More Malaysian highlands and peninsular criss-crossing
4th November 2005

The hills are are alive with the sound of Landrovers
Tea estate can't serve a cuppa
Nederlandische Uberlanders
Rain
More rain
Penny for the Budda?

Cameron Highlands, strangely not in Scotland

So we’d seen the famous fireflies and there was no reason to sit around baking by the coast while the cool option of the Cameron Highlands was just a spit up the road. Hippy and I stand by our definition of the best environment to live being in the tropics at a reasonable altitude and were willing to put it to the test once again.

Malaysian roads again proved to be perfect, signing predictably random. Avoiding being sucked into nightmarish competition on sub 125 cc stinkwheels we managed to reach Tanah Rata intact and early. We’re beginning to suss that rain falls from roughly 4 o’clock onwards. That is to say that it falls every afternoon at this time. Tanah Rata was a huge disappointment after Bukit Fraser. The only really major plus in the comparison is that 70% of the vehicles are Landrovers. Seeing the huge numbers of pre-Discovery landies was quite amazing. Somewhere in these highlands was a warehouse full of landies that were being cannibalised to keep the others going, or a maybe there is a mechanic that at an hour’s notice can run off any part for a pre-1990 landrover. I can’t imagine that there is another part of the world that can be so fanatical about this old British workhorse. On the subject of cars, other observations of Malaysian motor fads need to be made; huge numbers of Mercedes ply the thoroughfares - not old knockers that have been imported on the cheap, but late models and pretty big ones at that, Moggy Minors are clustered in groups of about 6 in at least one yard in each village or town - it seems that collection of this size yields enough spares to keep one of the marque running into the 21st century, the only other real influence from the former colonial masters in terms of transport are the few minis scattered about the place. Even the new Perodua Kelisa has a distant look of a mini about it. Talking of minis, we rolled up behind the genuine article driven by an Anglo-Saxon displaying his national colours on the bodywork. As we passed we gave a salutation of flashing lights and horn. He waved cheerily at us though he must have wondered quite why we were so excited. Let’s hope seeing our number plate was justification enough.

Tanah Rata, has so many resort style flats going up that it lacks any on the charm of Bukit Fraser, which was delightful. It was easy to see that it had become a victim of it’s own success and being on a public transport route. Hidden amongst the greying apartment blocks were some of the original buildings dwarfed by the town’s popularity. Farm markets, orchid plantations, and nurseries, occupy the roadsides rather than natural forest.

Really windy roads, but the staff said no Boh Select

Then there are the tea plantations of course. We had been carrying tea from the Cameron-ian Boh plantation, since Singapore and it seemed appropriate to pay the place a visit. It had been way back in Argentina that we had last been tea visiting. Driving down the windy road to the visitors centre, tea was as far as the eye could see in either direction. It’s hard to describe what it really looked like, so forgive me if this is unclear. To me the glossy, dark green, stubby hedges that moulded themselves to the lie of the land, gave the countryside a look of a hybrid of peat bog and deep thick worn corduroy. OK, if that doesn’t help look at the piccy.

We ‘did’ the tour with perhaps the most reluctant guide one could care to meet. At first meeting she was sitting behind the counter of the tea restaurant chatting with her friends. She did nothing to announce herself so we made proper charlies of ourselves asking about the guided tour in the tea paraphernalia shop. “You should have asked down at the restaurant”. Well aren’t we the stupid ones? We asked down at the caff and were directed back in the direction of the visitor centre. We protested that we’d just been there so this lass who turned out to be the guide consented to leave her post and show us the factory. I can understand her procrastination, her English was not good and she delivered minimal information from memory. Her asking if we had any questions was a mistake as she clearly could not process information that was not in her prepared notes. When she asked if she could take her leave and we, of course, granted it, she looked so relieved it was pitiful.

Several special select brews were advertised for sampling at what we considered exorbitant prices. What the hell, we coughed up for one of the premium brews only to discover they had run out. We cast an ironic eye over the thousands of acres of tea bushes disappearing over the horizon and got a cup of their second most exotic offering instead. This may be a visit that is best done as a day tour from town with a knowledgeable guide who can fill you in on all the intricacies of teaculture.

