The End Of Ramadan Has A Lot To Answer For

Tuesday 24 October

Breakfast was a nightmare meal today, as a huge party of Indonesians were in the hotel and just took over the room and the food. They were here to celebrate the end of Ramadam, and pushed and barged and shouted noisily to each other, while demolishing large quantities of both western and eastern food. Though to be hones, part of the problem is the poor lay out of the room by the hotel.

Escaping, we collected our luggage and waited in the foyer for the others to arrive. We were going to Cameron Heights today, a journey of a few hundred kilometers to the mountains of interior Malaysia. But firstly we would visit the local botanic gardens, that had been constructed where the land had been quarried for stone, a century or so ago. The ‘park’ was very peaceful and serene in the early morning sun, but already heaps of people were arriving – it’s that national holiday again. There were many interesting species of trees and flowers, and even a few monkeys came out to greet us on the lawns, scavenging amongst any litter for tasty morsels. These monkeys were the same variety (macaque) as we had seen at Koh Sok and on the island off Railay Beach. But later on we saw a different monkey in the trees, slightly larger, black with white rings around its eyes and mouth and some white on the top of its head – not sure what it is called. It was a very pleasant wander at start the day, but all too soon we were back in the minibus, speeding our way south along the main toll road that runs from Bangkok to Singapore – over 600 miles.

The scenery was similar to previous days – acres upon acres of palm oil trees, interspersed with a few other species. After about an hour we stopped at a Muslin fruit market, purpose-built small bungalow shops, selling nothing but fruit. Many were closed today – because of the national holiday! – but those open were doing a roaring trade. Paul bought a variety of fruit, which we tried - all except Warren who doesn’t touch anything healthy – including rose apples, jack fruit, tamarind (which we have tried before) and guava (best coated with a cinnamony sugar sprinkled over the chunks), and galia-type melon. Chick peas were bubbling in a cauldron in the front of one of the stores, and we tried some fresh from the pot – they were very soft and fresh and tasted delicious.

Onward once again in the minibus. Sometime later we made a right hand turn signposted towards the Heights. At the junction here, were huge quarries in the limestone, excavating the marble from the rocks. There were huge chunks of white rock visible from the road, similar to those we saw in Italy. The road twisted and turned round successive hairpin bends the whole way along its route, as it climbed up and up, getting ever nearer to the highest point at 5000 feet. The scenery changed to terraced mountains - with many measures to prevent rock falls and drain the water from the slopes - and deep ravines, falling abruptly away on the left-hand side of the road. The vegetation also changed with many tree ferns, shrubs, bushes, and deciduous trees, similar to those seen at home like silver birches and fruit trees. And the weather changed, becoming cooler with lower humidity. The traffic started to increase and soon we were in a long line of vehicles, all making for the higher ground. Progress became slow, even extremely slow, even stopping at some points as we tried to pass through towns and villages. The whole of Malaysia seemed to have come here today – it’s that national holiday – and when they decide to stop and park, they just stop, hardly drawing off the road, before leaving their vehicles. Consequently, it was very difficult for one car to get along the road, let alone two pass each other. We continued on, looking for a place to stop for lunch, but everywhere was teeming with people – whole families of grannies and granddads, mums and dads, children, uncles, aunties, nephews and nieces – piling out of large (or sometimes not so large) vehicles.

Large areas in the valleys and up the sides have been devoted to “glasshouses” – except that here the covering is made of polythene sheeting. Many grow hydrophonic fruits – which means that they are grown in water troughs on benches instead of soil – acres devoted to strawberries, but a few to other fruits and vegetables too, particularly watercress. Each “farm” has its own stopping place, and shop, so more indiscriminate parking, slowing us down. All the cafes were full to bursting, so we kept crawling along in the traffic – the policemen in this area are Moslem, so they would also be on holiday today – later in the afternoon, we did spy two, trying to direct the through traffic, but having no effect on the parking. Paul kept saying “another ten minutes to lunch”, “just another five kilometers to lunch”, but each time there was no place to stop at the rendezvous.

We were supposed to visit a tea plantation today, to see how tea is processed from picking to pot – but it was closed – yes, it’s the fault of that dreaded national holiday again! – so were are going to visit a different plantation whilst on our travels tomorrow, but Paul has now decided that it probably isn’t worth the detour. Which is a shame as we were looking forward to the tastings.

Eventually about 14.00 we turned off the road, to a complex containing an Indian ‘transport caff’, and we all piled out for lunch at last. The place was not clean and the loos even worse, but the food tasted good, and we were all feeling in need of some sustenance. I tried the spicy chicken curry – a dry concoction about madras heat, where the meat was on the bone (I think they had just chopped the whole chicken and put it in the spices and cooked it) – one piece of deep fried spicy chicken – that looked a lot like KFC, but tasted extremely spicy – and some mutton curry - a good run-of-the-mill curry, with lots of gravy - and of course, steamed rice. The meal cost 13 ringats for the two of us (about 2 GBP) and Colin had roughly the same as me.

