Cameron Highlands, Malaysia

On very rare occasion I find a place that proves god’s existence in whatever inconscionable form he takes. And if he doesn’t exist, he damned well should. The inexplicable beauty of the Cameron Highlands is one such place. Imagine sprawling mountains covered in the most fecund, verdant green and sporadically obscured by gentle mist. And you will have no idea what I’m talking about, but it’s a start. I had been reading when I looked out the window and discovered this awful (read awe-full) site. I gazed out the window the remainder of my ride.

One of the great benefits of the Cameron Highlands (in my opinion) is the temperature. I arrived at night, and many people were wearing jackets! It was down right comfortable. Arriving late, I grabbed some food and retired to bed.

The next day, being uncertain of my activities, I decided to wander to a local waterfall 45 minutes away, according to the map. Just as I was about to leave some other backpackers were leaving, and I ended up joining them. The waterfall, it turns out, was probably 10 minutes away. It was lovely, but lacked a swimming hole.

One of the backpackers was going on a longer hike, and I spontaneously decided to join him. After a 10 or 15 minutes, I realized it was a real hike. With solid vertical climbs and rough barely blazed trails. I admit, I was not prepared. I soon discovered the hike was marked for five hours on the map. Me being me, I decided to tough it out in my bare feet.

Most Americans, I think, are at least familiar with the concept of bare feet – everything, and Vibrams. This is not the case with the rest of the world. The fact that I was hiking without shoes was astounding to my companion from England. When we later encountered another group coming the other way, they stared at my feet and me as if I were some incredibly rare jungle species. I was terribly amused.

Our five-hour hike ended up taking about two hours (the maps are poorly marked), but it was very enjoyable nonetheless. As it turns out, it rains during the rainy season and it poured on us. For a good bit of the hike, we were walking down a continuous and ever changing waterfall. I’ve never quite been in anything like it. And, blessedly, the end of our hike led us through a strawberry patch (delicious) and tea plantation (fascinating).

The next morning I intended to go on another hike to the summit of another peak. It started pouring around 10:30 am, didn’t let up, and I changed my plans. My day turned into movies and whisky clubs at the hostel – a distinct change of pace, but not a bad one.

Alas, the following morning I had to leave my Eden – I was off to Kuala Lumpur.

A note on the environment

As most of you probably know, I consider myself an environmentalist. I’m not going to rant and rave at you; I will just briefly explain why.

I am selfish, extremely selfish. I happen to really enjoy natural space. I like to walk through it; I like to hike through it; I like to take pictures of it. Yesterday, in the Cameron Highlands, I was enjoying just such a place. Specifically I was at Robinson Falls, a small series of waterfalls along the river. It looks like this:

Lovely isn’t it?

And this is the reason why I’m an environmentalist:

Plastic

More plastic

That is FUCKING disgusting. It ruins the natural beauty of the place. It ruins my enjoyment of the place. As I said, I’m selfish. The last thing I want to see when I’m dangling my feet in a river is plastic and god knows what else floating or hooked onto the water. It really isn’t that hard to properly dispose of trash. It really isn’t that hard to reuse a water bottle instead of throwing it away.

So please, lets try to keep our environment looking like this:

UNESCO World Heritage

As many of your probably know, I had no respect left for the United Nations in any of its functions. On the whole, I find the UN to be a bloated, corrupt, expensive, and ultimately ineffective organization that wastes billions of dollars; more often than not, it creates more problems than it solves.

Recently, however, I have had a slight change of heart towards at least one small subdivision of the UN. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization provides an excellent service to the world and our community, The World Heritage Convention. Currently 936 sites are included on UNESCO’s world heritage list.

These places are a combination of natural and artificial constructions that have cultural and historic importance. UNESCO provides international recognition of a site, and often funding to help preserve and maintain the site. Over my travels I have encountered numerous world heritage sites. In some poor and undeveloped countries, these places may have been lost without the UN’s support.

So, here’s to you, UNESCO. Keep up the good work.

Pulau Penang, Malaysia

After my delightful train-ride over into Malaysia I finally arrived at the island of Pulau Penang, and the city of Georgetown. Described as being similar to both Singapore and Hong Kong, it was one of Colonial Europe’s first staging points into SE Asia and Indochina.

Georgetown, however, is much smaller than either Singapore or Hong Kong. A few hours walk will take you through most of the city. It’s quieter, less ostentatious, and home to many and more mosques. Roughly half of Malaysia’s people are Muslim. Other ethnic groups include Indian, Chinese, and indigenous tribes.

After getting off the train in Butterworth, I hopped on a fairy over to the island, found myself a hostel, and relaxed; it had been a tumultuous ride and I was exhausted. That night I wandered vaguely up and down the streets before going to bed early.

The following day I took a much better walking survey of the city. My hostel, in the back packers district, was also part of China Town. As soon as I left, I realized that the population consisted of a wide variety of different cultures. Indians were in strong force, but the ethnic Malaysians seemed strangely absent. Along my walk I visited the post office, only to discover it was closed; strange, I thought, giving it was Wednesday.

Later that afternoon I came across the Kongsi House. This historic house was the former home of the Kongsi clan, a group of ethnic Chinese that settled in Georgetown during the 1600s. Their former house is simply magnificent. The clan still operates today and honors former ancestors and inducts newer ancestors into the shrines within the house.

When your ears are suddenly assaulted with a high chant blaring loudly over speakers most people would be, at the very least, surprised, if not concerned. In a Muslim country it is simply the call to prayer emanating for the nearest Mosque. And, it being Ramadan, it was not unexpected. In fact, the night before I had gone to sleep with the sounds of prayer in my ears.

I chanced to walk past a few different mosques in Georgetown. I am a huge fan of religious architecture across all credos. Yet, I find Christian and Islamic religious structures to be particularly striking. With the exception of Angkor Wat, most Buddhist and Hindu architecture strikes me as gaudy – pretentious. Something about the simple austerity of a church or mosque speaks to me far more (I realize I’m generalizing – many churches are gaudy obnoxious things themselves, and I’m sure some mosques are just as bad).

As it would turn out, that day was a public holiday. My confusion over the post offices closure and lack of Malaysians was explained. I still don’t really understand, but it was the history of the Koran day, a pseudo religious holiday?

The next day I found myself venturing over to Batu Ferringhi, the beach area. I took the local bus over and found myself a guesthouse, where I’m currently staying. The beach isn’t the cleanest or the most beautiful, but it’ll do. I’m just happy to go float in some salt water; I didn’t even mind when a dead fish decided to join my little party.

That night I ventured over to the night market, wholly unremarkable, and ate at the local hawker center. A hawker center is basically a food court with stalls and a common sitting area. The food tends to be delicious. I had been dying to try Roti since I started reading about it months ago when I found out I was going to Singapore. I finally had my chance.

Roti is basically fried dough; usually it’s served with some sort of curry or dipping sauce. I had roti with chicken curry. It lived up to all my expectations and was pleasantly spicy.

I’m spending the rest of today at the beach, relaxing. Tomorrow I venture to the Cameron Highlands in central Malaysia. Supposedly it doesn’t venture much over 84 F and is elevated enough that the humidity isn’t too bad. We’ll see…