We dropped in at a butterfly farm that seemed to only have one species of butterfly. But it did have a a couple of other curiosities, a leaf frog and a leaf insect that unremarkably were remarkably convincing leaves. Picked up some dried strawberries (a seriously intense flavour - well recommended if you can find some) and wended our way back to the guest house just in time to miss the usual afternoon downpour.

We thought we would try to see the pretty side of the Cameron highlands and took in a few trails to waterfalls. The trails are well organised and signposted if you can spot them beneath the undergrowth. Unfortunately, both the falls had become the victims of conspicuous consumption and had a sad collection of rubbish bobbling about in the eddy from the falls. Wildlife was generally hard to spot or photograph - butterflies are so cruel; beautiful but really hard to enjoy for more than a second or two. There was a rather more obliging mouse/small rat which was happy to sit and watch you up to about 6 inches away whereupon it would scuttle off and hide in a tuft of grass.

At last, more of our ilk

Nearing the end of our walk we passed through a campsite and Pat spied a 4x4 that had the unmistakable trademarks of a fellow overlander. I actually knew as soon as I saw it that this Landcruiser had shipped through the same warehouse as ourselves in Singapore a couple of weeks before we arrived - it had been well described by the employees. And this is how we met Coen and Karin, a pair of Dutch people coming the other way as it were. They had left Holland 2 years ago travelling east, and arrived in Singapore, having not been allowed to enter the border area of India and Myanmar so being forced to ship from Bangladesh.

This was the first pair of overlanders be had seen since South America, we were beginning to think we were the only ones still daft enough to do this kind of thing.
It was wonderful swapping stories and commonalities. All the travellers we have met in North America and Asia so far were backpackers with their own agenda. We had began to feel rather old and fuddy duddy, chatting with Coen and Karin I realised that my feelings of out of placeness, were more in line with hugely different goals rather than age, although my increasing number of grey hairs are testament to my lost youth. Dont be so dramatic, dear!

The campsite was a tempting option, and it would give us a chance to eat something that wasn’t oozing in fat. I thought people are supposed to get ill from the food in Asia and lose weight - we had been banking on this to shed the excesses of the UK. So for all we have done is gain weight. Don’t get me wrong the food here is marvellous and cheap as chips. But if you want to avoid something fried it is nigh-on impossible. Oh, if you have an aversion to garlic and chilli, scrub South East Asia off your travel plans. Anyway, I digress, after a month of curry even Pat was interested in a day or two of low fat food. I feigned interest in veggie food for the benefit of the good lady - convincingly it seems.

So for a couple of days it would be some light relief for our digestive system to eat some camping food. Thus we joined them in the Malay Forest.

The Dutch are full of many great ideas. They told of the Christmas tradition of making things for family members, creative wrapping to disguise the object or setting treasure hunt challenges to guide people to their gift. It all sounds so much more imaginative than doing a conventional Brit gift giving. Years of this inventiveness means that they had a number of little gift ideas for the friends they made on the way. There were miniture clogs, as an icon of Holland and a toggle puzzle with their website written on. They had asked friends and family to pledge money in return for them completing a challege set of them.

They also carried with them one of the best games ever. Their version was in German, the language of it’s creators, but the British version is called ‘Settlers’. What is nice about it is that there is a lot of choice and strategy in it, with the roll of the dice to give non-strategic people like me a chance to win. We were so drawn in by Coen’s obvious enthusiasm for the game that we didn’t quite get to leave the next morning as we’d planned. A large collapsable table, specifically for the purpose, is testament to their affection for the game. Thus was a day consumed. It was a lovely day, and Coen was very patient and clear about the game. Be warned, though, this game is very addictive. We nearly stayed for another day!

They told us of a Swiss couple they had met up with in Singapore, who were currently the world record holders for the longest time on the road. Now in their 20th year. 20 years that makes our travels seem pathetically short.

