Tanah Rata, Cameroon Highlands, Malaysia

Searching for Higher Ground January 4, 2012

My next stop is Tanah Rata in the Cameroon Highlands.  This is an area where vast swaths of hillside are cut out for farming; fruits, vegetables, tea.  Since the elevation is higher, the weather is less of a raging inferno and more of a pleasant hillside breeze.  I will even get to wear my fleece at night!

I get into town and my first order of business is to find a laundry place.  After the jungle trek everything I own is damp.  I don’t think it’s even possible to get clothes completely dry in the jungle.  Even if you do, they will be wet the second you put them on and start walking, chewing gum, or even thinking too hard.
I wander through the town to get my bearings.  Local hawker stalls here, convenient store there, laundry place here, bus station there, fruit stand here, Indian restaurant there, group of tourists here, local family of 4 riding a motorbike (one motorbike) there, etc. etc.  

Back at the hostel I meet a couple of people hanging out of the front porch.  We talk and a German girl and I decide to go to a Buddhist temple and check out some waterfalls tomorrow.  I go out on the town to search for something to eat for dinner.  I find a Tom Yum soup (spicy hot Thai soup) place and dig in.  The food in Asia is cheap and amazing…all of it.  Afterward I shoot back to the fruit stand and get a couple different ones.  My criteria is to simply pick the weirdest looking ones.  I give them to the woman at the front who then proceeds to help me find ripe ones.  I thank her.  Back at the hotel I cut them up and offer some to the folks out front.  They ask what they are and I respond with ‘I have no idea but we should try them out…for science of course.’ All of them are good.

I realize that one of the best parts of exploring the world (I hate the word traveling) is that everything is new again.  The food is new, the people are new, the places are new, the languages are new, the environment is new, the customs are new, the cultures are new, and so forth.  It’s almost like being a kid again because you constantly have to figure out how everything works.  

The countryside

The town

Temples, Waterfalls, and Crazy Malaysian January 5, 2012
I get up around 9am and meet Charlotte (pronounced Shaw-lot-tuh in German).  She has been volunteering in Indonesia for the past couple months and is now exploring a bit of Malaysia.

We wander down to the bus station to catch a bus to the next town over.  We talk to about 6 people trying to first find the bus station, then trying to find the actual bus, then trying to figure out where we need it to stop.  This is the most efficient way to get information almost everywhere.  We get off the bus and rack up another 2 people worth of questioning and finally find the temple.  We walk up to a door and an older gentleman tells us that the main entrance is around the corner, but lets us walk in the back way through a kitchen.  We look at one another with a ‘ok, cool’ nod and go through the door.  

The temple is pretty neat.  The smell of burning incense (sp?) fills the air and we walk around in a slow, respectful, and quiet manner looking at the Buddha’s and candles and paintings.   A monk walks past, does some ritual, and rings a big gong-type thing.  I’m glad there wasn’t but a couple people in the temple…I always worry that the local people think they are some type of zoo animals when the tourists walk in and start taking pictures.  I buy a book on Buddhism for 5 Ringet (1.5 dollars) and we leave.
We grab lunch at a Chinese place and proceed to walk back to the bus stop.  A couple taxi drivers try to temp us with a 6 Ringet ride back to the town; the bus only costs 1 Ringet.  We decline.  After about 30 minutes of waiting for the bus, we realize that splitting a cab was only going to cost 66 Dollar cents for me and even less of Charlotte’s Euro cents.   We get the cab.

Back at the hostel I read up on Buddhism via my newly purchased book and relax during the hottest part of the day.  At around 4, we meet up and go out to find a waterfall close to the town.  At the waterfall we meet a local banker who is getting some peace and quiet at the waterfall.  When we arrive he is excited to talk to us and show us pictures on his phone of the waterfall when it was flooded.  He offers to take us to a local village but we decline because Charlotte needs to meet some friends for dinner.  I am a gentleman and don’t let her walk back to town alone.  I think he wants Charlotte to go more than me anyway for obvious reasons.  He gives me his business card and tells me to meet him tomorrow if I want to go to the village.

