Malaysia...

penang hill

Sorry for my recent tardiness, with regard to the blog, either been on the move, no WIFI or I have had an awful cold and could not be arsed !!

3 girls and an organ !

in land rover

the bounty !!!

bounty hunters !!

Darwin !!

bamboo bridge

a refreshing drink ...

Brian got in the way of my shot !!

A car for 12 .

Petronas Towers

Me being autistic !!

Melaka

Melaka

So we left River Kwai in a pick up truck driven by our very own cowboy ! playing Country and Western the whole way to the train station, 1hr 30 mins away...We sang at the top of our voices the whole way much to our 'pilgrims ' surprise and ours that we knew the all the words.....   The huge train arrived and we quicky found our massive seats and ordered dinner, which was brought to our table. 4 courses and it was yummy ... Then the bed man came along and turned the train into bunk beds.. I hopped into Brians lower bunk with him and we watched a film on the computer together....It was then time for me to go up to mine , it was like sleeping in an MRI machine and as noisy .. Brian kept the whole train awake snoring, whilst I stayed awake thinking the train was stopping for Highway men to get on and highjack the train.. I joined Brian again ( much to his delight !! ) to watch the sunrise  as we choo chooed our way through Thailand.. We all had to get off at the border which was effortless, and back onto the train where we were joined by Hiawatha, ... plaits and all , she was from Hawaii and was very proud of the fact that she was born in the same hospital as Obama !!! (says it all really ) she then asked Brian where he was from, when he said Northern Ireland she quickly asked "protestant or Catholic !!" when he said "Catholic " she then asked him very quickly if he was a coeliac !!, now forgive me friends and family in Ireland for my ignorance but I was completely unaware that the two went so seamlessly hand in hand..... so Pocahontas made for a painful 6 hours to Penang  sitting crossed legged and snacking on wheat free items.... We hopped in a taxi driven by the islands prison officer and very proud of it he we was too .. Sergeant Ahmed  39741... he asked us if we needed a room for the night !!! Brian said he hoped not !! especially when Sergant Ahmed mentioned they still have the death penalty ...., found our hotel and decided to go upto the "revolving restaurant " for dinner .... Revolting more like, I refused to pay for mine... back down to the bar for live music ... we renamed the act  3 girls and an organ !!! 3 lovely girls , 2 singing one playing an electric piano, and a he/she .... flicking his hair and singing power ballads his adams apple bobbing away as he tried to hit those high notes.... it was very funny ...
The next day we walked around this delightfully colonial town, it is so multi cultural, and a great example of how many different religions and race can live in harmony, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Catholics, Coeliacs.... All the buildings are pastel coloured with wooden shutters covering the windows.. we walked to Fort Cornwallis which was built by the British, it was not the best example of a fort I have seen , but then I am no fort expert !! We then wandered back in the boiling heat for afternoon tea at the Eastern and Oriental Hotel (owned by Raffles) we sat on the verandah and tucked in to 'tiffin' !! The reception area had a beautiful domed ceiling which we found out echoed and reverberated sound around, so after much feet stamping and coo eeee ing we left the 5 star establishment much to the residents delight ...
The next day was as boiling hot, so we decided to head for Penang Hill to 'take cooler air' as the locals do. We got into a funicular railway and a hairy ride later arrived at the top.. it is like a G10 summit meeting here in Malaysia, you have never seen so many cultures and religions, the view from the top was breath taking, and you could spot all the different, temples and mosques, and churches from up here. We found a tea garden and had a roast dinner which was odd whilst taking in the view.
We checked out the next morning and hopped on a mini bus to take us to Cameron Highlands, on Mount Titiwangsa ( is it just me or is that name funny) the climb up to the town took 100 switchbacks and everyone looked pretty green when we got there. We past many tea plantations and strawberry farms on the way up, with signs outside saying " self plucking" which just ran riot with my immature sense of humour ... "go pluck yourself" "happy plucking" "have a pluck on us " or simply " pluck your own " we arrived at Hillview inn our residence for a couple of nights.... well it was more like Fawlty Towers, with Bahinder Fawlty and his wife running it, they clearly hated their jobs, and being a resident was obviously incredibly inconvenient for them... Belsen Prison would have been more luxurious . and it was quite expensive to stay here... Oh well , we had booked ourselves on a trip to see the Rafflesia flower, and boy was I excited.