Coen was a graphic designer in a former life and so was always destined to be a Mac computer wallah. It’s fair to say perhaps that he is a Macaholic in fact. He insisted in sharing his shareware games with us along with a bunch of other stuff. As we muddle along quite happily with the stuff we have on the ‘puter we didn’t really feel this new stuff was necessary but, hey, what’s a computer without a couple of games on it. Been a long time since we’ve had our little Apple unbilically attached to another one and Hippy always finds the process somewhat geeky. We traded some of our sooper-dooper iklean computer wipes which disappointingly didn’t seem to quite do the job. We have now sadly, got semi-addicted in a Tetris-type fashion to one of the games. We have already set up a rationing scheme so that we do not became fixated.

A thank you to Coen and Karin for many little things, the topping up of our sugar ration and washing up liquid, the wonderful store of inforamtion and stories on countries yet to be travelled, for the introduction to ‘Settlers’ and most of all to remind us that we are still part of the overland community.

We ended up in general conversation discussing the common problems that seem to be holding developing countries back. It especially seemed topical with Malaysia on such a mission to move the country forward. The irony is that it is exactly that, the problem is the planning ahead thing. In all countries the people are perfectly capable of planning for the future when it comes to putting money by for dowries and things, but concept that ‘a stitch in time saves nine’ is lost on many peoples of the world. A roof leaks - you put a bucket under the leak, rather than fix the roof, you only decide to fix anything when you have run out of buckets - by which time the roof costs more to fix. The campsite we were staying on was a perfect example. There had been careful planning and money spent building toilet blocks, showers, shelters and bbq places, but that’s where it stopped there was no maintenance of these facilities and they were now looking shabby and tired. The terrible paint job we had seen in the Batu Caves was another one. Someone had been employment to paint say the silver bits. To the silver painter it didn’t matter that the silver ran over the white bits, because he would paint over that when he did the white bits. But now the white bits need more coats and will be ridged with thick paint. People in developing countries all over the world, sweep dirt and rubbish from their house frontages but do not collect it, so it blows back two hours later.

I watched at the campsite as 2 lads dammed the stream to collect enough depth of water to wash their bikes. So there is the concept of planning and strategy, but possibly only for personal goals rather than paid work. A little transferance of skills may be needed to ensure the success of so many countries that are on the cusp an new era.

If there’s a monsoon around, we’ll find it sooner or later

We haven’t done a big ride for a while but as reports of the jungly bit of Malaysia, Taman Nagara, had been generally negative (muddy leach infested walks, oppressive heat and humidity and generally inflated prices), we decided to bypass the middle of Malaysia and head straight up to Kota Baru which is noted for its craft work, batik, kite and puppet making and silversmiths.

I felt the wrench as we left Cameron highlands, it would have been all too easy to chill for more days playing games. In hindsight maybe my gut feelings knew what was in store for us.

As we dropped over the other side of the hill range the rain came. The road was awash; the visibility was down to a few metres and unsympathetic lorries were relishing the opportunity to drench us in their wake. This was not rational rain but as if the nature had chucked a giant bathful of water straight over us. We pulled over to shelter under a porch to wait for the storm to blow over. As I got off the water ran off my jacket like two taps had been switched on. Over the 4 years of travelling the bike gear has become progressively less waterproof with rips developing in the plastic lining. I felt the damp clinginess of everything sticking to me. As we stood watching the lightning fork in front of us and the thunder crack overhead, the rain cascaded off the edge of the porch. With my negligible knowledge of meterology I stood pondering, how does the sky hold that much water, why doesn’t it fall down? This was a huge amount of water, what keeps that weight in the air before it falls? I can deal with the reasoning that with British drizzle the water vapour is held in the clouds and then it condenses and falls as rain. But what I watched in front of us seemed to defy the logic of those Geography lessons. Those clouds of water vapour must be sooooo heavy what keeps them in the air? They have no engine, OK some wind and a few thermals but I’m sorry, it seems unfeasible.

For 20 minutes it did not relent, the lightning put on a show for us and we supped at our flask of tea. It was almost as if we’d brought the rain on by setting off with a flask of tea fot once. The rain pounding the road, sploshing into the river of a road. Gradually the river, began to shallow out and the sploshing became splashing and the rain, still heavy, began to look rideable. Another cyclist sheltering with us, set off, and we followed his lead. It has a mistake, no sooner had we set off but a mile or so down the road, nature, for a laugh emptied bath 2. This was not funny any more. We could hardly make out the lights on other vehicles, let alone them be able to see us. Again we pulled in and again we watched the torrent. This time we were a tad more speculative when the rain seemed to ease.