On the walk back we talk about the motorbikes because we see someone texting while motor biking.  People here do everything on motorbikes, carry everything on motorbikes (including babies), and ride everywhere on motorbikes.   We talk about crossing the road because we see quite a few people who are hesitant.  You have to just make your move and commit to it.  If you wait until both sides are completely clear, you’ll be waiting for a long time.

I grab dinner at an Indian restaurant and grab a banana juice of the way home from the fruit stall.

Dinner!

A Lesson in Tea January 6, 2012
The most popular thing to do in town is to take a guided tour of the area by Land Rover, so I do it on my last day here.  The itinerary is tea fields in the morning, trekking through ‘mossy forest’, tea plantation, local animal farm.  I am most excited about the tea parts!

We take the land Rover out of town and around some hilly dirt roads.  At every turn the driver beeps the horn to let other vehicles coming down the hill that we are there.  I wonder what happens when both vehicles honk at the same time.  The tea fields are massive. We see workers picking the leaves and get a lesson on how they prune the trees, when they prune them, everything you would want to know about the process of growing tea.  I find it thoroughly interesting.

Next we do a small trek through the ‘mossy forest’.  It is basically what it sounds like; there is moss everywhere, on the trees, on the ground, on the rocks, everywhere.  We see some of those pitcher plants as well.  The guide tells us about the other local plants.

We pile back into the Land Rovers and head to the tea plantation where they actually make the tea.  Briefly, they first dry the leaves and then crush the leaves to break them apart.  The older leaves are harder and thus break up into finer pieces than the young small leaves.  This is why the tea you buy in bags is the lowest quality: It contains the finest particles from the older leaves.  The tea is then left to ferment or oxidize.  This basically means the tea is left to sit and the oxygen in the air changes the composition of the leaves.   The longer you ferment, the darker your tea is (i.e. english tea is fermented longer than green tea).  This is the conclusion of your tea lesson for today.

After the tour I eat lunch with a couple of Americans from Colorado who were on the same tour.  Sometimes it’s good to talk to someone from home.  I relax the rest of the day.

At night a group gathers outside.  A couple Canadian girls join with beer-in-hand and a guy from Germany walks over a well.  We talk about the oddities I will encounter in Vietnam; eating bugs, killing a live snake on the table and drinking the blood, eating dog.  The Canadians tell a story of a bus ride in Indonesia where they rode with a crazy woman and her chickens.  They talk about teaching English in Korea and the funny questions they encounter.  “Hey teacher, why do you have yellow hair” was a funny one.  Obviously the kids only see people with dark hair and dark eyes.  

Tea Fields

Penang, Malaysia

Exploring with a Bag of Juice January 7, 2012

I arrive in Penang by bus in the late afternoon.  It's an island on the western side of Malaysia known for it's excellent hawker food.   Penang is somewhere in between a city and a town.  There's not really any tall buildings, but there are still motorbikes racing about all over the place.  I basically spend the day exploring the city on foot.

I check out:
-the odd products and smells in Chinatown
-the interesting music from Little India
-a couple temples and Chinese assemblies

Somewhere along the way I find a hawker stall which sells fruit shakes and buy one "to-go".  The 'to-go cup' is a plastic bag, the 'handle' is a plastic string, and you drink out of it with a plastic straw.  At first I found it odd, then I actually preferred it to a real cup.  You can hold onto the thing with one only finger, or hang it on the handlebars of your motorbike, or tie it to your belt...whatever you want.

The only other thing to note is that I haven't had a beer in a long time.  Muslim countries are not big fans of alcohol and thus it is taxed heavily (i.e. it's expensive)

Not my photo, but a cool view of the hostel I stay in.

Penang 

Penang

and the bag of juice, of course

Badminton and Grocery Store Oddities January 8, 2012

After waking up at around 10:30am (I can sleep in if I wanna), I find that the free breakfast is still out.  Apparently the hostel has breakfast until 11am: The Old Penang Guesthouse is my kinda place.  I decide that today is going to be the day I go out and eat as may interesting things as I can find.  The hostel gave me a list of the food specialties of the city so I go forth to eat as many as I can find.  The food is so cheap and good, you're doing a great disservice to not try as much as possible.

Cendol- A dessert with green pasta, beans, ground up ice, some kind of milky stuff, and a sweet sauce.  It's interesting...not everyday you find pasta and beans in a dessert.