An awful nights sleep, cold, damp, noisy very heavy rain , not helped by no glass in the windows just mesh !! Had a dreadful breakfast served with the panache of an Easy Jet stewardess who had clearly been to the Mugabe school of Leisure and Tourism, our landrover picked us up with two incredibly dull Germans... We drove back down the mountain to the jungle and after all the rain, it was an exciting journey off road, the Landrover was right over on its side upto it's sump iin mud.. I had no idea these cars could do this... after a brief with our guide - don't touch or grab anything as it may have a snake on, if something falls on you stay calm I have a machete !! we slid into the jungle.... It was very very hot and very tough trek, we climbed over rocks and slid down banks and balanced across tree trunks across waterfalls, not for the faint hearted! Brians face was a picture... and he was muttering god knows what under his breath about this sodding flower... As I am so boring I had googled this plant and had bored the life out of Brian the night before, so you can only imagine his excitement about this trek !!
Eventually we found it ... and it was wonderful .. For those of you who have a life go to Part B....
Part A 
The Raffelsia Flower is only found in SE Asia, It is the largest flower in the world. It takes one year to grow, and once it has popped , only lives for 5 days. It is parasitic and lives on vines, it has no leaves or stems so cannot perform photosynthesis ! It has red wart like petals and eats flies . It is a flower as it has both male and female sex organs . It smells like " a rotting buffalo carcass!
Part B
Well after me telling Brian this you can see why he was champing on the bit to find it, yet after one and half hours of trekking when we found he he was pretty amazed, although not as much as I was, I heard he chatting to all the pretty girls about the plant and was a botanical expert when it came to Raffelsia.. what he did not know about this plant , he even found out it had medicinal properties, which he then looked up back at the room to find it had an Oxytocin affect.. so now also a Nobel Prize winner , ( I would kill for a nobel peace prize ) .... men ! Darwin would have been proud.. we slid all the way back to the village where a bit of blowpiping was in order and we all had a go on a pipe firing darts at a target and passing around highly poisonous darts... I was first up of course to have a go ... I couldn't have caught dinner, but hit the bullseye !!!
We then clambered back into the Land Rover and started the climb back up the mountain , but not for long .. our clutch burnt out ... so we were towed by the other Land Rover .... which was scary... we pulled into a garage and then all piled in one Land Rover... all 12 of us ... this didn't stop the driver driving like a maniac, but the gods were watching... he had about 8 buddhas on his dashboard and a photo of Bob Marley , covering all bases there......  It was then back to the cave for another cold miserable night....
We checked out the next morning much to Bahinder Fawlty delight, he virtually threw our bags after us and shouted " don't bother coming back ".....  and hopped on a bus to Kuala Lumpur. Fairly uneventful journey apart form the driver pulling over walking up the bus and clouting a local really hard around the head then dragging him off the bus, we were wondering what in gods name had he done, was he a stowaway , drugs.... relax everyone.. he had dropped some litter on the floor.... Brian said he wanted to get his hoover out !! I sat very still and was not buggering around for once ....
We arrived in KL and HMMMM !! we don't like it, skyscrapers, dual carriageways, we scuttled about amongst the looming ugly buildings.. not knowing where you are as you have nothing to focus on, except sterile claustrophobic glass and metal.. we are missing the chaos and cacophony of the other places we have visited, the voyeurism of looking in at other peoples way of life, this almost seems normal and boring.... However, we went to the Petronas Towers, which had lovely gardens and fountains around them, and went into Marks and Spencers to get some knew underwear as ours is as grey and baggy as an Afghans !! we then had a beer on the top floor of Traders Hotel looking at the towers by a lovely pool sitting in a cabana ( top tip ) .. Having decided KL was not for us, we headed for Melakka a UNENSCO heritage site a little like Hoi An, it is very lovely, different coloured houses, shuttered windows, chinese lanterns, me sniffing and coughing , a gift from the damp concentration camp in the highlands....I was not feeling great so we relaxed and ate and wandered around, I blew my nose a lot, ( I am sure the Chinese have served up something similar to me whilst travelling ...) the next day was time to move on and another bus journey with a border crossing thrown in... destination - Singapore ... bring it on .....