To see more pictures follow this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/tonycesare/WesternMalaysiaPenangAndTheCameronHighlands?authkey=Gv1sRgCOyooaeSxc2aywE&feat=directlink
We again fell a bit behind on the blogging (too much to see and do in Siem Reap, Cambodia). To catch up, we’ve done another 2 posts. The Cambodia blog will be up soon.
In our last post we had left South Thailand by bus and entered Malaysia. Malaysia is divided between the Western “Peninsular” portion which is connected to Thailand and the Eastern portion which is located on the north Coast of the island of Borneo. After crossing the Thai border we spent six days in Western Malaysia including Penang, an island off the Northwest Coast; the Cameron Highlands, a centrally located Mountainous region; and one night in Kuala Lumpur, before flying to Cambodia.
Malaysia is a (primarily) Muslim nation. Instead of seeing Buddhist monks in their orange robes everywhere, in Malaysia women in headscarves are common, as are Mosques, and all the hotels rooms have signs pointing the direction towards Mecca. However, Malaysians are hard to define as a people because they are so ethnically diverse. From what we’ve seen, Malaysian culture and people are a mix of SE Asian, South Asian (Indian), Muslim, Chinese and British colonial culture – which has made for an interesting travel experience and great food choices!
Unfortunately we don’t have many great stories from Western Malaysia. The week or so from Phuket to Hat Yai, to Penang, to Cameron Highlands was probably the most trying of our travels so far. We just had to grin and bear many things. Penang had the makings of a good time and came recommended by Erika’s father who travelled through SE Asia in the 70s. Unfortunately, things have changed in the 35 years. Now, Penang is connected to the mainland by a very large bridge (longest in Asia?) and is a destination resort. Most of the nice beaches are owned by hotels who charge for access and the public beaches are manned by touts who persistently try to get you to buy a ride on a jetski, parasail, or a sad-looking horse. Even if you wanted to swim, the warm water appeared dirty and uninviting. We tried to do some fun things but continually ran into roadblocks. The railway to “Penang Hill” was a four hour wait when we got there. The big Buddhist temple near Penang hill was the biggest tourist trap we’d ever seen, so we had a look then got out of there quickly (it is not a recommended stop!). We wanted to go snorkeling at one of the nearby islands. However, we were given such a runaround from touts and hawkers who lied and/or tried to overcharge us that we finally said screw it. We felt it was better not to overpay for an expensive trip with a high potential for disappointment (we were on a bad run with the touts at this point). In the end, our three days in Penang were pretty slow, only highlighted by “Azizun”, the super-friendly and helpful night door-man at our hotel. The one thing that we did that was ultra smile-inducing was getting a therapeutic treatment by “nibbler fish”. To “rejuvenate our skin and increase blood flow” we paid money to stick our feet in a pool of fish that nibble off the dead skin. It feels just as funny as it sounds and while we weren’t sure it did much therapeutically to help our feet, it was surely ticklish and we had tons of fun and couldn’t stop laughing! While Penang did have an incredible mix of Malay, Muslim and Indian Culture, and the night food markets were an amazing site, for us it wasn’t too memorable. If we had to do it over again we would have given it a miss.
Our next stop was a town called Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands and to get there we had to take another bus ride. In retrospect two things about this bus ride should not have taken us by surprise: 1) that it took about twice as long to get there as quoted, and 2) that while the travel agent promised us, and sold us first class bus tickets, in actuality the bus was an old and rundown 2nd class bus (first class buses here are more expensive but can be as nice as international business class seats and food is available onboard). Of course no refund was offered at the bus-station because the travel agent was independent of the bus company… as per usual in SE Asia. Also, this bus ride caused our hearts to sit in our throats for at least a couple hours. The big flat freeways were fine but the narrow, winding roads up into the highlands were a different story. The driver was taking turns so fast that bags and suitcases were sliding all over the bus floor and the huge drop-offs immediately next to the road-side were as big as anything we had seen during travels in the Colorado mountains. To top it off, our driver didn’t appear to have gotten enough sleep the night before. He spent the last 2 hours yawning, rubbing his eyes and stretching all the while driving way too fast around the curves of the mountain! We were both actually pretty terrified and were more than happy to get off the bus in the small and quaint town of Tanah Rata.
Once off the bus, we really enjoyed the Cameron Highlands. As the name would suggest, it is a highland region in the middle of Peninsular Malaysia with beautiful gardens and tea plantations on every hill. The weather was a bit cooler, which was a nice break from the sticky temperatures everywhere else. We did a one-day tour led by a half-crazy man who wore rings that would make Ozzy Ozbourne jealous and drove a 4x4 with bull horns on the front. But we met lots of other traveling westerners and saw some cool things including the big flowers –called rufflesia –that are so famous in Malaysia. Rufflesia have the biggest flower of any plant species in the world and have hard, rubbery petals that are amazing to see up close. We also stopped at a tea plantation on the tour and were treated to view of beautifully manicured tea fields covering every hillside in view. In town, there wasn’t much food that we felt comfortable about eating (though the Indian we had one night was very good), but oddly, there was a Starbucks. It was an odd sight in this little highland town but we were more than happy to partake of the blessed frappuccino and make use of the free wireless.
After Tanah Rata, we took an uneventful bus ride down to Kuala Lumpur, where we spent one night before heading to Cambodia. Our first impression of KL was that it is a modern SE Asian city with significant western influences. But, we got to see very little as we were off to Siem Reap in the morning.
