Ranau Abang

Early the next day, we set off for Rantau Abang, the next stop on our turtle watching mission. This time we were after the rare leatherback turtles. We had to take three local buses to get there (Cherating – Kemaman – Dungun – Rantan Abang). On the last leg, we were packed in tight and fearful of missing our stop, but the driver came through for us once again. When the dust settled, we stood facing the turtle information center.

There were basically two places to stay in Rantau Abang – Awang’s and Ismail’s. We chose Awang’s, and there were a lot of different rooms available. We chose something middle of the road for RM 20, but found it pretty dirty (the cheesy, dirty bed cover they used at some of the lower quality places and the crappy square foam pillow – it was times like these that Beth and I were truly thankful for our sleeping sheets that we always carried with us, to allow for a good night’s sleep.. though why couldn’t I remember that later in Phnom Penh….) and the toilet/shower combo was such that you had to straddle the toilet in order to take a shower – don’t try this at home please.

I felt a little like Mulder waiting for news of a leatherback turtle sighting… “we wanted to believe….”. The whole area existed because of turtle watching, and the turtle information centre had a lot of info on the plight of the leatherback turtle, and an interesting video. In reality, the chances of seeing a turtle laying eggs on the beach were quite low – only about 60 turtles laid eggs in the 6-month long season, although they did it multiple times.

We wanted to believe…. The best chance was actually watching them release baby turtles from the hatcheries, which was much easier to predict. We had shown up at prime time – August, a full moon, and clear skies, but after strolling up and down the beach for a couple of hours, we gave up and returned to our bungalow in hopes that someone would wake us up if they spotted a turtle. It didn’t’ happen! The next morning, we made the decision to leave rather than stay and risk dieing of boredom – there just wasn't a whole lot to do in Rantau Abang.

Cherating

Cherating was a beautiful beach area with some decent places to stay and pretty good food – the only down side was that other than the beach, there was not much to do. We stayed at a place called Cherating Cottage (where did they come up with those amazing names!) which was a great little place to stay, but the owner was an absolute asshole. He had the biggest fake smile, and was so untrusting and unfriendly, that Beth and I virtually boycotted eating or drinking anything at the attached restaurant.

One of the attractions at Cherating was to watch the green turtles spawning. Since turtles spawned at night, you could pay a fee for a guy to come wake you up if the turtles were spawning, but unfortunately it didn’t happen while we were there.

Cherating had what seemed to me to be the most gently sloping beach in the world. The water was so shallow due to the many sand bars, and I measured water at a boiling 32.6 degrees celsius with my scuba watch. There was absolutely no shock when you went in the water, to the point of being completely unrefreshing.

One night, Beth and I sat on our second story balcony gazing out at the biggest lightning storm we had ever seen. It was eerily calm outside, yet rain was hammering straight down and lightning flashes went off over the sea for what seemed like two or three hours. It was absolutely beautiful and something we remember to this day whenever lightning strikes.

For food, we ended up gravitating to Mimi’s for meals, as they did a great curry and naan. We found ourselves getting quickly bored – Cherating seemed like a place where people ended up if they had nowhere to do in a real hurry. My feelings were confirmed when we saw a couple of forty-something males “backpackers” doing a giant Batik painting of a mushroom.

Brief stop in Kuantan

We didn’t really want to stay in Jerantut, so we inquired about getting share taxi from the jetty to the eastern coastal city of Kuantan. The driver who we were dealing with gave us some story about the late boat people being charged RM 30 more for a share taxi (he even had an “official” rate sheet), so we opted to try our luck in Jerantut. Fortunately, the Swedish couple we were in the taxi with was desperate to get to Kuantan and said they would pay 80 if we would pay 40 because they were going anyway – that was fine with us.

