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....