Happy Chinese New Year! So far Malaysia rocks...

Alright, so there's a lot of catching up to do.

I arrived in Georgetown on the island of Penang late in the evening on Jan 20th. Turned out it was even later than I thought b/c unbeknownst to me Malaysia is 1 hour ahead of Thailand. Most of the guesthouses were booked, so I ended up in the first room available. But, after spending a night in the New China Hotel... a hotel of dubious character and clientele, I was determined to find better digs. I successfully installed myself in the dorm at the Love Lane Inn. It was cheap at 7 ringgits (I really like saying ringgits), the bunk beds werent very comfortable but it was atleast less sketchy.

The 21st was Chinese New Years Eve. I met up with Claudia (Photochick of BnA fame) and we took the Bas Mini (Bahasa Malay is written in roman letters so I can read!) to the Kek Lok Si Chinese temple. We never would have found the place if a Chinese girl hadn't led us half way up the semi-hidden path. The temple was interesting with lots of Buddhas (of course), nifty lanterns, flourescent dragons and blinking swaztikas. In the east they are a symbol of good-luck. No ball dropped, but on the way back down the hill the monsoon opened up on us. We took cover under an aluminum carpark and then hitched a ride down the hill to the bus stop. Chong was exceedingly nice and went way out of his way to take us 20 minutes back to Love Lane. He also had the coolest blinking buddha on his dash and apparently likes Thailand better than Malaysia because the beer is cheaper there. Though on some later research it appears to be about the same price.. so we can't tell if he frequents only the swankiest of Gtown bars or if Malaysians have an inferiority complex when it comes to Thailand. We thanked him profusely and b/c it had stopped raining and I was typically hungry we got directed to Kapitans for outstanding lassis, naan and tandoori chicken.

Then on the first day of Chinese New Year (22nd) we were directed to the open house at Fort Cornwallis. The fort was the first English settlement on the island, but on that day it was filled with all types of Malaysians and tourists bringing in the new year by eating free food! I came to Georgetown thinking that there would be lots of excitement for the Chinese New Year, but this open house was pretty much the extent of it. Mostly the CNY meant a government holiday and atleast half the shops/restaurants shut down. Pretty low key!

23rd and 24th were spent waiting for things to open back up. In Gtown its freaking hot and you pretty much cant do anything outdoors between noon and 6pm, so this obviously lent itself to spending most of those hours in the Komtar shopping mall, but even there half the place was shut down. I successfully avoided buying anything except food until we went outside and ducked into an optical shop. From there we got sucked into trying on new frames and now I am the owner of some Malaysian-made specs. To celebrate the purchase some lion dancers danced precariously through the shop trying not to break things. Otherwise Malaysia is being quite kind to the budget.

Saturday (the 24th) wasn't an overly interesting day, but the night was really cool. I went out by myself at about 9pm looking for, what else, food. I thought I would give the taco stand a shot. Tacos in Malaysia? Anyway the taco guy wasnt there, but some Indian guy whom I will call Dave (b/c I forgot his real name and couldn't pronounce it anyway) invited me to sit with him while I waited. Eventually the taco guy returned, but Dave's friends kept showing up to just hang out at the taco stand. So then I was enmeshed in my tacos (which weren't bad), some local tea (which wasnt bad either) and a lively conversation with Dave, Al, and two unnamed guys.

The tea and the street noise conspired to keep me awake so when the alarm went off in the morning I was pretty exhausted still. Tired of the heat and of waiting around for the town to open back up, we hopped on a bus to the Cameron Highlands. The bus had more headroom and legroom than Thai buses but it also came with a large contingent of baby roaches crawling all over the curtains. This was gross and we were anxious to finish winding our way up to the top of the hills and get off the bus. They grow lots of tea (It was a British hillstation) up here in the highlands (as well as other things), but the best thing is that the elevation renders it decidely cooler. Its practically artcic compared to the rest of Malaysia, but it feels like a really pleasant, brisk spring day. It even gets quite chilly at night and you have to wrap up in blankets!

Yesterday (26th) I went on my first jungle walk... which b/c Tanah Rata (the town in the Cameron Highlands) is really small is pretty much the main thing to do around here. We picked path 9A b/c it was supposedly quite easy. And it was, but there was a big section that was washed out so we took steep path #9 back down through some chilli farms to the road where we promptly started walking in the wrong direction. And it wasn't even my fault at all. Fortunately we arent guys and arent afraid of asking directions so got ourselves turned around.

We had some food (for once we were actually both hungry.. not just me) and then waited around on the side of the road half-heartedly trying to hitch a ride instead of walking the 10km up the narrow road back to Tanah Rata. Well we got lucky and a jungle guide named Balan picked us up. He and his friend were riots. They talked our ears off... we got Balan's life history. 5th generation Indian-Malaysian.... 11 years in the military....7 years fighting the communists in Borneo...moved to the city, but since he's not a city boy he's now working as a jungle guide. Everyone's favorite question is "Where are you from?", and when we said America he felt compelled to tell us that Malaysians are opposed to terrorism and that they respect diverstiy. The diversity of Malaysia is actually what I find really fascinating. He even got a bit philosophical on us and explained that religions are all like different rivers/streams, but they all lead to the same place... the ocean.

This finally brings us to today's escape. We took an organized tour of the major places around the highlands. First we went a chinese temple. Then we went to a rose center where they have 100s of different types of roses, however I preferred the crazy flowers like the birds of paradise (which looked like birds), ladyslippers (which looked like shoes), and blue butterflies (which duh... looked like halfs of a butterfly). Then we hit my favorite place.. the strawberry farm. My favorite not so much for the rows of hydroponic strawberries, but for the fresh strawberry milkshake!! The the Boh tea plantation (nice view) and the tea factory where they "liberate" the tea flavor from the leaves and had a "cuppa tea" before hitting up the honey farm. Avoided getting stung and finished the day at the butterfly farm scoping out the butterflies and other insects. Some were good (like the butterflies and the bugs that look exactly like leafs), some were bad (like the scorpions) and some were ugly (like the rhino beatle!).

All this typing has left me completely exhausted and famished so I am off to fix this situation before things get any worse!