Pictures And Words

I’m on a boat! I’m on a mother$*#@ing boat!! Rushed through Malaysia immigration, passport stamped out, rushed onto the boat to Indnesia, sit down, set off almost 2 hours later…classic, didn’t even get time to eat breakfast due to the implied hurry.

A lot has happened since the last time I put finger to keyboard, I left the Cameron highlands after 2 weeks walking dogs, socialising with people from all over the world (thanks to a very friendly amazing 76 year old Britsh lady who has been traveling for 50 years, more on her later), visiting tea fields, and hobbling on giant blisters. I left for Kuala Lumpur again, to meet up with my good friend Jules from Austria, who I lived with in Manchester. I met up with Jules, and made many new friends at a great guesthouse in KL. I left Kuala Lumpur for a town called Maleka on the southern coast of Malaysia, stayed one night and in the morning (this morning) left for the port to catch a boat to Indonesia. I am now on that very mother$*#&ing boat (you tube “i’m on a boat” if you are confused by my use of profanity here).

Since I havn’t wrote in a while this post just contains pics from the Cameron highlands, the last few days I have fallen in love with photography all over again, and I have so many pictures I will put on in the next few weeks.

Around Tanah Rata, the rather grand looking building in the 3rd picture is an old Britsh military hospital, its now a catholic Convent and boarding school, the majestic building being worked on by a crane is a hotel.

Tanah Rata was a a great place to get some respite from the humidity, which was getting to be a bit of a chore, im getting used to it now, its mainly dealing with being sticky all the time, sticking to your clothes and having a layer of grease on your hands and face. Tanah Rata had none of this, nice and warm during the day, and cool enough at night to warrent a blanket. I had a very small room, with a small gap of floor at the side and foot of a single matress, sounds claustrophobic, but actually was nice and cosey. Also at my guesthouse was free Wifi! Well it wasn’t free, they said pay 10 ringet (about 2 pounds) for 24 hours, but they didn’t realise I could use it in my room, and they never changed the password, so I was on the internet everynight, socialising and what not.

Tanah Rata is famous rolling tea fields, large flower farms, stawberry farms and insect zoo’s. The tea fields were beautiful.

As you can see, beautiful.

Not long after I got to Tanah Rata I took a walk to the nearest tea fields, about 10km away. I had a very small blister already from walking around Kuala Lumpur, but it caused no problem and was pretty much healed, but after some walking on it, putting pressure on the bubble of liquid, it grew and grew! And another one developed! The first one ended up about 6 times larger than it was, and kinda sore to walk on. So after the first walk I was lamed, didn’t want to burst it, and didn’t want to walk on it incase it grew bigger. So I stayed local for a few days.

After a few days they felt healed underneath, so I popped them and cut the skin off, they were ok to walk on, a little tender but not sore.

Grew bored of Tanah Rata not being able to venture to far, my feet healed and healed, and my boredom was helped away by Elizabeth, a British lady 76 years young. She had been traveling for most of her adult life, spending many years in India. She would teach children and help out wherever help was needed. In Tanah Rata me and her walked a dog together on a few mornings, the local people thought this very strange, to walk a dog. It was such a small happy dog, not a problem at all, yet the local people would scramble out of the way when they saw us coming, I got the impression that they didn’t personify dogs as much as we did in the west, I totally don’t think we over personify though, dogs do have a very strong personality, the Malay people seem to totally miss this.

A local cat and boy who both came out to see us walking the dog, and there’s Elizabeth with the dog, Rocky.

Elizabeth would talk to all the travelers she saw, and encourage them all to come together, mainly at a cafe that was run by the daughter of the cook for the British High Commisioner, from the times when England had a strong presence in Malaysia. The food at this cafe was excellent, I never really ordered, I would just get a load of everything that had been cooked that morning or afternoon, lots of chicken, fish and curry. Whilst eating here I met people from Quebec, Japan, England, America, Holland and South Korea, and im sure more I can’t think of now. So far since traveling I have been more social than my whole time in Australia combined, if you care to try and think about a measure of socialality like this.

Lots of delicious fruit for sale, a massive pile of the famous Durian (which I have aquired a taste for despite its stink), a coconut chopping block and then a machine for pressing the cream out of the shredded coconut inards.