Roti Canai- It's similar to a crepe or very thin pancake.  My favorite one is with banana in the middle.  It usually comes with a spicy sauce so you get a mix of sweet and spicy.  Obviously the ones from the hawker stall are not presented so elegantly, but they still taste excellent.



Kuey Teow- This one is a fried noodle and vegetable dish with egg, shrimp or chicken, chilies, and bean sprouts.  You find this everywhere and it's quick to make, cheap, and good.


In between eating my second and third lunch I find myself in a shopping mall.  It has one department store, one grocery store, and a bunch of other random stores.  I notice a group of people ahead watching something on a t.v. in an electronic shop so I stop and watch.  It's a badminton match which is apparently quite popular in Malaysia.  Upon closer examination I see that it is China (Lin) vs. Malaysia (Lee) and the crowd watching is really into it.  It's like a football game in the States or a soccer game in Europe, people are cheering and cussing.  I'm not exactly sure what is being said but I know a cheer and a curse when I hear it.  I watch for about 30 minutes with the growing crowd, cheer for Malaysia of course, and when the home team wins, I move on.  Go Malaysia!

I next wander into the grocery store.  I always find it interesting to explore the grocery stores in different places.  There's always a fair amount of "What in the world is THIS stuff" or "THAT looks disgusting".  In this particular case, after noticing a box with a birds nest of the front,  it was "How in the hell do you cook a birds nest?"  I know it's some kind of Chinese thing but it boggles my mind how this could turn into something edible.  Onward.

I finish the day with dinner in Little India with a Chinese guy I met at the hostel.  He is also and engineer so we have some common ground.  I learn he has been in India for over a month.  Back at the hostel we watch a soccer match with a couple English guys on the t.v.

"Ain't that a bit racialist"

Some sort of...things

Adventures on a Motorbike January 9, 2012

I start the day with a conversation about the differences between China and the United States over toast and tea with my friend from last night.

I decide I must rent a motorbike, blend in with the locals, and expand my reach.  You can only explore so far on foot.  The guy renting motorbikes simply asks if I have a drivers license, I say "yes", and this is apparently all that is needed  ...no proof .  Then I fill out a form.  I don't have my passport since it's currently at the Thai embassy so I just make up a passport number.  It's all a formalily anyway.  There's no insurance, no nothing.  All of the liability is on you.   It's a bit  less strict than renting a car for example. He gives me a helmet and a bike and I'm off.

Now I've bungy jumped, skydived, hiked glaciers, and tramped though rivers in limestone caves in NZ, but driving a motorbike in a Malaysian city is by far the most dangerous thing I've done so far. First they drive on the other side of the road, second they don't respect traffic order (i.e.  motorbikes go down the shoulder, middle, wherever there's an opening), third they don't use signals, and fourth they don't even always drive on the correct side of the street.  I start by simply following other bikers to get a feel for the sport and practice a little.  After awhile I learn that there is a certain order to the chaos.  Bikers rule the road, get to the beginning of the line, weave up the the front during red lights.  I follow suit and find it's oddly enjoyable for someone who absolutely hates traffic with a passion.

I really feel like part of the city on a bike instead of a outside observer.

I confirm my notion that I can never buy a motorcycle.  I was going down highways at about 60-70 mph at the fastest and the speed is intoxicating.  I would most likely kill myself after getting more comforable riding o the thing.

After exploring the city for awhile I decide to get out and head down the coast to see what outside of the city.  My first discovery is a tropical fruit farm.  They have a tour and you get to try a bunch of different local fruits.

My second discovery is a small fishing village which I eat lunch at.  I meet a guy who has been to Louisiana.  He was working on an oil vessel in the Gulf of Mexico.  What a small world.

I basically ride around all day until its dark.  I return the bike (I am alive and unscathed I might add) and look for a good hawker stall for dinner.  I find an interesting one and talk to a local while we stand in front and eat.

I get my passport back from the front desk, and quickly say hello to a dutch woman from yesterday.  Another Thai sticker has been added and the damn thing is starting to look like a stamp collection or something.

Possibly the coolest motor-biker in all of Malaysia

Fishing Village

Lunch @ fishing village

I liked the fishing village

Deliciousness.