The Butterfly Farm that was on our schedule to visit today was now just down the hill, so we wandered down the road to the entrance. The farm was built on the hillside, and contained more reptiles and insects than butterflies, although there were a few spectacular large black ones with coloured flashings on their wings, and often with red heads. But we also saw huge rhinoceros beetles with three horns, tarantulas, various snakes from long thin whip snakes to large cobras, leaf frogs (which looked like a large brown light brown fallen leaf, that would be extremely difficult to pick out in the wild, huge stick insects hanging from branches, and equally difficult to see, millipedes (Paul put one on Colin’s hand and he said it felt sticky as its million little feet adhered to his skin!) and a pool of black shiny scorpions – mostly asleep together in one corner. I couldn’t touch any of the species – just being that close was bad enough.

From here we continued on down the hill to the local market. We looked at and tried more fruit – love fruit – that look like pale red English plums on the outside, but when cut open are full of dark seeds surrounded by orange flesh, looking a lot like passion fruit. When we sucked the fruit out of the skin they tasted a lot like kiwi fruit. We also tried some tangerines, large orange globes that were so, so sweet (I am not an orange person, but these were very delicious). We also tried the local strawberries, but they were like the forced ones from home, slightly hard and tasteless – very disappointing, seeing how many people were buying them.

It was then time to make our way to the hotel, a further half an hour’s journey still going further up into the mountains. Due to all the traffic hold ups, we would not arrive in time to trek this afternoon, but Paul has promised (!) to take us tomorrow – so I won’t escape more walking up and down hills. The hotel is situated at the end of Tanah Rata, quite a large town with a long high street of small shops and restaurants, all very Asian. Before we booked in, we all dropped our washing off at a local laundry – they are not sure it will be washed by tomorrow, but we remain hopeful. The first calamity at the hotel was that our keys did not work, but the porter delivering our luggage went off and managed to get a new set that did work. Secondly, just as Colin was about to set foot in the shower, he realized there were no towels. We rang down to housekeeping – no reply – and then to reception, who informed us they were still awaiting their return from the laundry. There is a shortage of water in this region at preset, even though the recent wet weather has prevented the laundry from getting things dry! The third calamity is the booming beat music and wailing, appearing to come from a few hundred yards away from our window – there seems to be a funfair of sorts – presumably celebrating the end of Ramadan. The final straw was that when Colin opened his case, his MP4 player screen had been crushed - presumably when the porters threw the cases up the stairs and on the trolleys. It still works fine, but we will have a look for a new one in Singapore for him.

We made some tea, turned up the television that had just two channels in English – one with the footy we watched yesterday and the other with an inane film about an elephant - and I blogged until it was time to meet Paul for a tour of the town.

Unfortunately, about an hour meeting time, the rains had started - another typical south east Asian downpour. We went down to Reception at the appointed hour, and Pau, armed with three umbrellas,l assured us the tour was still happening. He had arranged for a minibus to take us down the hill, and by the time we reached the bottom, the rain had ceased. We spent an hour wandering up and down the high street, in and out of shops selling souvenirs made locally, looking around the grocers to see what we recognized and what we didn’t and spying on menus to see the variety of food offered. This region is composed mainly of peoples of Indian and Chinese origin, and the food on offer represented these cultures. Paul had chosen a Chinese restaurant for us to try. One of the specialities of this area is a “steamboat”, very similar to the “hot pots” we had in Chongqing, in China, whereby you get a large bowl divided into two sections, one filled with chicken broth and the other with a spicy broth like Tom Yum. Plates of raw chicken, beef, fish and vegetables – and even eggs here - are cooked in the broths like a fondue. I remember when we had this dish before, that it became very messy and laborious cooking all the different items, so I, together with everyone else, chose straight Chinese food. Colin had an interesting Schezuan cabbage soup with pork, and I had some minute spare ribs in a sweet sauce to start, called King of Pork ribs! We then shared some chicken and cashews (nuts night out), sweet and sour prawns out of their shells (except for the heads and tails) and spicy chicken on the bone (which I expected to be like KFC, but turned out to be small pieces of meat with bones, similar to lunch time, and not spicy at all), with steamed rice. We had jasmine tea to finish and the whole meal cost 58 ringats (9 GBP).

The rain had started again by now, so we walked back to the hotel as quickly as possible, to find we still had no towels. We rang housekeeping and some time later they delivered two bath towels. At least we can now have a shower. The music is still booming, and is now accompanied by firework explosions every quarter of an hour or so – I think it will be a noisy night. Apparently the hotel is full, and there are lots of other hotels in the town too, so I think there has been an invasion here today. All the restaurants were full, and families were parading up and down the street, many with very small children, screaming and crying. Paul assures us that it is usually very peaceful and quiet during the week in Tanah Rata.

Tomorrow is another long day – still the threat of trekking first thing in the morning and then we ride to Kuala Lumpur – about 250 kilometres - the capital of Malaysia. I think it’s a shame we have visited here during the religious festival, as we have not been able to experience the real highland region – it’s been a bit like a visit to Brighton beach on a Bank Holiday Monday at home. We have been told that we cannot take any alcoholic drinks into Singapore, so the other two boys, Tim and Warren, are busy downing their Thai rum and Jim Beam, and also the authorities only allow two packets of cigarettes to be taken over the border – one opened and one unopened. Lucky no one has bought their duty frees yet – but Warren is also puffing as fast as he can, to finish up the packets of ciggys he has left in his luggage.