MALAYSIA
Time on my visa had gone so I needed to do a “Thailand visa run” essentially where you leave and re-enter a country to renew your visa. From ko Tao I had 2 choises, an overnight trip to Burma – this would provide me with a one month Visa, or a considerably longer 24 hour trip down to Malaysia where I would be able to get a 2 month Visa for Thailand. Malaysia it was.
Now a word to the wise on Penang, don’t ever bother going here. It is not that it is a bad place, it is just very VERY disappointing – which personally, I find worse than being just bad; let me explain:
Bad places are just shit. Romania for example is just utterly shit, Ugly, bland, and useless. It can’t be better because it is destined to always be shit. Now Places like Penang for example could be so much better, but because they just get everything wrong it isn’t.
Firstly it stinks, not a good start. Secondly the food is awful, this is a fucking disgrace considering it has blends of Thai, Indian and Chinese in the culture. Yesterday I went in search of a good meal, (considering I’m in one of the largest cities in south east Asia, I could not find one single restaurant) I ended up in a night market with dubious decision of eating a corn on the cob or a sun dried stinky fish.
Thirdly, Malaysia is not a poor country, it is developing so it has this weird mix of high rise developments (fucking huge buildings every where – in fact the largest building in the world – the Petronas towers is based in the capital Kuala Lumpur) and squalor right next door. This has the unfortunate effect of loosing the charm that Thailand has. Thailand is poor: so you put up with bugs in your bed and everything being a bit dirty. You feel like hey, that’s just Thailand…, but here it just feels like they have let themselves go. Malaysia has nice beaches, but then the water is polluted in Penang, and if not there are jet skis buzzing passed the swimmers decapitating small children. The Beach bars sell fuck all, and when you do order something like I did today – a pineapple juice, you do not receive the drink for 45 minutes, by which time I refused to drink it as I was leaving. GOD FORBID (literally) you order a beer, this place is Muslim, so alcohol is taxed to shit No one has any fun, there are special “fun police” that find you and force you to queue up and fill in lots of forms and do maths questions if you are even close to having a good time. The Sky is grey, the women are men and soil is infertile and the livestock are lame. This my friends is a disappointing place. ( I should point out at this point I have only been stuck in George town so I have not seen the whole country, but hell, I’m opinionated.)
Cameron Highlands, Treking in the mossy forrest and the Pherentian islands
Ok so I may have been a little bit too quick to judge the hole country so soon, considering I have just spent an amazing 10 days in the pherentian Islands with an over night stop in the Cameron Highlands. The Latter, is in central Malaysia and is famous for being a tea growing area, my old flatmate Ste “Oli go make us a cup of tea for the 18th time today” Campey would love this place. I travelled here with a girl I met in the worlds greatest shit hole Penang: Kyla, we both met at a zebra crossing looking equally confused as to where exactly the best place to go to get a drink would be (no we never did work that one out after 4 days). She is now my most randomly met friend, well done to her.
Whilst in the Cameron highlands we organised a tour which would involve going to the BOH tea plantation, and the onto a jungle trek with some indigenous Indian family. In the Mossy forrest.
At 8am an old landrover defender turned up and picked 8 of us up from the guest house. We drove for about 30 minutes and eventually arrived a a huge tea plantation owned by the same family for 150 years it was started by as Scottish man, who bought Thousdands of Aches of land off the Sultan relatively cheaply, mainly because it was a malaria zone and no one would work there. Then by hand they slashed and burned the forrest to plant Tea trees, as it was all done by hand the trees huge the rolling hills, making the view a very surreal experience- like a green tree carpet, stretching out for miles. The Trees are still harvested by hand by workers paid the equivalent of about 7p an hour. Imagine trudging up and down hills all day with heavy sacks of leaves for that wage. Still better than recruitment I suppose.
After the Tea plantation came the Tea factory, using machines put in in 1939, monstrous grinders and drying devises
After the tour came the walk in the mossy Forrest. Great, a rain Forrest with 100% humidity all year and my choice of footwear was face Crocs, disgusting looking plastic shoes with hole in. Perfect for sinking into the mud, which I did constantly, I could feel the squishing in between my toes… I learnt about the local Flora and which plants you could eat for various medicinal purposes. I learnt that bamboo can grow 10 metres a day,
The guide kept trying to tell me stuff in his language, much to my bemusement. I just kept nodding and going erm ok… He could have being saying anything really.
He also taught me how to blow a blow pipe, I succeeded in shooting the dart over the target and into his neighbours hut, virtually shooting his neighbour in the ass.
Pherentian Islands.
Picture 2 small tropical Islands anout 30 miles off the mainland of Malaysia, cut off from the outside, a reasonably well kept secret know only to Malaysians and a few backpackers. The surrounding turquoise seas are filled with an abundance of tropical fish and turtles (which can be seen leaping out of the water next to the boats). The Smaller Island is where most of the action happens and was to be my destination along with Kyla who I had met in Penang. My inentions were to spend a week on the beach and snorkling in the sea and generallh
y enjoying the good life. So I did. The experience was incredible, staying on a beach front bungalow for £2 a night. The only down side was acholo was very expensive as most of it was black market. I had been warned to bring some to the island before I arrived as there were only a few bars which cost loads as they have to import all the alchol. So 15 minutes before getting on the speed boat to take me from the mainland to the island I was trekking up and down the harbour asking locals where I could by alcohol. I felt like a naughty boy asking clearly very Muslim women, in almost guilty tones “Where can I buy some Alcohol?”. As it turned out there was only one place, and this was dodgy as fuck. “The Chinese shop”. Typically industrious Chinese proprietor had found a niche. Selling booze to desperate thirsty travllers heading to the Islands.
“erm, (looking left and right in a shifty manner) do you sell…Alcohol?”
The old and wrinkly face of a Chinese lady grinned back at me. Suddenly she grabbed my hand and pulled me into the back off the shop through a curtain into a store room. A few minutes of her routing through boxes she produced a couple of bottles and proudly presented them to me. “Crocodile Whiskey” and “Orang-utan” (To this day and several bottles later I still have no Idea what Orang-utan actually is). Sold. So I loaded up on Fire water and headed off to catch the boat.
Things of note in the week that went by were 2 dives – one on an 80 metre cargo ship that went down in 2000, very cool, sharks, rays, barracuda, and the largest puffer fish I have ever seen, having a 2 am conversation with the local bullfrogs that sit in the darkness letting out a very loud “Arrrrrhhhnn” sound. After a bottle of orang-utan I would periodically shout Arrrhnnn back at them from inside my wooden shack, before long I had half the resp rt doing the same at 3am.
I met a couple for Dutch people, enabling me to get the snorkel count up. A ridiculously tall Swedish guy measuring about 7.2 foot. And a mental Danish man called Kelt whose sole mission in life was to drink. A very enjoyable week came and went and eventually it was time to leave the Pherentian Islands – I was running out of cash (as I only took £100 on to the island with me) and I ws feeling like it was time to move on a bit too. My birthday was approaching and I wanted to spend that on the beach in Maya Bay the location of the film “The Beach”.
