Selamat Datang Malaysia

WWII Bunkers that we stayed in

Hiking around

Tea Plantations

Drinking at the Boh Estates- check out the view!

Yummmmmy- not!

Oh lala

Pretty flowers :)

Lovin it

Jane, where's Tarzan

We arrived safely in Malaysia after our 9 hour- no frills, no food, not even any complimentary beverages flight from Australia. We didn't know you couldn't use a card on the plane to buy food, cash only, and being that we had zero dollars in cash and were tired and dying of thirst- the stewardess felt bad for us, eventually smuggled us some free water. But things started to turn out quite well once we landed. We met an Australian woman on our way through customs who was in Kuala Lumpur on her own for a buisness trip and offered us a free ride into the city in her premier taxi which we were more than happy to oblidge. She had kids who were in their 20's, bumming around and backpacking to so she instantly spotted us out. After a huge thanks we trotted out off into the city, right in the middle of Malaysia's, what turned out to be once a day freak rain storms. The rain actually felt quite nice, given that it is 90+ degrees here everyday and extremely muggy in the city. I don't mind the heat, but lugging my massive backpack around in the blistering sun can get a bit exhausting. We picked up a tiny little room in Chinatown and headed out to the night markets for some good old fashion bootleg shopping.

The next morning we boarded up on a bus and headed up to the Cameroon Highlands, which were much cooler in temperature and much more beautiful in scenary. The highlands reminded me a lot of the highlands in Sri Lanka, and were covered in greenary, flowers, and tea plantations. We got a room at a hostel that was an old WWII bunker, which was kind of interesting, but offered zero insulation for the chilly evenings. We got some advice on a trek from a guy at the front desk who recommended a jungle trek that would lead out to the tea plantations. All in all it was supposed to be around 6 km and take about 4 hours total....supposedly. We woke up super early, as per advised, to get a clear few before the mist had settled in, but found that it was raining. We decided to wait out the rain, I kicked some major ass in Scrabble, and then waited and waited until we realized that the rain would never stop and that we might as well go out anyways. Once into the woods, the trees gaurded from the drizzle but the path was supppper muddy. What we hadn't counted on was the fact that it was full on hand to foot seriously steepgrade, all straight uphill climbing- talk about achy knees!. This path was not trimmed down nicely or well marked like any of the other treks we had done in New Zealand or Australia. After about 3 hours, we made it to the top without getting too lost and were on top of the mountain, stuck in a giant cloud. We could see zippo. Thankfully the path down was a paved road that was supposed to be only a mile or so long til it led to tea estates. So we started walking, and walking, and walking and then thankfully ran into the first car we saw which happen to be a Malaysian couple in a car who were on their way to the tea plantations and had gotten lost. They offered us a ride and we were more than happy to except, being all muddy and tired. Well....11 kms later we finally reach the tea plantations. Apparently our advice from the hostel was bunk. The tea plantations were absolutly gorgeous and green, and we were blown away by the view from the tea house where we sipped our fine grade clove and cardomen tea. We now had the task of getting back. We asked the guy at the front desk how to catch a bus and he said "depending on how fast you walk, it should take about 20-30 minutes to reach the bottem of the estate to catch the only bus into town." We were the only ones there without private transportation. So again we started walking, and walking and walking until we realized that 20-30 malaysian minutes meant much longer. So I stuck out my thumb and a van with japanese tourists gladly picked us up. Well turns out it was 9 km down the hill and then another 5 kms back into the town where we were stayiing. They were heading in the same direction and offered to take us back for free. By the time we got back it was nearly dark and began to pour again. I must have had some good karma stored up from somewhere because we had gotten very lucky all day. It turned out to be quite an adventure.

The next day didn't go so smoothly, we tried to bus bus tickets to go to the port town to catch the ferry to Langkawi, our next destination but the tix were all sold out. We were told if we went to a twon about 2 hours away, there was a huge bus station and we'd surely find tickets there. After arriving in Ipoh we soon learned that we "would" have been able to find tickets no problem..had it not been a holiday and everyone and their grandmother was travelling. Of the 30 different bus companies all of them were sold out- all of them. One company had two tickets leaving for 8 hours from when we arrived, and after discussing and learning that it was our only option decided to book and oops..all sold out. Well we scrambled back and forth between the counters until two people had decided to refund their tickets to a bus that went to a different port town..but a port town none the less and we snatched the last two tickets. Our bus arrived in Butterworth, we took a ferry to Penang where we would spend the night before heading off on a 3 hour long ferry to Langkawi.

Penang is famous for their food and long story short: fish balls, carrot balls, deep fried shelled crab, and deepfried mystery seafood, chopped up together with a glob of red mystery sauce..I think the only thing that saved John's life was the alcohol in the Tiger beer that was used to wash down the concoction that killed any of the...mystery "stuff"

The ferry to Langkawi was quite nice, aside from the terrrrible karoake that was blaring over the speakers. Once there, the taci into town dropped us off at the wrong spot. We had to walk with our backpacks about 40 minutes in the 100 degree sun and by the end of the walk I was soaked. We headed off to a a tiny little side of the road local food stand where we met these two travellers, Frank and Yolanda who were the grooviest peopleyou'd ever want to run into. Frank was in his fifties and Yolanda in her thirties and both had been travelling nonstop for the last 2 years around southeast asia. They were not a couple, just travelling buddies like John and I so it was perfect. We ended up staying at the restaurant and chatting with them for the next 14 hours! Langkawi is a gorgeous Island and the next 5 days we spent there were a hoot. We hung out with Frank and Yolanda everyday, waxing on end about the most ridiculous and profound things, rented motos, explored the Island, broke into an old restaurant to watch the sunset and just had a brilliant time. They are both really great people and had some really great insight and stories about travellign around Asia, it really got me revved up to travel more. And coincidentally their next stop is India, so I had some good stories to tell as well. Unfortunately we had to jet and come back to KL, where I am now, to catch our flight to Indonesia. We are flying to Jakarta but are hopping straight over to Bali (hopefully). All in all things are going quite well. I miss everyone at home but am really excited for more adventures. That's all from this side of the world. xoxo

Saudades Renan!