One dog walking morning we went to a building called the Old Smoke House, it was built by the British and was a place for gentle-folk to drink tea and eat spotted dick for extorsionate prices, and it remains this to this day. It was very pristine inside, a cup of tea would cost about 2 pounds, crazy considering in the town you get it for 20p or so. Strawberries and cream was also silly expensive. Elizabeth stayed here in the 60’s with an American boyfriend of hers, still, they were reluctant to let her see the room and look around the place she has 40 year old memories from. Needless to say they didn’t like me snooping around taking pictures, I got in under the pretense of looking for my friends who were in there somewhere.

In and around the smoke house, its a pretty spectacular building hey. Look at the little spirit house, also done in the same style, this is a Buddhist tradition, somewhere for the spirits to live so they don’t much about in the main house.

Classic red phone box, including BT instructions inside, this phone box accepts 1p and 1/2p.

My time in Tanah Rata was coming to an end, I been there for a week and a half, and not seen half as many things as I really should have done, mainly due to my blisters and partly due to lazyness inspired by free wifi in my room. On the day before I left I decided to walk to the top of the highest peak in Malaysia, although I didn’t know it was until I had failed to do it and arrived home just missing a massive storm. I set off on my own, which wasn’t the cleverest thing to do, I also set off in my flip flops, also not clever, and I set off on a day that looked like it was going to rain, and again it aint so clever. I was worried by the amasing clouds so I set of at a wild pace, leaping up and up and up. The reason for wanting to take this route was to see a part of the jungle was was reported to be very old, moss had grown all over the ground like a carpet, and up the trees also, in beautiful curves from the ground, not that I saw it due to the impending rain scaring me off. So yeah, I was bolting up and up and up, wondering when I would arrive at the mossy forest, all the time the sky was rumbling and looking more grey, each step forward I knew I had to take back, yet I could be close and not have wasted each step forward, knowing this pushed me on, the clouds made me want to turn back, my head kinda cycled round, building fear and anxiety, which was pumped quickly around my body by my whopping heart rate caused by my fear induced pace, round and round and round my mind went, faster and faster I ran through the jungle. I would have loved to have come across other treckers to disperse my worries, but I didn’t. In the end (well, not the END end, but the end of my wits more like) I decided to turn back, and ran back at an equal pace. To be caught in the jungle in the rain would be bad, to be caught in a jungle on a steep hill even more bad, to be caught in the jungle on a steep hill with 1000 pounds worth of camera stuff that doesn’t like water would just stink. So yeah, i bolted back to town, as soon as I made cover of town, a chinese restaurant, the sky opened up! I kid you not, as soon as I made cover! I sat down and ate the spiciest pork and rice i had ever eaten.

This was what the path ahead looked like most of the way, daunting. At some points though it looked promising, like that second picture, there was a brightness ahead.

Lots of mushrooms in the jungle, these are from various excursions I made into the jungles.

Some bug spied whilst taking the dog for a walk with Elizabeth one day.

Some more jungle sights.

Some very strange looking branches from the jungle.

And thats all really, can’t think of anything else I got up to in Tanah Rata, so i’ll finish up with some remaining photo’s.

Some dying insect I found lying around, I moved the millipede from concrete to a leaf for a more authentic look, the butterfly flapped off and crashed landed when I tried to move it.

Termite highway.

This is the house of a chinese lady that owned that beautiful dog that we took for a walk once, when we returned it she gave it a whollop on the head right away, like it had done something wrong, she didn’t let us take it for a walk again.

Zuchini bath
A bath full of Zuchini’s, the second picture is a HDR picture combining 5 pictures, the colours i think, are a little too much.

And some randon stuff in a glass house outside the smoke house, and a veg market in Tanah Rata.

And thats all for now! After much delaying feels good to write about where I was the last weeks. I am now in Indonesia! I arrived yesterday afternoon and caught a night bus to Bukutingi, where I was many years ago. It was quite a long mission to get here, so its great to be here. I have so many amazing pictures, I don’t know when I will get around to posting them, since im now traveling with Jules and 2 girls from Norway, so I will be being social most of the time, not having time to edit pictures and what not. Also our rooms here don’t have plug sockets, so soon my compter battery will run out.

Look forward to your comments.

Great to be back on the road!