We were wet, we needed air-con to dry the gear, and pulled up at a guest house that seemed like it had ceased to be. But once we had awakened the lady of the house from her siesta we found it was, despite it’s dormant aura, still functioning. We nabbed the air con room that for under £5.00 was a bargain. We peeled out of sopping clothing and hung our gear around the room on anything that was available, the dressing table, the curtain rail, the door to the wardrobe, even the switch box for the air con unit. The hot shower failed to satisfy as the water kept switching itself off but you can’t have everything.

We did not venture far that evening, but headed for the nearest restaurant, mainly because it was showing the premiership football. Nyonga food is the name for Chinese, Malay culinary fusion, and we decided to try a little Nyonga fish. It was fantastic, fresh, spicy and tangy; ginger, garlic, orange zest, lemon grass and chilli infused the succulent fish. Just in case the dish was not spicy enough we were each give a little saucer of chopped garlic and chilli. We endulged our senses. At the restaurant, it was pleasant to see that the proprietor’s Down’s Syndrome daughter cheerfully helping out clearing tables and such, and giggling excitedly at the footballers falling over on the TV. She was known and accepted by the other customers. In other countries we have noticed the lack of mentally handicapped people in public and assume that they are hidden away.

Patrick thought he would tested the luck of the scarf and decided not to wear it for the Chelsea game.......a 5-1 defeat....... Sam, it’s OK he will be wearing the scarf from now on.

The footy was not the only disaster to befall us in Kota Baru.The next day the mac, our computer, which had been being flaky for a while, crashed in the middle of doing something and obstinately refused to come back to life for moe than a couple of minutes at a time. Pat had had the foresight to buy another back up drive in the UK and copy most things onto it. We just managed to copy everthing over, when the whole thing died. It wouldn’t do anything, it was deceased, it was no more. It would not even reboot from the original disks. Nothing, nihil, nada. Just a blank dark screen. I cannot thank Pat enough for being geeky enough to have backed everything up. But if we couldn’t get it going again, we would have to do a rapid rethink and go Route1 to Bangkok or go back to KL to try and find a mac dealer. I know little about computers, but I had noticed that it seemed to to more flaky when it was warm. It was a long shot, but maybe if we left it for a while and went for food, there was a small hope it would reboot. I thought it would do no harm at least, the situation could not get worse that it was, the computer currently would do nothing at all, and more to the point we were hungry.

To be honest, I did not expect it to work but there it was when we came back happy to reboot from the disk. We were saved. We were so relieved. Pat then spent the next day and a half putting everything back on that he had sensibly saved. Pat I owe you one. Thankyou. Not so sure I’m as clever as Hippy thinks. The odd file got corrupted in the process and some stuff was lost, but fortunately nothing of too great importance.

We had come to Kota Baru for the promise of traditional handicrafts. We set off in the morning all bright eyed and interested to find the town hibernating. Nothing was open. It was Ramandan, for many businesses this is seen as a holiday time, some totally shift their working day to dusk till dawn as they had done in Syria to accommodate the fasting hours. Others shut for the whole month. There were advertised cultural exhibitions of craft skills in town that had been shelved for Ramadan. I was disappointed. I had been saving my souvenier shopping till we reached the cultural heart of the country only to discover everyone was on holiday.

We managed to find one batik place in operation and a silversmiths. I had mentally prepared my psyche to spend money in Kota Baru, but I was unable to do my usual thing of shopping around and comparing quality and cost. So I left I fear with inferior examples and dissatisfied. What I would have really liked was to purchased one of the batiks we actually saw being dyed but they wouldn’t have been ready for days. One cannot complain at £1.50 for a 2m by 1m piece of patterned material whether it be printed or genuine batik.

