Malacca and back to Singapore

Our last stop in Malaysia was Malacca, a rather long 8 hour coach journey away. We arrived on a very busy Friday night and it took us a while to find somewhere to stay. Our first impressions were good, although I did think it looked a bit like Strattford on Avon ( all a bit sanitised and twee). The food was not a good as in Penang but we managed to seek out some good Dim Sum for breakfast and we rather liked the chicken rice balls....I also discovered a delicious cake/sweet thing called Gulam Melacca, full of sugar and coconut. We visited the maritime museum, which I though was really interesting and informative, explaining the shift in power from Portuguese to Dutch to British and the effects this had. It was very, very hot and busy though and when we discovered a cinema we decided to take advantage of the air conditioning; we also learned something about Malaysian cinema etiquette- it is acceptable to talk loudly throughout the film, even if it is very annoying to others.

After 2 nights we arrived back in Singapore and I was greeted by Annabelle telling me I had to drink champagne with her. It would have been rude to refuse and so a very jolly evening was had by all...well actually Jerome and Richard were probably rather bored of mine and Annabelle's meandering trips down memory lane and laughing at things that probably weren't that funny at the time but still amuse us now- yes the Final Countdown story and Harriet's blatant theft from unsuspecting Austrian campers featured largely.

I have been taking advantage of Annabelle's excellent Pilates tuition and getting ready for the next stages of my trip...more on this in later posts, the volunteering and visa are sorted but haven't booked my motorbike trip yet, or booked my Japanese train ticket. I  have been fiddling with some dates though and changing flights around so that I can spend a bit of time in France before I go to Canada!!

Jerome left today during the biggest thunderstorm I have seen for a long time, not sure whether this was some sort of pathetic fallacy or some sort of variation on the theme of 'out with a bang'. For those of you who may have been wondering ( and I know that there are a few), as far as I am concerned we are just good friends. I could forsee a Demi/Ashton scenario in my future and I've had enough drama over the last few years. The sea is large however and full of fish, some of whom might be more suitable :) It will take a trip to France to clarify this further.

Penang

We left Tana Ratu early on Tuesday morning  and travelled by bus to Penang, which was the first British settlement on the Malaysian peninsular. I almost left my passport on the bus but once the panic was over we got into George Town and booked into our guest house, The Red Inn on Love Lane.....unfortunately the walls here are paper thin and any love going on..(.people in the room upstairs I'm talking about you!!) can be heard all too clearly.

Georgetown is very hot and humid but we have done some sightseeing. The city is a world heritage site and it has a fantastic mix of well preserved colonial buildings, Chinese jetties and temples, Indian temples and lots of Malay shopfronts.  What makes the place really special though is the street food- a microcosm of Malaysian culture on every street. We have had lots of fun tracking down different sorts of food, from otak-otak,  chee cheong fun and our new favourite  wan tan mee. jerome had one alarming moment yesterday at lunch when he was convinced that there was a monkey forearm in his noodles...it was a chicken foot!

Today we decided to escape the heat of the city and head to a beach for  a swim. I did try to ruin this adventure by making us get off the bus too early and  had to spend the rest of the day admitting that I had made a mistake....you all know that this can be quite difficult for me: in fact Jerome said quite casually yesterday.' you always have to be right don't you' and I realised  that he does know me quite well by now and it's probably time he left.

I have also done some big serious planning about the rest of my trip, some of which I shall reveal now and some of which will be revealed later. I have decided that I've been passive for too long and that I need something to do so I've arranged to do some volunteering in Vietnam. I will be helping out at a centre for orphans with mental and physical disabilities in Ho Chi Min, more details later but I'm really excited.

Cameron Highlands

Did a lovely trip into the highlands today..tea plantations, mossy forests and butterfly farm. It is nice to be in the cool.A well organised trip with a great bunch of people, luckily a couple of Brits who could help me to convince Jerome that yes we do eat chip butties in the UK and yes we do eat steak sandwiches with a slice of steak not little bits cut up. This lack of culinary knowledge comes hot on the tail of his revelation last night that during his flight to Singapore he worried that I might be an organ trafficker !! I suppose this is what happens when you agree to travel with someone you only met briefly a few months before...my anxieties about him possibly being a serial killer seem less ridiculous in comparison.