Although we could have caught a bus to Cherating, our next destination, when we arrived in Kuantan at 7pm, we thought we needed the rest and a good shower. On our way to finding the New Capital Hotel, we walked by the huge blue and white Sultan Ahmad Shah State Mosque which was lit up and beautiful under the full moon. The Chinese run hotel was clean and quite cool and ventilated, with an attached bathroom and shower. It was also very central to everything we needed.

The east coast of Malaysia was a lot different that the west coast. The east was far less developed: cities were smaller, the roads weren’t as developed (there didn’t seem to be a complimentary major highway project that they had on the west coast) and there didn’t appear to be too many Chinese or Indians like there was in the west. This had two effects: it was harder to get good Indian food (you can get Chinese in ANY city in the world!) and the Muslim influence was much stronger, evidenced by many more mosques and a general feeling of having to strictly adhere to the Muslim code. Beth could feel the stares one day in Kota Bharu when she had on a tank top and shorts – it wasn’t a comfortable feeling and we never repeated the mistake.

The next day was set out to work or way to Cherating. After some confusing moments regarding which bus station to go to (Lonely Planet strikes again: all destinations were serviced by the new bus terminal next to the stadium!) we got a local bus to Cherating. As happened when we rode buses, it was a bit stressful to see when we should get off. There were lots of Cherating signs for what seemed to go on for many miles, but we had to rely on the bus driver to let us know where to get off – he did, and we were grateful. Traveling by bus in a foreign country could be very intimidating – you basically had to put complete trust in strangers to let you know when to get off.

Taman Negara National Park

The train… we opted for a regular seat (S$ 27 each) instead of the sleeper (S$ 38), and we soon found out why they called the other section “sleeper”. At 11:00pm they turned on some strange cartoon (something with “dawgs” in it), and by midnight they had progressed to pre-WWII Olympic highlights in black and white. We got little, if any, sleep. Our destination was Jerantut, a small town near the entrance to Taman Negara – the largest National Park in peninsular Malaysia and, according to the literature, the oldest rainforest in the world. At 3:30am, someone figured out we had stopped at Jerantut, and we got off with that “where the hell are we” glazed look on our faces. There were a few other travelers there, half of them expats from Singapore. We purchased a ticket for transport to the jetty for RM 6 and the river trip to Taman Negara for RM 8 each, and settled into the uncomfortable, hard plastic seats at the train station for a couple of hours.

At 7:00am, we were taken by mini bus to the Kuala Tembling jetty, where they had a couple of restaurants and a small store. We had breakfast, but didn’t realize that the terrible food there was a sign of things to come – the park food ended up being the worst food we had anywhere on our trip up to that point, and combined with several other factors, shortened our stay in the park.

The two and half hour long boat ride up the swiftly flowing river to the park headquarters (at the time, the only way to get into the park was up the river) was almost enough to satisfy anyone’s expectations of Taman Negara – it was incredible and to this day I have very strong memories of the boat trip. The riverboats were similar in design to Thai longtai boats, and seated about 12-15 people, 2 abreast, sitting on the floor of the boat. Being so low to the river, we really felt as if we were explorers on the Amazon river. With towering trees and dense growth on both sides of the river, and the occasional sightings of monkeys, wild water buffalo and monitor lizards, we felt as if we were thousands of miles from civilization.

We arrived at the park headquarters, which was on the west bank of the river, and had over 100 chalets that were pretty nice looking, but very expensive. They also had dorm beds for RM 18 a piece and a couple of expensive restaurants. There was space for camping and you could rent everything you needed, which in hindsight may have been the way to go. On the eastern bank of the river, across from the park HQ (you got across by waving over a boat driver from the nearby floating restaurants – free if you get there in one piece!) were lots of hostels, mostly dorm beds, and some restaurants and shops. Again, it may have been better to go there – others did and had given fair reviews – but we decided to go further up the river to Nusa camp, a place run by the park HQ that was “more off the beaten track”. The best part of going to Nusa camp was taking the river boat up through some rapids to get there.