An ordinary trip to the loo. Spec-less and in the dark, I shuffled half asleep into position on the loo. Ah!.....something cold and tail-like was under my foot. A rat...I screamed....it is dark....where was it?..I pulled my feet up to me.....and shouted frantically at Pat to put the light on....the darkness meant I could not see my fear...where was it?....what was it?. ....After seconds that seemed like minutes the light went on. Now blinded by the bright lights and my own myopia, I still could not see for a few more panic-y seconds. I could see nothing, then my eyes began to focus on something pale on floor where my foot had been. A gecko..... it was a gecko. My panic dissolved into remorse, it still moved but looked unwell. I have a great affection for geckos, the darkness had played tricks on me and I had been frightened of an innocent, cute, wee gecko. I picked up the injured fellow and hoped he was just in shock by being stood on by a lumbering Hippy, and moved him to the safety of the corner of the room.

Pouring in Penang, too.

It may seem logical, if you look at a map to have gone North from Kota Baru to enter Thailand. But we went West, staying in Malaysia, for two reasons, firstly we fancied going to Penang Island and secondly even the Thai government were not recommending visitors go to the South East provinces of their country. Bombings in the area have gone unreported in the international press, partially intentionally by the Thai government. They are struggling as it is to recover the tourists after the Tsunami, if the bombings hit the sensationalist media the South would lose the sprinkling of tourists they are receiving. They may also be following the British government’s policy in the IRA bombings that publicity and matyrdom is what terrorists crave and if you starve them of it, they may eventually get bored. The group responsible seem to be the same group that have been targeting Bali, which apparently, as the media here reports desire a muslim SE Asia bloque. I know fanatics are by definition illogical, but blowing people up seems to be the least effective way to convince people of the joys and benefits of Islam. Islamic Malaysia is a very friendly and safe place to be, focusing media attention on its successes seems a more effected way to advertise Islam to the world at large. But then the Crusades were equally brutal and neanderthal, if we kill enough people eventually they will see God is a Christian? Sadly, we never seem to learn.

The West route meant going up and over the middle of Malaysia again, a long day. Warnings of elephants on the road promised so much but nothing appeared. It was destined to be such a long day that, like a complete fool, I once again chose not to stop and take a picture of the ‘warning, elephants in the road’ sign on the basis that there would be another one just around the corner. When will I learn?

Penag is an island off the West coast of Malaysia and has had a long and exotic history, as a trading port. It’s age, and modern traffic density, conspire to make a tortuous one way system, that must have employed a town planner from Leicester. It’s one of those towns that you know which geographical way you need to go, but none of the roads allow you to get there. Hence I looked at the map and chose accomodation on accessibility rather than reputation or cheapness. It had been a long day, we were glad to find anything. And so we bedded at the Love Lane Inn, on Love Lane obviously. I guessed we could have found better value for money in town but Jimmy, the Tawainese proprietor, was so charming and accommodating with Berthette, there could be no option. We are in the fortunate postion so far in SE Asia that can easily live within our budget. We can afford a few beers, not have to search for the cheapest place in town and buy a few souvenirs once in a while.

Love Lane by name is Love Lane by nature. We were in the prostitute area. This in itself was not unusual, every hotel we had stayed in Ethiopia had doubled as a brothel, but I was a little taken aback. I had just come from Kota Baru where middle aged muslim locals had stared disapprovingly at a female tourist in shorts. And generally, I had found Malaysians fairly conservatively dressed. Some how we’d got it into our heads that the ‘Lying’ Planet had warned readers that Penang was very conservative and one should respect the Islamic ethos, and there we were watching girls tottering in skimpy outfits with their breasts half hanging out of plunging necklines that were defying the laws of nature. Can’t say I noticed. Now, I say girls really for want of a better collective name. Some I think were female, but others were ‘lady-boys’. And very effective ones too. The HOTel opposite had more or less resident ‘working guests’. Some male some female. Along Love Lane could be found lady-boys and ‘ordinary’ prostitutes of all local races; Chinese, Malay, Indonesian, Thai and Indian. Quite extraordinary. The cosmopolitan nature of Penang’s cultural heritage and it’s position near to the Indonesian Islands and Thailand, and separated from Malaysia’s mainland, gives it a slight edge, a slight lawlessness and individual identity. The island was a successful trading port for centuries before the rest of Malaysia caught up. The vices of drugs and prostition come with that success. Don’t get me wrong, I did not find Penang a dangerous place, but it’s island position, and independant wealth means that it has developed a different set of values to the rest of Malaysia.