Kuala Tahan, Malaysia

Welcome to the Jungle January 1 2012

After an exciting stint in the big city of Kuala Lumpur, I decide to do a 180 and go to the Malaysian jungle.  Had I done it all over, I would have given myself another day to recover after the festivities of the prior night, but I seize the day.  I need to get to a small town called Kuala Tahan which is the closest town to the jungle, but I’m not sure exactly how to get there.  I know I need to take the metro to a bus station, then take a bus to Jarentut, and then somehow find another bus to Kuala Tahan.  I don’t know the bus times for all this, but you get good at winging it out here after awhile, so I wing it.  

I take the metro with no problems to the bus station.  The bus station is kind of a hodgepodge of different buses and little booths with destinations on them, sometimes handwritten.  There are small hawker stalls selling drinks and snacks.  I walk up and down the rows with a focused concentration like I‘m trying to solve a Sudoku puzzle or something.   I don’t see a sign on anyone’s booth for Jarentut.  I ask one of the guys in a random booth where the bus to Jarentut is, hoping to get an English answer back.  He points to a stall across the street.  I buy a ticket and reconfirm a universal lesson:  if you don’t know, just ask.

On the bus I glance over and see a couple of European looking folks.  It appears I’m not the only one seizing the day!  We arrive at Jarentut, unload from the bus, and start scanning surroundings for a bus station and an ATM.  I can see the other couple is doing the same so I ask where they are going.  They respond with “Kuala Tahan” and we immediately form a team.  At about the same time an older Indian gentleman walks up and asks if we are going to Jarentut and offers us a cab for 70 Ringet.  It seems expensive at first so we hold off.  Me and Stephan walk to the closest ATM and find that it doesn’t accept our cards.
We walk back to our bags and the taxi driver says he will drop us off at a good ATM, so we do the math:  70 Ringet divided by 3 = 23 Ringet which equals about 8 dollars each to get to the ATM and our final destination.

We accept the offer and step into the ricketiest old cab I’ve ever seen.  I’m talking like 1974 Toyota corolla old.  I look over at the cab drivers seat belt and see that is has broken and has been reattached with a small rope.  It’s loud, there’s no AC, and we drive for an hour through palm plantations as we make idle chatter until we get into the town.  We pass some monkeys on the side of the road.

We then search for accommodation.   After searching for awhile I stay at a pace called the Tahan Guesthouse, my two new friends want to search a bit more.  We decide to meet up for dinner later.

All of the restaurants are floating on the river.  You have to walk over these little bridges (read:  a couple wooden boards tied together) to get to the places.  The boat restaurants are tied to trees along the bank by long ropes.  As the river rises and falls which can happen quite dramatically, the restaurants float up and down.  It’s really cool.  We choose the restaurant where the boards stay above the water so we don’t get our feet wet.  The food is good, the company is better, and the atmosphere is kind of like you would expect on a floating restaurant in a jungle in Malaysia.  There are long-tail boats motoring back and forth, a fisherman throws his net right next to us on the river bank, and we see a couple little kids playing in the water across the way.

During dinner, the Austrians tell me about an old guy working at their hostel who would like to take us out on a jungle trek.   After dinner, we go meet him.  He is an old guy, long hair, quick to smile yet serious.  We learn he has been leading treks into the jungle for over 17 years.  He tells us he doesn't take too many groups out anymore, only the ones he likes.  I’m sure if this is a clever marketing technique or if he's being completely genuine, but we all seem to agree on the latter.   We talk it over and decide that we must do this.  We decide on the following itinerary:

Meet at the dock after breakfast, take a long-tail boat up the river for about an hour to a dropoff point, hike about 8 km into the jungle, sleep in a massive cave, hike back out on another loop for 8 km, and then catch another boat back to the town.  Should be fun.

Floating Restaurants

Residents of the town

Elephants, Tigers, and Leeches Oh My January 2 2012, January 3 2012

Today we are hiking in the oldest rain-forest in the world at over 100 million years old.  It’s older than the Amazon.   There are tigers, elephants, gibbons, monkeys, pythons, leeches (more of these later), and a host of other goodies in this jungle.  It rains nearly every day, it feels like a sauna, and it’s probably the craziest hiking I will ever do.  In New Zealand I had no problem hiking around without a guide, but not here.  Not when there are tigers and elephants I could cross paths with.  No way.

