we ended up in a pick-up truck next to lots of tomatoes which took us half way, and later in a jeep with a Chinese friend of his. The lovely man, who knows the name of cabbage in 8 languages, and told us that 100 men can live to gether but not two women (after which Martine shut up) never accepted a penny for his help, but we had a fantastic day....

Weird food day!

martineandstu
Sometimes gambling with the menu doesn't pay off.
Stuart's diet for today.
Breakfast: Curry on a bed of spaghetti followed by a sweet bun with a topping of sausages, mayonnaise and sweetcorn.
Midday snack: Roasted chestnuts deep-fried in a sticky batter.
Dinner: Malaysian mint curry soup. The ingredients were: spaghetti, dried bean curd, something that looked like meat but tasted a bit like parsnip, prawns and chicken in a spicy soup-topped with loads of MINT!!!
Drink: Black iced jelly. Didn't taste of much, but the shock came upon the first suck of the straw. Lots of slithers of black jelly hit my tongue-most to my suprise. A drink more at home on the set of Star Trek I think.
Very weird, very, very weird.

Happy Pizza

martineandstu: August 2006
Had a very productive day today. We are in Pnom Phen and have been to see the a museum of torture (ah mmmm), the Royal Palace, a Russian Market and had a nice cold drink in the colonial Foreign Correspondants Club overlooking the Mekong River-very nice. We rounded off the evening by going to a place called Happy Pizza. The conversation with the waiter went something like this
Waiter: Would you like a Happy Pizza
Stuart: A herby pizza?
Waiter: Yes a happy pizza!
(Again and again)
Waiter: Would you like a very Happy pizza
Stuart: Oh yes please!
(2 minutes later)
Waiter: Do you know what I mean by a Happy Pizza?
Stuart: Herby?
Water: Marijuana, Sir!
Stuart: Em, (cough, cough) NO NO NO! No thankyou! Blody Hell!
Martine: (Giggling like a school girl)

That's when we read the notice outside again saying SPECIAL HERB PIZZA- WELL-KNOWN.... send two boring teachers to Cambodia, no wonder it's so popular...so we concentrated on our orange juice again and enjoyed the nice view....

Cambodia

Cambodia-ANGKOR WAT AND THE SCAM BUS

Hello everyone,
well, we are still trying to work out how this thing is supposed to work with pictures and everything but we promise you will get some.

So, we arrived in Cambodia on Monday and were thrown into things straight away. We witnessed poverty at worst-disabled people lying on the streets, begging, dirt, dogs etc etc... So we did the only decent thing anyone from a rich western country could do - we upgraded our hotel to include a room with cable TV, air conditioning and hot water. As any socialist will tell you, a growing economy depends on a flourishing small business community. It costs a little more for us, but it's the least we could do.

Actually, we are not so unkind (well Stuart is), we needed to pamper ourselves a little after we found ourselves on something known in Lonely Planet as the SCAM bus. This is a bus which you can't get off and get ripped off along the way. But being well-informed, we would nevere get on that bus, no, we just booked two tickets to get us with an air-con bus from Koh Chang island to Cambodia, due to arrive at 8 pm in Siem Reap, in northern Cambodia, along with all the other optimistic fellow travellers. Thge bus was small, but air-cin, the driver a bit mad and the journey close to rollercoaster which I love... but nothing compared to what happened after that famous border. First of all the visas were upgraded, from a $20 one to a $30 dollar one, so you can enjoy Cambodia and its corruption to its fullest, then walk over the border, guided by people who 'took care'of you and told you to exchange money here before you get ripped off later..no comment. Then you get on the second bus, the air-con has been taken out an sold, so have the bumpers and windows...it was quite an experience, onlz 4 more hours to go, haha. I tried to sleep, but resting your head agaisnt the seat would have been heaven for the next dentist around as you ricsked having your teeth kicked out. If you take the roads less travelled, do not expect it to be with concrete, in fact no. It took us quite a while to figure oput which side of the street they drive on, but apparently its is the right, or any way around the hole that is. Than god we were not on a SCAM bus, we thought, unti we stopped in the middle of nowhere to have dinner for 1 hour, being informed that we would only arrive at midnight. Not to mention that 2 hours later, the bus BROKE DOWN, that is we waited a little bit, let the tourists take pictures of an un-broken down broken down bus, use some tools to move the screw once to the left, once to the right, and off we go again,...thank god we are not on a SCAM bus. One hour later, we were told, out of the blue, that this bus can't go on because of the brakes and we have to change bus (I could have told you that when we got on, but no one listens to me here.... I miss the students) so we changed bus, were separated from our luggage and men (women an children first), so that the women could arrive first and choose the nicest room in the hotel, the only one the brought us to at midnight. Thank God we were not on a SCAM BUS. We love Cambodia and its people, they give you a very nice, eventful welcome, if a bit bumby, things to talk about and make friends here.

Koh Chang

1st August
Well i've got 5 minutes before my money runs out to say that i am in Bangkok with Martine at the start of our world trip. So far my belly is fine and I was delighted to find out that chilly chicken with rice etc was served at breakfast. Martine was disgusted as I got myself a 3 course meal at 9am but i was over the moon.

Will speak more soon.
Too tight to spend more money
keep in touch stu

3rd August
We've just arrived on Koh Chang, fabulous little island still fairly unharmed by tourism. Unfortunately, it's raining much to Stuart's delight, who feels very much at home in the rain, only it's a bit warmer for once. Stuart is at home in his new hippy clothes and I am happy to see him out of his boring old ones. Still, his challenge now is to find trousers with pocket to carry necessary utensils such as tiger balm, poncho, toilet paper, mosquito spray, anti biotics for chittychiityrun run, sandals and sunglasses. As I said, a challenge it is, thankfully we have a year.