Many of the houses of quality were damaged in the Second World War, and others have been bulldozed to ‘modernize’ the the city of Georgetown into a concrete jungle. But at the moment enough buildings remain scattered around the town to give a feel for burgeoning, affluent past of the city. In particular, one house that had been built by a hugely successful Chinese trader (and top Mandarin to the emperor hence why he was one of the few allowed to use decoration normally reserved for the Emperor and temples) has been restored to grandeur. Cheong Fat Tze, after whom the building is named, was reputed to be a slow learner in childhood who became one of the richest dudes in the world of his time. Story has it that in his waning years he had to take a passage to the USA and P+O would not sell him a ticket for 1st class (as he was not altogether caucasian, you understand, old chap) until he threatened to buy the company.

Despite the fact that in his will he insisted that 250 dollars was spent a year on the house’s upkeep, none of the Trustees thought it appropriate to index the amount that was set back near the turn of the century. Hence by the time the heritage trust bought in the 1990’s the trustees were renting out the house to tenants, who were happily lighting fires in the corridors and ripping off panelling to use as fuel. Photos showing the state of the place, proved what a gamble the new owners took on. They are now being creative in the use of the place. It has hotel rooms, you can hire the place for weddings, fashion shoots and it was even used as a set in the film ‘Indochina’.

The CFT mansion is now a marketing exercise for Feng Sui, or so it seemed. Our charming guide filled us in on the founding principles of traditional Feng Sui; a house should be built with its back to mountains, facing water, preferably to the south. A screen should separate the front lobby from the rest of the house as the direct impact of the chi would not be so good as when it is stirred up. Bamboo elements should be introduced where possible to signify longevity (the water signifies wealth - think utility sell-offs in the UK). Most of the explanation makes good sense. Indeed, it is common sense and for my mind doesn’t really need to be dressed up in all the mumbo jumbo. Modern ‘trendy’ feng sui was compared to putting wall paper over cracks in walls; trying to improve the chi in houses that were originally poorly conceived. Our guide was completely scathing about modern fengsui and saw it as just a ploy to get you to buy a wind chime and a water feature. She truly seemed to believe what she was saying that the most important thing is the position of the centre of the house, which is why in this case it was built squew-wiff to the road. There were some nice touches that we’d noticed in the house down in Malaka; roof drainage round the central court yards is contained within the walls and issues into a recessed central portion of the courtyard where it swirls around before disappearing down a drain outlet. Nice to have that lovely cool pool to take the heat out of the air round about monsoon time but I can’t help thinking that here is a flooding problem in the making - too many fag butts and bits of chewing gum tossed down the drain and you could get a nasty blockage, squire.

Another nice touch was that he had the foresight to buy the piece of land opposite his house, and built his servants quarters there. For him the reasoning being that it would prevent another developer putting up a building that diverted the chi away from him. I am with him on this one, little point in living in a beautiful house and looking out onto an eyesore.

Our guide, was clearly uncertain about the future of Georgetown. The modern authorities are it seems on a mission to modernise and replace old buildings with more shopping malls and concrete hotels. Her argument, which is a fair one, that there is already shop premises empty and the old buildings are what the tourists come to see. She had campaigned to conserve the last part of mangrove swamp within the city limits, home to many varieties of birds as well as local fishermen. She had lost out to the developers, the area has already been cleared to make way for yet another shopping complex.

Religion, or is it just big bidness?