We all meet up early at one of the hawker stands for breakfast.  We have these banana pancake type things called Roti Canai and they are amazing.  Our guide (Maan, Mahn, Man, not sure how to spell it) eats with us, gets on his motorbike with a cigarette in his mouth, and speeds off to get the supplies we need for the trek.

We pack up our food and supplies and head down to the river to meet our boat.  We pile our bags into the front and get in one-by-one.   We ride across the river to get a permit at the office and meet up with a boat that Maan has hired to take us into the jungle.  We ride against a rapid current for about an hour.  The driver maneuvers the boat around rocks and trees sticking out of the water.  A couple boats ride past us in the other direction and I learn that even in a Malaysian jungle it is proper etiquette to wave and smile to the other boats.  I’m not exactly sure why people are so friendly when they get on a boat.  Perhaps it’s an acknowledgement that they are in the same club, the in-group for those psychology students.  Perhaps boats are just fun and everyone is in a good mood on them.

Here are the highlights:  
Leeches are everywhere. Mud is everywhere.  Water is everywhere.  It’s hot, and sweat pours off you constantly.  Everything stays wet, and you are in a jungle…a serious jungle.

First, you try to avoid the mud, calculating every step and placing your foot carefully.  Then at some you realize it’s a losing battle and just tromp through it.

The guide points out different plants as we go.  Some have medicinal uses, some will kill you.  Some turn colors when exposed to sunlight, some have spikes, some can be used as cups, and some can be used as jungle drums.

We see a giant centipede, the guide pulls it off the tree, lets us play with it for awhile.  It feels weird to have over 100 tiny legs crawling on you.

We find a jungle vine and play tarzan for awhile.

We get to the cave and it’s huge!  It’s massive!  We all laugh at the sheer craziness of it.  It looks like someone hollowed out a mountain.  Parts of it must have been 5 or 6 stories high.  This is our home for the night.

Our guide starts a fire with the wood we gather.  It serves as our stove and campfire.

We go to wash up in a nearby stream before dinner.  It feels amazing to wash the mud and blood off.  I’m still bleeding from a couple of leeches who had taken a liking to me.  When they bite they inject an anti-coagulant and a pain killer.  This basically means you can’t feel them bite and you bleed profusely when you pull them off.  I see little jets of blood flowing from my leg into the clear jungle water.  I trust my immune system to handle whatever microorganisms the jungle has to offer.  

Back at the cave at sunset, we see hundreds of bats flying out of the cave opening.  They are going out to hunt just as we are about to start dinner; vegetable soup and chicken curry with rice.  It was delicious.

After dinner we go back to the stream at dark to wash stuff, and go to the bathroom.  All three of us go together which provides only a false sense of safety.  If a tiger wanted to get one of us, there’s not a damn thing we could do about it.  We wouldn’t hear it or see it until it is too late.  The jungle is too thick.  We joke about the tigers getting one of us the entire trip.

At some point in the night I hear one of our pots clanking around.  I’m not sure if I’m just really tired or if I just don’t want to see the animal on the other end of this racket, but I ignore it for awhile. Finally everyone wakes up and turns of the flashlights to find a giant porcupine eating the leftovers.  It’s not far away.

To say I got very little sleep would be an understatement.  Sleeping on a hard cave floor with only a thin mat makes it impossible to get comfortable.  I toss and turn all night.

We have coffee and toast in the morning over the fire.  Maan tells us about the trees, animals, life in Malaysia, politics, superstitions, and everything in between.  He is a character.  He tells us one story where he was guiding a couple of Dutch women on the same route we were taking.  They get to the cave, it rains hard the entire night, and everyone has to swim across parts of the trail because everything was flooded the next day.   This would have been an adventure.

Hiking out of the jungle, we follow some elephant tracks.  Maan seems to think they have been here a couple days ago.  No actual elephants though.

Hiking out of the jungle, we cross an aboriginal campground.  Maan tells us that they have left quite awhile ago to hunt in different areas of the jungle.  No actual aboriginals though.

We stop at a river for lunch.  Maan tells us about the crazy parasites he has caught in the jungle.  I look over to see Stephan swimming naked in the river as I’m bleeding from both legs after pulling off more leaches.  Jesus.

