malaysia...

So because i had to back date alot of the india entries, due to unforseen lack of internet in a country that does the outsourcing for the worlds technological call centres...i thought i'd tell you about malaysia while i'm here
we skipped Kuala lumpur on arrival and headed straight for the bus station, as on the way to india we quickly found out that KL can be done in a day, or two if you decide you need to see caged birds and the national hibiscus collection
so we headed off to the cameron highlands, where malaysia grow the majority of their tea.
we stayed in a hostel chosen purely on the merit that they had a bus waiting at the bus station when we arrived in a regular afternoon monsoon downpour, then headed into town to eat.
they have these great food court type places in malaysia, with a communal sitting area and about 4 or 5 different kitchens, who serve alot of the same things, but i think must have their specialties (something we haven't worked out completely as i never really listened in indonesian lessons, which would have been helpful right now being so similar to malay)
so we ate our way through a few different dishes for about 4$ all up...something we repeat each night, blindly picking from the menu, as we know only the words for chicken (ayam), mee(noodles) nasi (rice) and soup (sop/sup) but haven't had a bad thing yet, and have not been sick (malaysia 1,india 0)

we also had some chicken satay (kebabs, just so theres no confusion there kirst) and met this funnyman named jim who was on the bus from kl with us...he was a bit odd and kind of a mix between aaron across the road and uncle peter. a lecturer in some kind of science at UTS and very self-important, with all the right information (or so he seemed to put across)

in the highlands we went hiking through the jungle with david, a teacher from victoria. we started following trail 10, then 11, then swapped to 6 for the way back. all the while kirsto i remembered our rule...no walking for more than 2 hours when you don't know where you're going. and turn around when people start talking a different language to you!
( i obviously broke the no changing symbols rule though)
we emerged out of the jungle in a village/ vegetable farm (got some tomato growing tips) and found a spot overlooking the tea plantation to have scones and tea. not a bad day!
our second day we set out with a german guy called tilmo? (tilbo?) and walked about 15km to a tea plantation to see a tour of the factory and plantation workings...only to find on arrival that there was apparently not enough tea for the factory to run. but we were also informed of a bus back to town by a 'helpful' employee at the cafe
she was one of about 6 women running a cafe which had about 4 customers...one who turned out to be our friend Jim/uncle peter/aaron.
so we waited and waited for the bus, it came past to drop some kids off down the hill....and never returned back. the overly helpful women explaining sometimes it does that.
kate tried her hardest to get a sorry from the women...but it didn't work- kate had a run in with the women at reception who gave our room away and has a theory that malaysians can't say sorry...she is now testing that theory around the country with equally sorryless results.
so we got a cab back with jim, tilbo/mo walked back and later told us it wasn't his best idea for the day. and so we missed going to the strawberry farm, a bit dissapointing, but made up for it by having strawberry chocolate pancakes and mango lassi's after dinner.
i think i will have put back onthe weight i lost in india by the time i get home.
until next time...
em