We visited a good number of the temples and mosques but got a bit Budda’d out. There was the 3rd largest reclining Budda in the Thai temple and an extemely tall Budda being constructed up on the hill as part of the no-expense-spared expanding Malay Buddist temple. This huge creation was being funded, of course, by public donations; proudly they boasted of the other facilities they would create upon it’s completion; old folks home, hospital and the like. We couldn’t help thinking that perhaps a slightly smaller scale temple would leave them with the funds for more immediate effect in the community. We were also rather miffed at the surly monk who took our entrance fee - he seemed not to be entirely the happy go lucky Buddist monk we are told of. Yes, this was church of Budda plc at it’s worst. As for the management of the site and waste of precious building materials..... Pat cringed visibly at the construction methods used, and even to a layperson like myself, it seemed so wasteful. Beautifully carved huge chunks of granite had been gobboed together with the wrong kind of mortar so that before it was even finished, nasty staining was ruinnng down the surface. Expensive granite tiles had been laid only for someone to remember the pilars that needed to be put in and unsightly holes were hacked into the tiled plaza. The list was endless.

Our favourite of the sites was the Burmese Buddist temple which had, for sure, a whopping vertical Budda but was walled with the most beautifully executed pierced woodwork screens. Ramadan was ensuring that there was huge attendance at the mosques and the chinese temples had a good steady stream of worshippers and all manner of burning scent sticks and dragon effigies, so all in all there was a whole lot of religion going on. The snake temple down the road seemed to be living out its existence solely as a tourist attraction - not a lot of religion being practised. You could have your picture taken with a snake, buy snakey souvenirs and visit the snake farm (attached). I’m not really a serpent kind of a guy and so the lethargic one dimensional reptiles left me a bit cold.

I ended the day, confused, and disenchanted. I had the naive impression, that Buddhism was about humility and moving emphasis away from worldy goods, and I had spent the day in some of the most lavishly decorated religious places in the world. Was this really what Buddha had intented when he spurned Hinduism and gave up his princely wealth. What would he think if he saw the ticketed turn styles at the temple; the wheel of fortune horiscope for a Ringgit a time; the monks profiting on gold leaf sales to devotees; the tat stalls selling little models of himself or the temples with gopping great effigies.

Our hotelier, Jimmy, is quite an interesting character. In his full life he has been a Mr Fixit for oil companies, a shipping entrepreneur, traveller, hostel owner and to top it all was a successful racing driver around South East Asia. He was totally honest with everyone who came into his hotel asking for advice on transport arrangements but suffered from the cynicism that gets into the skin of every passing tourist. For example, he was asked by one lass if he could arrange tickets to the Cameron Highlands and was poo-pooed by her when he explained that the only practical way to get there was to return to Kuala Lumpur and take a bus from there. Once she’d walked away he explained to me that this was really the only way but folk assumed that he was just telling them that so he could sell them tickets. How does one project to a doubting client base that you are in fact honest about all your advice? I think the worse thing is that folk probably never return to apologise when they find that he had been completely straight with them. When we were asking about costs in Thailand, he told us pretty much exactly correctly the cost of petrol and explained about how the vehicle import system worked only for a flakey dude to join in and tell us what the ‘correct’ prices were. Once again, we later discovered that Jimmy had been pretty much bang on. He really couldn’t do enough for us. I’d noticed that one of the vinyl seats had been repaired and asked him where it had been done so we could revamp Berthette’s saddle. Overnight, the saddle was miraculously repaired for no charge. He never charged us for our extra teas and coffees. When we asked for a good place to buy nasi lemak for our breakfast, he hopped on his bike and returned with a little parcel of it for each of us, refusing payment. What a thoroughly decent chap. Hard to understand why folk weren’t queuing up to take rooms.

Coen and Karin were in town, now travelling with Coen’s sister. They’d had to battle hard to be allowed to sleep in their vehicle on the car park of the hotel where their sibling had a room. I guess you get different expectations about what is acceptable. In India, for example, we are told that one of the best options for camping is to go to a fancy hotel with large lawns and ask if you can set up your tent there. More often than not, you’ll get a positive response. The real benefit of this is that it keeps the goggle-eyed locals off your back when you want to camp in peace - a real luxury in India! We didn’t want to impose ourselves as they obviously had a family agenda going on and so made half cocked arrangements to meet up with them the following evening. The heavens opened in huge fashion, though, and made the idea of paddling round the corner unappealing. We hoped that their Landcruiser was good and watertight and spent the evening packing everything up in plastic bags, expecting a drenching on our way north in the morning.