We again fell a bit behind on the blogging (too much to see and do in Siem Reap, Cambodia). To catch up, we’ve done another 2 posts. The Cambodia blog will be up soon.
In our last post we had left South Thailand by bus and entered Malaysia. Malaysia is divided between the Western “Peninsular” portion which is connected to Thailand and the Eastern portion which is located on the north Coast of the island of Borneo. After crossing the Thai border we spent six days in Western Malaysia including Penang, an island off the Northwest Coast; the Cameron Highlands, a centrally located Mountainous region; and one night in Kuala Lumpur, before flying to Cambodia.
Malaysia is a (primarily) Muslim nation. Instead of seeing Buddhist monks in their orange robes everywhere, in Malaysia women in headscarves are common, as are Mosques, and all the hotels rooms have signs pointing the direction towards Mecca. However, Malaysians are hard to define as a people because they are so ethnically diverse. From what we’ve seen, Malaysian culture and people are a mix of SE Asian, South Asian (Indian), Muslim, Chinese and British colonial culture – which has made for an interesting travel experience and great food choices!
Unfortunately we don’t have many great stories from Western Malaysia. The week or so from Phuket to Hat Yai, to Penang, to Cameron Highlands was probably the most trying of our travels so far. We just had to grin and bear many things. Penang had the makings of a good time and came recommended by Erika’s father who travelled through SE Asia in the 70s. Unfortunately, things have changed in the 35 years. Now, Penang is connected to the mainland by a very large bridge (longest in Asia?) and is a destination resort. Most of the nice beaches are owned by hotels who charge for access and the public beaches are manned by touts who persistently try to get you to buy a ride on a jetski, parasail, or a sad-looking horse. Even if you wanted to swim, the warm water appeared dirty and uninviting. We tried to do some fun things but continually ran into roadblocks. The railway to “Penang Hill” was a four hour wait when we got there. The big Buddhist temple near Penang hill was the biggest tourist trap we’d ever seen, so we had a look then got out of there quickly (it is not a recommended stop!). We wanted to go snorkeling at one of the nearby islands. However, we were given such a runaround from touts and hawkers who lied and/or tried to overcharge us that we finally said screw it. We felt it was better not to overpay for an expensive trip with a high potential for disappointment (we were on a bad run with the touts at this point). In the end, our three days in Penang were pretty slow, only highlighted by “Azizun”, the super-friendly and helpful night door-man at our hotel. The one thing that we did that was ultra smile-inducing was getting a therapeutic treatment by “nibbler fish”. To “rejuvenate our skin and increase blood flow” we paid money to stick our feet in a pool of fish that nibble off the dead skin. It feels just as funny as it sounds and while we weren’t sure it did much therapeutically to help our feet, it was surely ticklish and we had tons of fun and couldn’t stop laughing! While Penang did have an incredible mix of Malay, Muslim and Indian Culture, and the night food markets were an amazing site, for us it wasn’t too memorable. If we had to do it over again we would have given it a miss.
Our next stop was a town called Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands and to get there we had to take another bus ride. In retrospect two things about this bus ride should not have taken us by surprise: 1) that it took about twice as long to get there as quoted, and 2) that while the travel agent promised us, and sold us first class bus tickets, in actuality the bus was an old and rundown 2nd class bus (first class buses here are more expensive but can be as nice as international business class seats and food is available onboard). Of course no refund was offered at the bus-station because the travel agent was independent of the bus company… as per usual in SE Asia. Also, this bus ride caused our hearts to sit in our throats for at least a couple hours. The big flat freeways were fine but the narrow, winding roads up into the highlands were a different story. The driver was taking turns so fast that bags and suitcases were sliding all over the bus floor and the huge drop-offs immediately next to the road-side were as big as anything we had seen during travels in the Colorado mountains. To top it off, our driver didn’t appear to have gotten enough sleep the night before. He spent the last 2 hours yawning, rubbing his eyes and stretching all the while driving way too fast around the curves of the mountain! We were both actually pretty terrified and were more than happy to get off the bus in the small and quaint town of Tanah Rata.
Once off the bus, we really enjoyed the Cameron Highlands. As the name would suggest, it is a highland region in the middle of Peninsular Malaysia with beautiful gardens and tea plantations on every hill. The weather was a bit cooler, which was a nice break from the sticky temperatures everywhere else. We did a one-day tour led by a half-crazy man who wore rings that would make Ozzy Ozbourne jealous and drove a 4x4 with bull horns on the front. But we met lots of other traveling westerners and saw some cool things including the big flowers –called rufflesia –that are so famous in Malaysia. Rufflesia have the biggest flower of any plant species in the world and have hard, rubbery petals that are amazing to see up close. We also stopped at a tea plantation on the tour and were treated to view of beautifully manicured tea fields covering every hillside in view. In town, there wasn’t much food that we felt comfortable about eating (though the Indian we had one night was very good), but oddly, there was a Starbucks. It was an odd sight in this little highland town but we were more than happy to partake of the blessed frappuccino and make use of the free wireless.
After Tanah Rata, we took an uneventful bus ride down to Kuala Lumpur, where we spent one night before heading to Cambodia. Our first impression of KL was that it is a modern SE Asian city with significant western influences. But, we got to see very little as we were off to Siem Reap in the morning.
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