Cool Air Makes Me Want to Write (finally!)

That's Tanah Rata - in the blissfully cool highlands

I'm sitting on the open air porch in Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia and despite my ENORMOUS guilty conscience that I haven't even finished blogging about New Zealand and here I am in Malaysia, I've decided that I need to nip it in the bud and actually DO something about my conscience.  So, screw chronology - I'm blogging as the pictures and the words come easily to me.  And right now I'm so happy to not have sweat dripping down between my bubbies that I'll happily accept all reprimands for my inconsistency and blatant negligence of my blog writing duties.  So much for my new year's resolution, eh?

I've been in Malaysia for 3 days and the humidity is a killer.  The saying, it's not the heat but the humidity that'll kill ya, 'tis true, my friends, 'tis true.  I thought Singapore was bad, but Singapore had a breeze!  Kuala Lumpur is ridiculous.  I've been sweating like a man!  No joke.  I realize girls are supposed to glisten, not sweat, but I've been positively dripping.  At least my hair stays wet, I've always liked it better wet than dry!  

I arrived mid afternoon on Monday and took my sweet time getting from the airport to my backpackers.  The key is to not move quickly (never a problem for me, my family will attest), especially with 23kg on your back.  After climbing 3 flights of stairs to my room, I happily dropped it all and took a cold, but surprisingly welcome, shower before braving the streets for dinner.  Little did the shower help since I was sweating heavily once again by the time I'd walked through Chinatown's markets.  I found a restaurant where I got spicy chicken tandoori and roti.  My tastebuds have always been spice wimps but I'm slowly training them so I don't starve in Sri Lanka and Thailand!  Dinner, away from the touts trying to get me to buy things, was lovely and then I meandered through the indoor central market.  The shopping in Singapore and KL is amazing.  There's a store or a cart every few feet and if you buy something from one person/shop, the person/shop next door immediately invites you in to buy something from them - even though they're usually selling the same items.  How many Petronas Tower bedazzled keychains does one actually need?

Tuesday morning, about 9ish, I was on my way to FRIM (the Forestry Research Institute of Malaysia).   It was one of the "worth a trip" mentions in the Lonely Planet so I decided to earn all the food I intended to eat and go for a hike in Malaysian nature.  It was a bit of a mission finding a cab once I got off the train, but eventually I made it to FRIM and bought a ticket for the canopy walkway - a 200m suspension bridge.  The hike up to the canopy was quasi steep, but the humidity made it seem almost vertical.  At the bench at the beginning of the walkway I sat and dripped in pleasant company with a local KL man.  We chatted about New York and meditation and how he likes the western view to meditation more than the eastern view (the western view is more scientific).  We also chatted about the goal of meditation - to get rid of the ego so you're one with everything.  His theory is ego = problem.  Big ego = Big problem, SUPER ego = SUPER problem.  His theory made us both laugh, although I don't disagree!

I wobbled my way across the suspension bridge and then scaled my way downhill, periodically sticking my feet in the pools from the series of waterfalls that I walked next to all the way down to the cafe.  Despite cooling myself in the pools, I was sweating buckets by the time I found another cab to get me back to the train station.  This time I went further north to the Batu Caves.  There are a series of 3 caves, one you needed a tour guide, one had paintings and a dance show every 30 minutes, and the last had 272 steps and a 30meter statue leading up to it.  Guess which one I chose to explore...

Calves still hurt from all the dang stairs.

Once I got home, I was completely wiped, so I napped, and then the Belgian girl who was staying in the dorm with me, asked if I wanted to join her for a meditation class at a local Hindu temple.  Yup! So we had some veggie and cheese stuffed roti at a street stall, and then our Filipina roomie joined and we went to meditate for a couple hours.  My legs totally fell asleep...multiple times.  I have a loooong way to go with my meditation skills!

This morning I got up and walked to the Imbi market as it got rave reviews in Lonely Planet...but markets have always been an early morning thing and I have never been an early morning thing.  It didn't help that it was a rather long walk to get there, so when I finally arrived at 10 there wasn't much to see.  I bought bananas anyway, just so it wasn't a complete waste.  

I packed up and caught a bus to Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands.  I met an Irish girl being channeled by a tout to the same bus that I was being channeled to.  She was going to Penang, in the opposite direction of Tanah Rata, and yet they were trying to get us on the same bus.  My suspicions confirmed, we teamed up and walked away together and made our way, peacefully, to the ticket counters where we encountered another Irish couple also going to the Cameron Highlands.  That couple and I became travel buddies and we all commented on our excitement to escape the humidity!

Tea Plantation from the bus

As the scenery got hillier and hillier and the air mistier and mistier, I got happier and happier.  The road got ridiculously windy, reminiscent of the west coast of NZ, and I felt quite at home!  We passed tea plantations and a lovely little waterfall.  Now I'm actually cold, wearing a sweater, jeans and slippers (and the backpacker cat on my lap), but still sitting outside listening to the rain.  I'm getting excited to go for a cooler hike and get a closer look at a tea plantation tomorrow.  I'm loving this cooler side of Malaysia!