We dithered a bit in the morning, we had to decide whether we were going to try to make to Bangkok to meet up with Pat’s brother-in-law and his godson. Either we leave that day or the distances were insurmountable. The ‘tail of Thailand is rather long. If it was do-able we should try to make it and we packed up to head for the border.

I had read about Gua Kelam, a set of caves just outside Kaki Bukit in the Northernmost bobble of Malaysia. One cave is much like another really, but this place promised something different. The cave had been made by tin mining and for ease of extraction a suspended wooden walkway was built along it’s length, which reputedly motorcyclists ride through. So it had to be done.

As we rode up it became clear that we were at cross purposes, Pat had intented to go to the border and I was leading us to a tin-pot wee town in no-wheres-ville. I became worried, this was all very well, but we hadn’t seen anything in any of the towns we passed that vaguely resembled a hotel, would Kaki Bukit have anywhere to stay? It was not looking hopeful, then I spotted a hotel sign. Saviour, of saviours.

We trundled on to the caves and were disappointed that the promised rideable walkway through the cave was now blocked to two wheeled traffic. So it was just another cave. A little unfair to say just that! This cave does have a quarter mile suspended walkway, bats, stalagmites and a reasonably funky lighting system.

Dejected we rolled up to the Hotel we had spotted. The Islamic ladies running the hotel looked almost as pleased to see us as we were to discover a hotel. It was clear that not many ‘farangs’ (foreigners) make it up this way. The hotel room was simple and clean and it looked like we were the only customers they had seen in months.

Since we were here, we thought might as well take a walk to the caves. The walkway through them was quite a feat, steel cables held the treds taught, for something half a kilometre long it was amazingly unrickety, and it only slightly oscillated with use. Taking Berthette through would have been possible but hard work, it was twisty and the camber on the treads was slightly random. So maybe they had saved us some embarrassment.

We popped out the other end to find a nice little park, with courting couples, looking wistfully over pretty ponds and the like. This was where the Hot Rockers had camped a few year’s earlier, we tried the picture this tranquil place with 20 odd maverick climber’s camped out.

Kaki Bukit, felt very different to anywhere in Malayia. The language of choice was Chinese and you felt like you had entered a little enclave that wasn’t really interested in the rest of Malaysia and in turn they have been forgotten by Malaysia. Stuck out in the northern bobble of the country, it was geographically isolated from influences South, and politically isolate from the Thai border only 5km away. The Chinese immigrants had been encouraged in to work in the tin mines, when the tin dried up they stayed on .

It seemed that every house had the front room open to public view. But these rooms were not rooms in the conventional sense but shrines with offerings laid out and insense burning, people were sitting in front of their shrines relaxing and watching the world go by. The shrine thing is something we haven’t really mentioned because we have got kind of accustomed to it. But even in the cities Chinese homes and businesses have an little shrine akin to a bird table outside their premises. Fading flowers decorate them and as dusk falls the incense is lit, presumably to deter unfavourable spirits. Being the cynic that I am, the smoke and scent also masks the stench from some of the drains and deters those winged evil spirits carrying dengue and malaria. In Kaki Bukit, the little bird house shrines had been upgraded to full sized rooms, were these people more devoted, or simply showing off that they could afford the space.

Anyway, now came our next problem. There were some simple caffs but everything was in Chinese and everyone was speaking Chinese. There then followed a lot of comical sign language and pointing at edible food stuffs. We knew we would be getting food, but what was another question. We were comforted to know that the ‘piss poo’ that we were being offered that sounded so unappetising, were safe, inocuous fish balls (that was what the lady had been trying to say, in English, for our benefit) that flavoured some tasty noddle soup, with a side order of tangy satay chicken with some fried rice. Not a bad selection at all, under the circumstances.

Jimmy had warned us of that petrol was cheaper on this side of the border, so we filled up and headed to the border, at Pendang Besar. We had set ourselves some big riding days to make it to Bangkok for the family rendez-vous. That day’s was 320km and a border. Borders can take half and hour or 4 hours, Pendang Besar turned out to be a medium kind of border.