Finally, a chance to relax a bit and post some. Things have seemed a little hectic lately, maybe just a bit too much jumping around from place to place and going on boats, buses, trains, and planes. (We seem to be covering most forms of transportation in one way or another.)
As Lorien mentioned, we're now in a guesthouse in Kuching that we really like. I'll put in a plug for it in case it's relevant to anyone reading this, it's the singgahsana lodge, see www.singgahsana.com for more details. Too new too be in the latest Lonely Planet for Malaysia, but I'm sure they'll be raving about it in the next edition. And I'll put in a negative plug for where we moved from, the Mandarin Hotel. First of all, we ended up there because we had trouble finding a room the night we got in. I suppose given that we don't plan very far in advance and aren't usually in a position to be able to make any kind of reservation, it's inevitable that it will happen sometimes. At first we thought it was because of some badminton tournament going on (there are posters advertising it around town), but in retrospect perhaps the fact that the Malaysian king and queen were in town had more to do with it (for some festival that we went to last night – and also we were browsing along the stores on the main street here by the river and a big motorcade came by and stopped, and the queen was shopping in one of the stores there).
But I digress... The hotel was kind of dingy and run down and had no common area, and we were pretty tired and wanted to sleep in and then got woken up to construction sounds at 8 something in the morning. (Although it was cheap.) So we decided to find better digs the next day, hoping to move the following day, but when we found a room available immediately we decided to just take it right away. They suggested here that we just give the old hotel our key and leave, but I felt a little bit bad about checking out way past the posted checkout time (like 8 something PM rather than noon). So I explained to the manager how we couldn't sleep because of the noise, and I offered to pay him half of the rate for the room, even though we weren't going to spend any time there that night. He starts yelling and screaming at me and keeps pointing to the list of rules with the posted checkout time. I kept telling him that we couldn't sleep and I was being generous by volunteering to pay half, but that didn't assuage his yelling and screaming. Eventually he made a counter offer (I think something like 70% of the rate) and we said fine, I just wanted to get out of there. His wife was a bit more calm and maybe she was actually amused by the goings on.
At first I was very excited about heading to a new country – new food, new language, new experiences, but it's also been a bit stressful too. Thailand had a certain familiarity to it that we certainly don't have in Malaysia. And even the first time we visited Thailand, we knew a lot more what to expect from the food. But we're adjusting a bit and I'm a bit more relaxed now. Lorien mentioned that the food is a bit of a mix of Thai and Indian – I'd add Chinese to that as well. Which somewhat reflects the diversity of races and religions here – and the people seem to make a big deal of being a multiracial and multireligious country where different people seem to live together in relative harmony.
We took the boat from Koh Tao to Chumphon, then took the overnight train to Butterworth, which is right across from the island of Penang and the city of Georgetown. We kept trying to figure out on Koh Tao how we could buy a train ticket to go further, all the way to the Cameron Highlands, but finally realized that the answer was that you couldn't, Butterworth is the end of the line. You can take another train further south, but you have to wait I think almost a full day for that, so buses become a more attractive option.
No first class train on that route (I've gotten a bit spoiled by the niceness and cheapness of first class train sleeper accomodations in Asia), but second class was actually pretty nice. Except for the somewhat drunk and somewhat loud Canadians in the same car as us. Although they were somewhat amusing too us (maybe less so to the locals that had gotten on the train earlier and were already trying to sleep), and it wasn't too long before their drunkenness caught up with them and they were soundly passed out. One of the somewhat funny lines that we remember was one of them saying, as part of this real heartfelt, in depth conversation held at a fairly loud talking volume around midnite (quiet hours are supposed to be past 10 PM) was “Travel makes you grow up” (we pegged them as being in their early twenties, traveling for a few years past high school), not realizing just how immature they were being from the contents (and volume) of their conversation. Or am I just starting to sound like a cranky old man? Ok, maybe not, since we were giggling more to them rather than getting annoyed. Although we were vaguely considering slipping some Valium in their bottle (they were still drinking on the train) to get them to shut up, but that probably would have been a really bad idea.... Don't worry, I wouldn't really do that, I want to save the Valium for myself. :)
Ok, Lorien just returned and reminded me of a funnier quote from the Canucks: “I've never been able to trust anyone, and that's why I've never found love.” They just took themselves a bit too seriously.