Here was a quick rundown of my opinion on Nusa camp – keep in mind we stayed in the dorm rooms (4 beds to a room RM 10 each) as the A-Frames were a little too pricey (RM 50) – terribly unfriendly, terrible food, disgusting showers and toilets, dirty, boiling rooms and the location was not very central to many of the treks.

As soon as we put out gear down, we set off to Abai Falls, an hour and a half jungle trek to a very small waterfall that had a nice, cool pool of water we swam in. It was a great opportunity for Beth and I to have some time alone in the form of a nice romantic hike in the middle of nowhere. The swim was great, but we were soaked with sweat on both legs of the journey, so we weren’t too comfortable when we got back to the camp.

That night, I slept on the top bunk, staring up at a huge spider, hoping he would catch all the malaria filled mosquitoes that had managed to squeeze through the cracks in the walls. Ok, I might have been exaggerating about the malaria, but it was pretty bad.

The next day, we were out of there. We decided to leave Nusa (the only thing keeping us there was the tiny, injured gibbon (nicknamed “Gibb”) that the park officials had swinging from a small hammock in a tree) and head down to the HQ area to try and find something better.

We stashed our stuff in lockers at the campsite and set off to the canopy walk. Just twenty minutes north of the HQ chalets, the canopy walk was a foot bridge suspended up to forty meters high in the huge rainforest. It was pretty impressive, and to some (Beth!), kind of frightening being up that high. We got half way through when we were told we had to wait due to high winds and possible lightning.

It was, I think at that point, when we broke and decided we’d had it with the park. With the prospects of it raining for the rest of the day and finding a new place for the night, we decided to leave. No sooner had we made the decision then we were on the 2:00pm riverboat and on our way.

Singapore Vacation

Singapore was expensive, and like every big Asian city, our time and enjoyment there would be directly related to how comfortable our accommodations were. We had heard a lot of semi-negative comments about traveling in Singapore, a lot of “yeah… .it’s o-k-“ etc, but we were to have none of that, as we were staying with a friend of Beth’s Dad, who happened to be an expatriot with a conveniently located place on Orchard Boulevard, right next to the information center, and a stone’s throwaway from Orchard Road.

The heat and humidity in Singapore, as in Melacca and Penang, was oppressive at this time of year (and from what we heard, it didn’t get much better in the “off” season). Sometimes I didn’t even feel that hot, but then I would look down at the beads of sweat on my arms and realize my shirt had turned a shade darker and weighed two kilos heavier due to a full layer of sweat. The humidity could sneak up on you.

The information center was excellent. They had tons of maps, pamphlets and two good walking tours (Chinatown and the Riverside area). The monthly Singapore official guide is great and had lots of info on the month’s events and special attractions, so we also used that as a guide.

If you could imagine building a city from scratch, ala Sim City, Singapore may be one of many imagined outcomes. It’s clean and sanitary, and nothing is too old, historical or sacred to be remodeled, altered or improved in some way or another. Perhaps for those same reasons, it lacks the pulse of other major cities. On our last day we did the “Chinatown Walk”, which was quite good, but it lacked the hustle and bustle of similar places in other cities. Everything was in its proper place, which wasn't disagreeable by any stretch of the imagination, just different and unexpected. Singapore is famous for shopping, which was most likely the reason that we practically saw more Japanese than native Singaporeans at every attraction and commercial shopping area.

