Steven Raucher's World Tour
2001-09-25 in Kota Bharu, Malaysia
The Northern Malaysia Loop, Perhenthians, Kota Baru, Cameron Highlands and Penang
The Perhentian Islands were my next destination after Cherating, and I had made promises of exotic photos from my scuba diving there. Well, surprise, surprise on the second day of diving the waterproof housing for my camera flooded.
My scuba diving photographic expose sufficiently ruined I spent my time on the island (Pulau Perhentian Kecil, the small one) just wondering around playing volleyball and drinking with the locals. As with any of these backpacker trail places the locals tend to be interested in their next dollar than cultural exchange. My friends Rudi and Sonya warned me there would be an enormous amount of tourists there, as Sonya�s sister, Andrea, has been living on the island for the last 8 years and has watched it turn from lost paradise into backpacker haven. It still amazes me how some people seem so oblivious to the culture of the land they are travelling in, on several occasions there were topless tourists (female, of course) walking up and down the beach, and this is in a country where local women bathe in tracksuits. I guess this is the difference between package holidays and overland travelling, in overland travel one experiences the subtle changes in culture as one moves towards a new country, examples of this are the Chinese influence in the north of Laos and the Muslim influence in the South of Thailand. Maybe if these tourists realised they are guests of a culture rather than invisible money spenders they would view things a little differently. Okay, enough ranting.
My run of bad luck ended upon meeting some travellers, Helen and Germaine, I had met in Bangkok, but the really amazing thing is I was recognised by Helen�s boyfriend, Ian, whom I have never met! He recognised me from pictures on my website. I was very impressed. Needless to say we celebrated this happy reunion with a bottle of decent vodka Ian had brought from the UK.
To be honest I feel that an island is an island is an island�
Once again it was time to head for the hills the place where locals are more friendly and certainly less affected by tourism. My first stop once back on the mainland was Kota Bharu, a provincial capital town with the best night market food in Malaysia, a very nice place to spend the night, indeed.
The next day I headed for the Guang Musang in the central highlands, with Taman Nagara (Malaysia�s famed rain forest) to the south and the Cameron Highlands (famous teas plantations to the west). I had come this way in order to explore the jungle to the south and then go across the new jungle highway to the Cameron Highlands. I say �new� jungle highway because it is not built yet, all that they have done in the most part is flatten the trail across the jungle. The route is just over 100 kms long and prevents one from having to go in a huge loop around Central Malaysia to access the highlands. The Taman Nagara officials explained that off-roading in the rain forest was a no-go and all the trails for park ranger vehicles only. So I skipped the park and set off for the new jungle highway.
This was quite and interesting experience, not quite Chris Colombus stuff, but I certainly felt quite special riding through the jungle without a tourist in sight!
The Cameron Highlands proved to be over-developed and not quite the rustic colonial feel that I was expecting, I did manage to spend two nights there enjoying the cool climate before heading for Penang on the east Coast where I spent one night eating great Indian food and losing a small fortune playing pool after too many beers. So much for being the great invincible pool hustle, he?
The next day I headed back to Kuala Lumpur for more errand running and repairing my camera.
 Into the jungle, same-same but different |
 leaving the islands, after a run of really bad luck... |
 "warning tresspassers will be shot in the back" - say no more, say no more |
 going down? the ups and downs of crossing jungle valleys before they build the bridges |
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