At one point the jungle starts to beat me.  I’ve been sweating profusely for 2 days, my shoes are unrecognizable from all the mud caked to them, my feet are wet, I’ve been fighting off leeches for the past two days, I’m bleeding, I’m dirty, I’m out of water, I’ve gotten about an hour of sleep total, and I just want to get the hell out of the jungle.

We finally reach our pickup point.  It feels absolutely great to take my shoes and socks off to clean the mud off in the river.  Splashing some cool water in my face is also a winner.  As our spirits are lifting we hear the din of a motor boat getting closer and closer.  It’s our ride out!  I put my shoes on soaking wet but it was such an improvement from before that it was like putting socks on hot from the dryer.  The boat ride was great, the first shower was great, and sleeping in a bed was great.  Everything in this world is relative.

Trust me you’re not a real man until you trekked through the jungle.

Breakfast at the hawker stalls

Let's go!

Jungle

Giant Bug

Tarzan

Tree bridge

Damn Leeches!

Maan cooking

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Welcome to Malaysia December 29, 2011

I start the day (and nearly end it) with an 11 hour plane ride from Christchurch, New Zealand to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia .  It's a long plane ride to say the least and KL is 5 hours ahead of New Zealand time.  I start to get some hours back that I lost flying to New Zealand which is nice.  There's not a whole lot of noteworthy things which happen on the flight:

My computer runs out of batteries with 5 hours left.  Time slows to a crawl. There's literally nothing to do or watch.  I try to sleep but can't.  I start to think that the airlines need to find a way to allow people to sleep on the damn plane.  Build some small compartments to lay down in...something.  It's like drinking a cup of coffee just before you go to sleep.  You're really tired but it's impossible to sleep.  I digress.

It's my first AirAsia experience which comes with some surprises.  They don't give you anything (drinks, peanuts, water, nothing) for free.  Also, your carry-on bag cannot be more than 7 kgs which means I have to pay to check my bag.  I don't really like the idea of handing all of my worldly possessions (while on travel anyway) to someone else, but I have no choice.  There's no movies, no games, no screens of any sort on the plane.  

I fly over Australia which looks like a vast desert.  I have unfinished business with Australia.

The sunset is nice from 20,000ft or whatever the plane altitude is.


I finally get into the KL airport and BAM! Asia comes flying into my eyeballs.  I immediately realize that I’ve never been to a place like this before.  There's a mix of Indians, Asians, and every variation in-between walking through the terminal.  All of the women wear headdresses (I later realize that Malaysia is a predominately Muslim country).  Everything looks a little run down, like maybe it was built in the 1970's.  I go into one of the stores to grab a drink and don't recognize any of the stuff on the shelves with the exception of water and coke.  I grab a chrysanthemum tea and switch my focus to getting my bag and getting a bus to my hostel which is over an hour away. The tea is pretty good.

Arriving to strange places at night is always a little uncomfortable.  In this particular place, I have to ride a bus about an hour into the city center, then catch the metro to a stop near the hostel, then walk to the hostel.  Catching the bus downtown goes fine, however I roll into the metro station to find that it is closed.  At least I think it's closed.  There are a couple shops open, but there's not really anyone there aside from some people sleeping on the ground.  I decide to flag down a taxi to get to the hostel.  25 Ringet the guy tells me, I do the math in my head and it comes to about 8 USD.   Not bad, so I take it.  I later learn that this price is ridiculously high.  I've made a 5 dollar mistake.

I get to the Reggae Mansion (the hostel) about midnight and a security guard who looks like one I saw in the airport leads me to my room.  I find this is strange but I'm too tired to think about it.

Finally sleep.

Sunset over Australia from plane

Hostel

 The Twin Towers December 30, 2011
 
I get up and wander down for the free breakfast.  I meet 2 guys from England and another from Sweden, we eat, and decide to walk through Little India.  The city is noisy, dirty, hot, fast, and oddly unfamiliar.  Motorbikes weave around cars, and everybody is honking their horns.  It's not the same variety of honking that occurs in the US though.  It's more of a 'I'm here, watch out for me' honk and less of a 'Get outta my way <insert expletive>!!!' honk.  I begin to wonder why all the people on motorbikes are wearing their jackets backwards.