Sentosa Island was Singapore’s version of Disneyland, and if you took it for what it was – a fun, relaxing place where you could have a good time while spending lots of money – it was great. There were a fair number of things to do after you arrived on the island by bus, boat or cable car (it was only a few hundred meters off the coast of Singapore) and many of the attractions are cheesy and avoidable – Volcanoland, the Merlion and a few others – but Beth and I went to Underwater World and Fantasy Island. Underwater World was an amazing aquarium featuring a huge, 40-meter long square tunnel beneath huge tanks of sharks, rays, groupers and lots more. At the time, the “tunnel under the tank” was pretty rare for aquariums, and I have since been to a few (Sydney, Sarasota, Atlanta) that have replicated this effect, but it was one of the nicest aquariums I had been to at the time. Other features included a petting pool where anyone could get a firsthand look (and feel!) at turtles, rays, starfish and sharks. They had feedings where a diver would go into the large tank and hand feed the ravenous sharks (See Team America - Hans Brix). We spent about two hours there and then indulged at Burger King for lunch – this was quite different from the “backpacker” experience we’d been accustomed to.

In the afternoon, it was off to Fantasy Island (now Equarius Water Park). I know what it sounds like… but unfortunately this wasn’t an offshore brothel! We didn’t have any huge water parks in Canada (like Six Flags in the States), so at that point in our trip, having this sudden “tourist” experience, Beth and I had the best time. We were like a couple of kids – zipping around to the dozen or so waterslides, including two that were pitch black tunnels that scared the shit out of us but kept us going back again and again. We spent almost five hours there! It was great for some stupid fun, but it had its price, in all the day cost us way more that we were used to spending in a week. Fuck it – it was worth it!

Our next day of money spending fun was at the renown Singapore Zoo and the Singapore Night Safari. The zoo was a large, open concept tract of land surrounded by a huge reservoir. We spent quite a lot of time there (6 ½ hours) due to the fact that they had two really good shows, lots of scheduled feedings, and a wide variety of animals, particularly primates. We unfortunately met up with this Brit that we had bumped into at the pool in Malacca, and he was constantly whinging (wow, what a great British word to describe a whining, complaining Brit) about one thing or another – especially when it came to the price of things. We managed to lose him after a while though.

The Night Safari , a new attraction at the time, right next to the zoo, was a very original idea and had promising room for improvements with more displays due to be added. Since, according to out tram tour operator, 90% of animals were nocturnal, you really got a different “zoo experience” at night. The sounds of the jungle at night were incredible. The main feature of the safari was the 40 minute long tram ride which covered 75% of the park. There were also several easy walks, our favourite being the fishing cat display, where if you stayed and watched long enough you could see the small cats diving for and catching fish in a shallow creek.

On one of our walks, we bumped into the whinger again and he led with “it really knacks me off that you have to pay extra for the Night Safari. That’s really annoying isn’t it”. Yes, capitalism is really annoying whinger.

We weren’t allowed to use flash photography, but someone on our tram kept taking pictures to the utter ire of our Malay guide. Finally, after numerous warnings, she said “Maybe I should speak in Japanese….” But that had no effect at all, doubtless due to her bad pronunciation (actually, it was quite good… I think someone wasn’t listening!!!). It made me ashamed for the Japanese. In Singapore, we saw first hand evidence of the Japanese behaviour that many others had complained about: there was no way anyone could have avoided the “no flash” signs – there was a video with obvious warnings, lots of pictorial signs and lots of people telling you to watch it, so it wasn’t completely a case of language barrier. I’ve since seen things like this many times from our Japanese friends, and I think it really comes down to this: when they’re out of their environment, they believe or feel that they are completely isolated from anything they know or understand, so they close themselves off to external things. I have tried helping Japanese tourists in Toronto, coming up to them and speaking Japanese and offering my help, but often they just look at me utterly confused. They are not expecting to be able to communicate, so they shut down their sensors. This is one of the reasons I believe the Japanese are famous for traveling in groups/tours. It’s not just a language barrier but a feeling of isolation that moulds their behavior abroad.

