Cameron Highlands

Hi from Malaysia!

We have so far spent our first night in Kuala Lumpur (the capital), and then the next day took a bus to the Cameron Highlands.  Here we are about 5000ft. above sea level, so even though we are so close to the equator,  it is nice and cool - a welcome relief from KL and Indonesia.  This is a nice place to chill out a bit and also do some hiking.

The scenery here kinda reminds me of the Catskills.  Rolling green hills with some decent views.  Nothing amazing and defo not worth travelling completely across the globe to go see, but since we are here it is great to do some hiking.  We've barely done any physical activity in a while, so getting out for 4 days in a row and doing some hiking has been great.

Something that is neat about hiking here though, is that the jungle sounds (birds and insects) are totally different from anything I have ever experienced and also there are loads of new plants.  Like this pitcher plant (picture below).  It is one of those carnivorous plants that lure bugs into the plant and trap it there to suck out the nutrients!  One day while hiking, I came across one dead one that was lying on the ground.  I brought it back and later started dissecting it.  Even though it was separated from the main part of the plant I think it was still alive.  On the inside, there were these little white tentacles that were actually moving and grabbed a nearby piece of fly when I opened it up!  It totally looked like some little alien thing.

Another exciting thing happened on the last hiking day.  We hiked up Gunung Brinchang (highest mountain in the area at 6666ft), which is also possible to drive up.  Then at the top it started to rain, so instead of hiking back down the trail we thought we'd go via the road and then stop at the tea plantation for a cup of tea.  But a little ways down we got lazy and hitchhiked.  A pickup truck came by with 3 kids in the back and they offered us a ride!  It was a Malaysian family who was getting a tour of this huge vegetable farm.  We joined in and got to ride through it all and chat with the kids in the bed of the pickup all the way down the mountain.  They were super nice and even offered to have us come out to lunch with them.  Too bad we had just eaten!  But anyway, here we are with them with some veggies behind us on the side of the mountain.

So thoughts on Malaysia so far:

-It is way more developed than Indonesia, but in a good way.  There is a such thing as public transportation and garbage pickup.  Also because people are a little better off, you may be offered a taxi but if you decline they don't follow you pestering.

-It is way more diverse.  There are of course Malaysians, but also lots of Indians and Chinese live here too.  We have had way more Indian food here so far than local food.  The guys in the Indian place even recognize us by now!

-Part of it being more diverse, and probably more developed, means that people are way better at English.  I know that I should not expect everyone else to speak English everywhere, but it is nice when they do.  We can actually have a conversation with people and talk about something more than the weather or the fact that we can speak only a tiny bit of Indonesian!

So it's good so far, and tomorrow we head off to Taman Negara.  This is going to be some hot steamy jungle, where maybe we'll get lucky and see wild elephants, monkeys, tigers, pumas or leeches.