We find a place to eat and I'm immediately glad I'm not exploring this city by myself.  Imagine walking past a bunch of dingy restaurants full of people that don't look like you, do not speak your language, and stare a little longer than necessary.  How do you order? Is there a menu? How much does everything cost?  etc.  After about 3 days, it becomes easy but that first time is a little intimidating.  Everyone I'm with has been to KL before so I follow their lead.  The food is very good.  

We walk to the Petronas Towers and wander around the area for awhile.  These towers used to be the tallest in the world sometime in the 1990's.  They are impressive.

At night we go out to a place in the city called the Golden Triangle.  It's basically an outdoor market and food court.  It loud, bright, and has a exciting feel to it.  I decide that I really like this style of eating.  You are not closed off in a booth in the quiet corner of a restaurant, instead you become part of the city.  You add a small piece to the movement, chatter, and color of the place.  You hear the conversations of the people next to you, you see what everyone is eating and drinking, and it's more of a community feel.  The kitchens are right on the street too, not tucked away in the back of a restaurant.  Smoke billows into the street and you see the chefs busily tossing ingredients around.  Different smells cross you nose frequently.

Not everyone gets their food at the same time.  Whenever one is done, the waiter brings it out.  There are no heat lamps to keep everything warm, so you get your food right out of the oven (or Wok, or pan, whatever).  It's all fresh.  In this particular place we pay for beers separate from the food.  We pay for everything when it arrives at the table.  The exchange happens immediately.  The food is delicious.

After dinner we go back to the Petronas Towers.  They are lit up quite impressively at night.  We decide to go up to a 'skybar' on the 33 floor of a nearby hotel to get a better look at the towers.  We hang out here for a large portion of the night.  The drinks are expensive but it's a great spot to hang out.  There's a swimming pool in the bar, it's dimly lit, and the people (read: girls) are dressed up nicely.
 

Petronas Towers

Outdoor Market

Skybar

Towers at night

Happy New Years December 31, 2011

The celebration for us begins and ends in the Reggae Mansion hostel.  They have a rooftop bar with good views of the Petronas Towers.  This is where the fireworks will be shot off at midnight.  Before the festivities start we go down to Chinatown for dinner.  I have noodles and then grab a bag of dragon-fruit to eat on the walk home.  We rest for awhile and then head up to the bar for the party.

We meet a couple girls from Iceland.  This is a new country.  I comment that I haven't met anyone from Iceland yet and one of them tells me that Iceland has a population of roughly 300,000 people....in the entire country.  It's no wonder I haven't met anyone from Iceland.     

As the night goes on and at some point I hear the DJ announce a 'Fear Factor Malaysia' as a big plastic box of worms is brought out to the party.  This is about the time when I pseudo-regret staying at the Reggae Mansion for New Years Eve.  Sure I have a good time with everyone there, but I think I would have been much better off going out to the festival in town with the other Malays.  I didn't come here to drink expensive beer and be cheaply entertained.  I felt like such a tourist.  

I let the feeling pass and simply enjoy the rest of the evening.  They have a contest to see who can eat the most spoonfuls of worms and who can dig the most dollar bills off the bottom of the box.  I'm not sure who finally won but it was entertaining.   

The clock strikes midnight and the fireworks start popping.  Happy New Year!!!!!!  

Christchurch, New Zealand

Day 25

I catch the early bus to Christchurch.  It takes all day to get there, but luckily the bus stops at some great stops on the way.  A couple glacier fed lakes are the highlight.  The water is almost neon blue.  I learn that the glaciers break up the rock into a fine powder and carry it suspended in the water.  When the water reaches the lakes, the rock particles stay suspended and in combination with the sunlight create the bright blue color.  Interesting.  The areas around these lakes also have an abundance of a purple flower called Lupin.  I've seen it before elsewhere but didn’t know what it was.  It’s in full bloom right now in New Zealand and there are rivers of it across the countryside near the lakes.  Driving down the road in the bus, I see people constantly pulled over taking pictures of it.   It looks like something out of Pandora in the Avatar movie.  It’s absolutely stunning…and I don’t use that phrase often.