The next day, we decided to do the Riverside walk, which was pretty good, but it wasn’t quite the historical time capsule it purported to be, as everything was too clean, freshly painted or generally modern looking, but it got better when we god to Clarke Quay. The Clarke Quay area is a shoppers and food lover’s paradise, as there are tons of stores, and hundreds of every kind of restaurant imaginable, from low end hawker food to five star dining. There was even a “Hooters”, an American franchise I’d only heard of at the time – I wondered if recruiting had been an issue in Singapore…

Chinatown was also a pretty good walk, but again, it lacked character until you got to the detour area and saw how it may have been. It donned on me several weeks later that one of the things that separated Singapore from its Asian sisters (including Tokyo) was the complete lack of food stalls on the street. In Tokyo, you walk down the sidewalk and there are hawkers on one side and huge glass buildings on the other. You haven’t seen Seoul unless you’ve eaten dinner standing up at a small kiosk on the street, waiting for the owner to Kreskin the total bill. Bangkok, KL, even Jakarta had these stalls, which brought the people outside on the streets, and in turn added character to the city.

Singapore’s streets were quiet. I guess street stalls were difficult to control, and Singapore is all about control. No smoking, no drinking, no gum, no durian! All you see all over the entire city is the ubiquitous red circle with line through it signs. I guess the government saw this as the only way to clean up their city, though no doubt, they had gone a little overboard.

We ended up skipping Arab Street and Little India and instead spent all our spare moments either in our friend’s air conditioned condo, or lounging by his pool: it was our home away from home, but it had to come to end. We had plans to meet up with friends from Japan in Koh Samui, Thailand on the 25^th of August, and we had to get back into the swing of things before we succumbed to the life of leisure.

We were not impressed at all with the train station in Singapore. After trying a few times to get them on the phone, we had to go there ourselves, and it was so out of the way and lacking in to/from transport services that I had to arrive at the conclusion that, for whatever reason, Singapore was neglecting this link to it’s former countrymen.

We ended up catching the 8:20pm train to Jerantut, arriving at 3:00am, and after a quiet walk through Singapore and Malaysia customs, our time in Singapore had officially come to an end.

8/5 to 8/11 (6 nights)

Avg daily travel S$17.27 or $USD12.33

Food S$35.28 or $USD25.20

Misc S$34.30 or $USD24.50

Melting in Malacca

On Saturday, August 2^nd, we left the Highlands for Malacca. We had bought a bus ticket from Geneesh for RM 19 each which took us from Tapah to Malacca in five hours, so we had to take a local bus down the winding road from Tanah Rata.

We had heard the Town Holiday Lodge was a good place to stay, so we had made a reservation there – it was luck we had done so, because it was packed when we arrived. We were greeted by James, the Bengali who worked there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and who knew absolutely everything about Malacca.

After the cool weather in the Highlands, Melacca was absolutely oppressive. There was a huge, new air conditioned shopping mall (the Dataran Pahlawan Mega Mall) between the Town Holiday Lodge and most of the sights, so we found ourselves ducking in there after about an hour of walking around outside. We practically had every meal there: McDonald’s (of course), Hartz (an all-you-can-eat, RM 13 buffet of chicken, salad and pasta), but mainly we ate at the cheap food courts on the 2^nd floor (actually the 1^st floor – they used the British system “Ground, 1^st, 2^nd” system – confusing and annoying at best), which had cheap Malay and Chinese food. It’s also where Beth discovered “spring rolls” – no the fried ones but thick, onion filled and made in front of you. We even checked out a movie (Men in Black – RM 6), and weren’t surprised to see half the backpackers in town doing the same.

Between dashes to the mall, we walked the central area (Stadthuys, Christ Church, the Red Square and the hill at St. Paul’s Church) which was covered head to toe in dark red paint – quite unusual. The Maritime Museum was crap – consisting of hundreds of paintings of the port of Melacca (I never really was a painting guy), but the People’s Museum, in particular, the beauty exhibit was excellent. It covered different perceptions of beauty from around the world and explained the significance of body piercings, lip stretching, tattoos, mutilations, head enlargement, Chinese feet wrapping and the list goes on. Exhibits like these really caused you to think about Western “norms”. It reminds us that everything we look at is through a looking glass that has been carefully assembled and configured based on our specific beliefs and values. It was very hard to always have a truly open mind about the things we saw and experienced on our travels, but we were giving it our best. Still, I laugh at myself thinking, body piercings and tattoos – no problem, but if my daughters do it I’ll ground them for life!