KL

We travelled quickly and easily to Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday and booked into the Number 8 Guest House in Bukit Bintang, a very nice lively area right next to the famous food street of Jalan Aloor. We both really liked the city, despite the heat and humidity. It is real Asia with a modern twist...a great monorail and modern transport system, some very high tech buildings but also lots of ramshackle areas and tradtional shop fronts, it hasn't been tarted up to the same extent as Singapore and please forgive me for sounding so wanky but it has grown in a more organic way.

We did loads of sight seeing- Petronas Towers, The KL Tower, China Town and Petaling Street, the old colonial area. There is probably great shopping here too but neither of us are shoppers so this passed us by. We took booked a trip to Kuala Selangor to see the fire flies and also got taken to the new Royal Palace, a Chinese temple as well as to feed some Silver Leaf monkeys.....this was great and despite the fact that they were rather smelly we both fell in love with the cute little creatures. The fireflies were also well worth the visit, the riverbanks glistened as if the Christmas lights had been left up. We went to see the Batu Caves, a holy Hindu site and temple and I felt some real pangs for India, especially as there was a great Indian restaurant and I have got Jerome hooked on naan  bread and parotha. We even met up with Kristof the Austrian we met on Pulau Tioman and had a nice night with him yesterday...bizarrely the main bar area was celebrating St Patrick's Day Eve, complete with Guiness promotions and a very incongruous parade ( consisting of Malaysians playing brass instruments and waving wildly), we did not stay long here. Jerome's evening came to an abrupt end when he discovered what he thought were giant maggots in his beef noodles. Kristof and I did not help and the stall owners found it hilarious..( the offending articles were in fact stray noodles from another dish and to be fair to Jerome they did look a bit maggoty).

We moved on this morning to the Cameron Highlands, which as the name suggests are in the hills.  We are in Tana Ratu and we have checked into the Father's Guest House, which is well run, clean and in a great location. We are chilling out this afternoona and plan to do a tour and some tea plantation stuff tomorrow.

Jerome continues to be a great travel companion, I'm getting some words in now...we are having a great laugh and he is very kind and thoughtful even when I don't deserve it. I only make fun of his accent once a day now and has learned to say lavender, complimentary, refinery and developing without causing me to fall off my chair laughing...this a measure of my cruelty because his English is far better than my French and he rarely makes fun of  my butchering of his mother tongue.To make it up to him I have been tolerant of his sneezing fits, sore throat and headache today despite his refusal to take my constantly and regularly proffered paracetemol tablets. I could spend the rest of my trip travelling with him really, except that he has to go back to sea and he is only 32.

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Pulau Tioman

Just coming to the end of our 3rd day here. We have spent a whole day on our local beach, another day hiking through a bit of rainforest to another beach and today we have done a boat trip of the whole island with stops to do snorkelling..
The highlights so far

1. The best snorkelling ever ( even better than Guadeloupe). the visibility here is amazing, the coral healthy and the variety and amount of fish was breathtaking....a top ten moment of the whole trip.
2.Meeting some lovely people...Patty the Belgian who left home to go travelling for a year.....18 years ago: Christophe from Austria over here on a placement in KL as in sports technology and a larger than life Swiss couple who have been visiting the island for 30 years, great company until the subject of immigration came up.....
3.Jerome's face when he thought he had discovered Komodo Dragons on the island...they are monitor lizards, very, very big monitor lizards.
4. Jerome's entertaining lunchtime comic monologue during lunch today, the whole boat was roaring with laughter every time he opened his mouth and we all learned a lot about life in Canada.

There have been a couple of low lights

1. Being savaged by every flying beast in the place. I'm covered in a range of different bites; some look like bright red dots, some are huge itchy whelts...all make me very cross and despite repellent and covering up I am still easy game. Jerome has not been bitten at all and none of the men I have met have been bitten either. These bugs are either very sexist or just have good taste in food.
2. Being woken up at 3am by an unidentified creature crawling over my back.. The creature was later identified as a cockroach and this has not helped me to sleep since.
3. The food was a little limited here to start with but luckily Patty the travelling Belgian has put us on the right track.

I am ready to move on now, despite my love of beaches the bugs are too much to bear and I'm ready to see something different. Jerome is so far a good companion but boy can he talk...Even I have trouble getting a word in edgeways and I know that some of you will find this difficult to believe.