Anyway, something I think around mid-day we ended up in Butterworth, which was far better than the 4 AM that we had to get off the train heading to Koh Tao. We got a quick bit to eat and then were pondering what to do next. We had considered heading in to Penang for one day. It's supposed to have very good food, and at the very least I feel like I owe it to myself to have Penang curry in Penang itself. And stopping traveling would have been nice, but the hassle of finding a place for just one night only to have to move on and travel some more the next day wasn't all that enticing either. We went to the bus station to check on schedules before deciding (it's right by the train station – why do so few cities consider the convenience of that), and there was a bus that was about to leave IMMEDIATELY, so it just kind of seemed like fate, and we hopped on the bus and headed on to the Cameron highlands.
Spent a few days hiking there. We stayed at the Cameronian Inn, which I'd also in general recommend, despite their somewhat nickel and diming for trivial items (like 1 ringgit for towel rentals, and something if you wanted more toilet paper). One really good thing was the detailed maps that they had posted on the wall of the hiking trails, put together by a “Good Samaritan”. FAR better than any official map we've ever bought in this area. But they don't have any copies for sale – they really ought to do that imho, or post them online. Anyway, I took some pictures of them and I think at 4 megapixels and high quality JPEG they're fairly readable, and I'll try to post them online after this trip is done to help any other travelers. We just hiked by ourselves – they really try to push you to hire a guide, but it wasn't what we were in the mood for. The only reason why I might suggest hiring a guide is that indeed some of the trails can be a bit hard to find, but with the maps we had it wasn't too bad, although we did get lost and have to backtrack a few times. But at least the trails we were on were never that far from some road, so I'm not quite sure how you could get so totally lost as to not be able to somehow find your way back. I suppose another thing that a guide would help you with would be transportation, but both trails we took had starting points very close to town. And the second day it was beautiful weather so we took a leisurely stroll back along the roads. And the first day, after sitting at the bus station for a few minutes chatting with a local, the VERY FIRST car to come by after we decided to try to hitch picked us up. (And he refused to accept any money for the ride.) One thing I should note is that even the easy trails can be slippery after a rain (which happens often there in the late afternoon to early evening), so decent hiking boots with good treads are a good idea. I wouldn't have wanted to do either of our walks in my sandals.
Speaking of weather, it did remind me a lot of San Francisco, although somewhat warmer. I might have been freaked out by the fog rolling in when we were at the top of a peak the second day had I not seen a similar sight many times before.
For food, the Malay/Indian place Suria was really good. And we also enjoyed tea and scones at the T-Cafe, although we weren't able to sample their raved about apple pie as when we returned for some in the evening, the kitchen was closed.
Oh yeah, and we also managed to continue our massage habit in Tanah Ratah (the town we were in in the Cameron Highlands).
After a few days, we were off to Kuching, where we are now, and where we had the hotel saga of which I already spoke. Indeed the cat at the Viewpoint guest house in Koh Tao was partially responsible for us ending up here, although maybe all he was really telling us was that he was hungry. Oh, while I'm at it, one more plus I liked about Viewpoint (and Big Bubble dive shop). We've been a bit dismayed at the amount of plastic that gets consumed on our behalf while traveling, despite our attempts otherwise. Viewpoint was willing to refill water bottles from a very large bottle (although we later found out it wasn't free and actually I think cost us marginally more than buying new bottles). Even better, Big Bubble had a water filter (that also chilled the water!) and refilling was free. I wish more guest houses would do that. In the Cameron Highlands, we were able to at least buy fairly large bottles (5.5 L) and use those to refill our 1.5 L bottles, somewhat cutting down on waste.
Anyway, back to Kuching. As Lorien mentioned, a few days out of tropical weather, and coming back was a bit hard for me. But I'm feeling much better today. We rented a way underpowered motorbike (I think something like 80 cc, and I keep trying to upshift when on main roads but find myself already in the highest (third) gear) and explored around a bit, including the cat museum. You really have to be a cat person to see the point, I'd imagine.
Ok, I think I've probably exhausted all I have to say for now, and perhaps bored anyone who's still reading at the end of this really long post. And I'd like to take a shower before all of the hot water runs out. (It's not quite hot enough for a cold shower to be refreshing. I find it kind of odd that we're nearly at the summer solstice, but since we're so close to the equator, that's actually not the time when the sun is most overhead.)
I really wanted to post some pictures (we have a bunch) right now, and we just selected some highlights, but there doesn't seem to be any software on this machine that lets you resize images, only view them. I wish I were traveling with a collection of useful software for Windows (or maybe even a self contained Linux distribution) on my USB drive, but with the wedding hecticness I never got around to that. Anyway, I promise we'll try to post some pictures the next chance we get. It's just not feasible to upload the high resolution images.
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