We checked out the Sultan’s Palace which had a beautiful garden with a great view of the huge, wooden reconstructed palace, but the heat kept us from being too absorbed in the history of the pace, our minds constantly wavering back to…. The mall! Pathetic, I know.

One day, we had a great Indian breakfast (marsala dosai, but of course) at Restoran Veni on Jalan Temenggong and then headed across the bridge to nearby Chinatown. Chinatown, in particular Jalan Jang Jebat or “Junk Road” was filled with antique shops that would make anyone with the slightest interest in anything oriental break out in an anticipatory sweat. Even the buildings of the street were old and traditional yet well maintained. Interspersed throughout were Chinese temples, and the occasional mosque and museum. Maybe they should have held mid-east peace talks in a place like this? Again, we needed relief from the heat and headed this time for the public pool near the people’s museum. It was cheap and opened at odd hours, but a great way to cool off.

By Tuesday, August 5^th, we were well ready to be done with the heat of Malacca, so we caught a cab in the morning to the express bus station, and quickly caught one of the many buses bound for Singapore for RM12. In our minds, we felt like we were heading for a cooler situation in Singapore - I’m not sure what we were thinking, as were obviously in for a surprise. I later imagined us lined up at the complaint line in Singapore, berating the staff because it should really have been cooler than Melacca…

It took almost exactly 5 hours, including having our stuff off the bus twice, once on the Malaysian side for customs, and once on the Singapore side for immigration. The minor delays were a very small price to pay, as it was here that our life as backpackers ended and our life of luxury began.

Cooling off in the Highlands

Five hours later and after a very hairy bus ride from Tapah up a narrow, hairpin-highway we made it to the Cameron Highlands main town of Tanah Rata. When I say hairy, I mean scary. Beth and I sat at the front of the bus – it was a nice bus with a huge front window that provided great views of the countryside. But when we started weaving back and forth up the side of the mountains, often times looking directly out and down the front of the window we couldn’t say the ground. It wasn’t as terrifying as a flight we would take a couple of months later in Myanmar, but it was pretty bad.

Tanah Rata wthe definition of sleepy, and with great food, cool weather, great accommodations and fair bit to do, we didn’t meet anyone who stayed as few days as they had originally planned. Like us (we ended up staying there for four nights), most people extended their day. We had heard a lot of good things about the Cameronian Holiday Inn from other traveler’s notes in the travelogues in Penang, and we had thus made a reservation. We were lucky, others were turned away that night.

The Cameronian was run by a Tamil family, mainly Ganesh, the father. They’d owned the place for about two years and seemed to really take pride in their place. Everything ran on the honour system and you were billed at checkout. Ganesh was looking to improve too – including access to the Internet and email, a new TV room and an improved library, but the two best things there were the hot water and the common room. You needed the hot showers after long hours of jungle trekking, and the common room was a great place for meeting the other guests and picking their brains – some common rooms worked this way, most didn’t.

After a great night’s sleep and a few hot showers, we were off to trek in the jungle. There were a dozen trails in the highlands, and as we had heard a lot, they were not well marked which could cause panic among the weak hearted tourists. We had no problems. We set off in the morning for trek #9 and #9a which were quite easy. The walk was gently sloping down through dense jungle consisting of palms and very tall trees. The wildlife was limited to birds and butterflies, but the sounds of the jungle were awesome. After about an hour and half, we came to the end of the trail. A small road went to the main road in one direction and one of the Boh tea plantaions the other way. We decided to walk the 5km up the winding road and were glad we did. The tea plantation was truly breathtaking. At the top, we relaxed and had some iced tea and the snacks we had brought – luckily we did bring something to eat as there wasn’t a whole lot to eat there! We then took a free tour of the place and watched a video which pretty much told us everything we wanted to know about tea, and a whole lot more. We managed to hitchhike down the road to the main road as there weren’t too many other options, and from there we caught another ride up the steep winding 9km road back to Tanah Rata. Beth suggested walking back, but we were really glad we thumbed it. We saw another couple walking up the road several days later, and they did not look happy at all!