The funny thing about Lupin is that the bus driver calls it a weed.  Apparently, it takes over all the native plants by creating acids in the soil.  The damn English brought it in hundreds of years ago and the Department of Conservation is currently trying to eradicate it.  This, of course, is ridiculous.  Look at the pictures.

I get to Christchurch and the bus drops us off near the city center but my hostel is on the outside of the city near the beach in New Brighton.  I have a decision to make: Walk about 8km to the hostel through the city or find a bus.   Keep in mind that this city has been experiencing strong earthquakes for the past year.  Two of the earthquakes happened earlier in the year and basically destroyed the downtown part of the city.  A couple days before I get here, the city experiences two more earthquakes in 6 RS range.  It was all over the news and was no joke.  Certainly not the best Christmas present for the city.

I decide to walk so I can check out what an earthquake does to a city.  Trust me it’s not pretty.  Anything made of concrete, asphalt, brick, metal, or glass (which is what a city is made of) is compromised.  The roads and sidewalks have cracks all over the place and where there aren’t cracks there are potholes and sinkholes.  Windows are busted out in a random fashion; some are boarded up and some are not.  Grasses begin to overgrow in peoples’ yards that have obviously left.  Underground pipes burst and are temporarily replaced with flexible pipes which run over ground.

The whole place feels like one of those movies (take your pick) where most of the human race has died.  I see more cats than people and everything is a little too quiet for the time of day.  Many of the stores have all of their stuff still inside, but dust, weeds, and graffiti have begun to creep in.  This city is definitely losing the battle with Mother Nature.   It’s creepy.

I get to my hostel and am greeted by an enthusiastic woman, who doesn’t seem to fit in this place.  She explains they have been having aftershocks for days now.  Luckily the hostel is in an old bank, so it was built fairly sturdy (I hope).  I go to the store, buy some pizzas for dinner.  I’ll be in Asia for the next couple months and so pizza seemed like the only logical choice.  I won’t eat it again for awhile.

I meet a big group of Americans in the hostel which is odd because there are very few of them over here.  I learn that they are on some college program which gives them credit for doing some kind of reporting over their winter break.  Lucky them.  They ask me to go out but I’m exhausted from Queenstown so I decline.  I go to bed early, but get woken up at least three times during the night because the earth is shaking.  More aftershocks, how exciting!    

Lupin flowers

Lake Tekapo

Lake Pukaki with Mt. Cook in background

Lake Pukaki

"Life is but a walking shadow"

       
Day 26
I take it easy today and get ready for Kuala Lumpur tomorrow.  How am I going to get to the airport?  How am I going to get to my hostel in KL?  What language do they speak? Etc.  I find a nice place by the beach with wifi and hang out there all day.  I feel the ground shake a couple times; nothing strong but the earth is shaking none the less.  I walk by a library which is closed.  I look inside and there are books everywhere on the ground.  Damn.  The wifi I am using is free because the phone company wanted to ensure people could still communicate with all the earthquakes going on.

I decide to go to the center of the city to see the BIG buildings which are condemned.  I take a bus and arrive at a makeshift bus station near the center of the city.  It looks like a bomb went off in the city center.  I can’t even get close because they have the center fenced off and there are ‘DANGER. DO NOT ENTER.” signs everywhere.  All the buildings have orange spray-paint with a date and ‘clear’, which I guess indicates that the building was searched for people and then locked.   I decide to leave because it’s depressing.  I go to a huge botanical garden near the city center.  It is alive and well.  The rose garden is crazy, and there are probably over 600 different kinds of flowers blooming.  It’s the only jewel in a destroyed city.  It’s sad but I guess this is what happens when you build a city on a fault zone.

Back at the hostel I make my last pizza, and I have one more cooking experiment to do.  I bought some Nutella which apparently is quite common in Europe but I’ve never had it.  Its hazelnut spread...kind of like peanut butter but with hazelnuts and chocolate.  I use my last pizza crust, spread some Nutella over it, and top it off with strawberries, and throw it in the oven.  It is damn delicious, and I share it with everyone in the kitchen who have taken an interest!

On my way to Malaysia tomorrow.  Heyo!

Destruction.

More destruction.

Rose Garden

And out of the cracks, a new Lupin flower rises...deep