For more of a challenge, we tried treks #5, #3 and #2 a couple of days later and they were indeed more difficult, as well as harder to follow. #5 starts out similar to #7 and #8 – a fairly steep, uphill walk that would quickly leave you out of breath and drenched in sweat. #3 and later #2 were much more up and down, to the point of having to use your hands to climb and descend, and the walk was quite a workout for the legs and lungs.

Unfortunately, and I’ll explain why soon, we had hooked up with three Canadians, two of which were very hard to handle (the other one, Heather, looked just as frustrated with her two friends). One of them had come the day before and spent the day crying in her room due to the “frightening” drive up and the terrible rooms at the Inn – she had been staying in resorts for the last 10 days, so you could just imagine her on a jungle trek. The other one was a “doubter”, constantly questioning whether we were on the right trail, and suggesting we turn back, which set off the worry wart. However, we did make it through in about three hours of non-stop hiking at a pretty brisk pace. We emerged on the backyard of a famous house. We promptly split up, and Beth and I hitched back to Tanah Rata. As for other treks, #4 was supposedly paved and took 20 minutes, #10 was difficult to follow and apparently #11 was cut off due to construction.

Ganeesh had one of just two motorbikes for rent in town and gave it to us for 25MR. When you bought the cheesy 2 ringgit tourist maps they had in town, it looked like there was plenty to do – market, strawberry and cactus farms, a butterfly park, a bee aviary and the tea estates (sounds exciting, doesn’t it?) and the colourful maps were probably why people took the “8 point tours” (15MR/3 hours) that they offered in town. But after seeing some of the stuff ourselves on the motorbike (yes “on” – we never got off the bike for most things) we were glad we didn’t take the tour. We ended up driving up the main road, past Brinchang and up to the other Boh Tea. This plantation was bigger and I thought a little better than the first. Later, we drove up Mount Brinchang, the tallest mountain in the. At the top, we learned how to properly dismount from a motorbike – the left – as Beth got off on the right and severely burnt her leg on the exhaust pipe. (Note: I just checked – it has disappeared, so I’m off the hook for that one!!).

The view from the observation tower was great. On our way back to Tanah Ratah, we went by the Orang Asli (native) village, which was worth a quick look.

The food in Tanah Rata is excellent – a great mix of Indian, Malay and Chinese. The excellent food center was good for breakfast, some Western food and their fruit juices. We also tried the claypot rice at No. 14, which was hit and miss (mine was great; Beth’s was oily with huge chunks of ginger). The best Indian place, by far, was located in the new buildings off the main road on the the way to the Cameronian - it was between the billiards hall and the laundry service (which, by the way, was excellent – 5kg for 5 ringgit, done the same day and, as usual, everything was ironed – Beth and I even washed our clean clothes there just for the ironed effect!), and it had great vegetarian or meat sets, and amazing tosai (or dosai, dosa). A tosai is a potato pastry that looks like a thin pancake, and usually comes with different sauces and dahl (lentil soup/sauce) and you could usually get it stuffed with something, the best being spicy marsala potatoes and veggies. We didn’t try the “famous” steamboat, a kind of do-it-yourself seafood fondu, as we had heard a lot of negative reviews. One day, we went to Brinchang to Shre’s Curry House, which came highly recommended from some people who had written in the travelogues at the Cameronioan, but it was crap – expensive, oily, small portions – although the lassi (yoghurt drink) was decent.