Day 279: Medan

I had an early flight from Kuala Lumpur over to Northern Sumatra early this morning. The flight left around 7:30am, and it the bus ride to get to the airport is an hour, so I had to leave quite early to get to there with enough time to feel comfortable. I was flying out of the LCCT, which is the low-cost budget airline terminal, and you can definitely see where the low cost part comes in. Things were pretty disorganized and checking-in/dropping off bags was a massive free-for-all of people pushing towards the front without much of a queuing system. Luckily I came with time to spare and managed to get through everything without any of the frantic scrambling I try very hard to avoid.

Medan itself isn't much of a tourist destination, but it's the biggest city in the center of quite a few interesting things in North Sumatra part of Indonesia. It's one of those rare cities where the airport is actually near the city center, and I just avoided the swarm of taxis and tuk-tuks and just walked from the airport to my hostel and fortunately he extra weight of the stuff I bought in KL was barely noticeable. It was still early when I got to the hostel and my room wasn't ready, so I left my bags and went off on a lengthy walk without a map or any knowledge of the city at all.

Medan is a bit rough around the edges. It reminds me a bit of some of the more sane cities in India. It's hard to go a few minutes on foot without somebody trying to get you into their tuk-tuk or on the back of their motorbike, as if the only reason you were walking around has to be that nobody else has bothered to offer you a ride yet. I was obviously something of a rarity. All the old men sitting in front of shops would call out and wave to me, and lots of people came up to talk to me. Even though it does get a bit tiring when you can't just have a little peace, I much prefer the ones who just come up and want to talk out of curiousity to the ones always trying to offer you things. At least here people are pretty accepting when you just say no or shake your head, and don't hound after you. The streets all look virtually identical, full of squat little random shops and apartments. I can't think of a single building I saw with more than 3 floors, or a single recognizable brand name other than one McDonalds I came across.

My McDonalds anecdote deserves special mention. After walking around all morning after an early morning flight I was pretty hot and exhausted, so I went into the McDonalds with the intention of buying an ice cream. At the counter they told me there was no ice cream, so I left. I instead bought a cold drink from a shop outside and just sat on the patio in the shade relaxing. About 10 minutes later, a group of 4 Muslim girls who had been in the McDonalds came out with a bag of food. They, having seen but not heard my exchange at the counter thought that I hadn't had enough money, and when they saw me sitting outside had bought a meal for me. I was pretty embarassed, because obviously I do have money - probably a good deal more than they do, and I tried to explain the situation, but they insisted I keep the meal (I suppose there wasn't much else they could do with the food). I should have offered to pay them for it, but I didn't think of it at the time, and in a way I feel it might have cheapened their gesture. Instead, the only gesture I can offer is to mention this story and hopefully help out somebody in genuine need of a meal later in my travels. In the "western world" there's unfortunately a lot of negative feelings towards Muslims these days, but the fact that these girls were so willing to do something like that for a random stranger deserves special consideration.

I finally made it back to the hostel around noon and checked in. There's no AC and no windows, which means the one outlet in the room has to be for the fan when I'm in the room, which makes charging / using my tablet a bit of a problem. My plans in Indonesia are somewhat off the beaten trail, so it's very possible I'll have trouble keeping in touch for the next 10 days. If I stop posting things, don't worry - odds are I won't be dead.

Day 277: Batu Caves

Today my destination was the Batu Caves just to the north of Kuala Lumpur. The caves are inside of limestone hills and are interesting for a couple of reasons. It's the site of a big Hindu shrine to the god Murugan and is also one of the most studied cave ecosystems in the world.

I took one of the train lines out of town to get there, which only cost about 30 cents. The stop is right next to the caves, and the first thing you see upon leaving is a giant statue of the Hindu god Hanuman. A few steps further towards the caves and there's an even bigger statue of Murugan, as well as the stairs leading up to the caves themselves.

I went to the shrine part first, which is in a large cave chamber that's fairly well lit by openings in the top of the cave. There were little statues and shrines throughout the cave, but the cave itself was the more impressive part.

The more interesting part of the caves for me was the natural, untouched part. Tours into the cave system cost about $10, which is a lot for Malaysia but still pretty reasonable. The only source of energy getting into the caves is through the guano of the fruit and insect eating bats, and this supports an ecosystem of 180 types of animals and insects. The tour was about 45 minutes, pointing out all the different limestone formations and little creatures. One of the most unexpected animals was a dog curled up in the dark deep in the caves. Apparently the dog is the 3rd generation of a family of dogs born in the caves, and has become so accustomed to them that it won't leave. It gave birth to puppies, and they hoped that caring for them would lure it out of the caves, but when they tried to remove it from the cave it just immediately ran back into them. The caves are also the only habitat of a specific type of trapdoor spiders, and contains the last 180 of them in the world.

On the way out there were lots and lots of more monkeys. No matter how many monkeys I see (a lot) I still find them incredibly fun to watch.

Days 275-276: Merry Christmas from KL!

First of all, Happy Holidays to everybody! "Christmas" is different things for different people, and I hope that even those who aren't into the religion bits, or into the consumerism bits at least manage to take a bit of a break to enjoy friends and family.

My bus ride from Tanah Rata to Kuala Lumpur was faster than I thought, only taking about 4 hours. My hostel was within walking distance, but it was a solid walk (although not as gruelling as the one in Panang). The hostel I'm staying in was picked for its proximity to KL Central Station, which wasn't a factor coming in, but will be a factor when I leave since my flight to Indonesia is very early and the only night buses to the airport are from KL Central (see, I actually plan some of these things out, sometimes!) In addition to a good location for me, the hostel is also very cool. It's run by a group of young people who are all into the arts in some manner, and into the youth culture and activism. All the walls and floors have murals or other artwork on them, and they use the common space to put on different art/music/dance/theater shows. After getting to the hostel and checking in I basically just retraced my steps back to where I got off the bus, checking out all of the interesting things I'd seen on my walk down that I wasn't able to stop and explore because of all my bags.

The first of these stops was at a canal / reservoir I had to cross. Both sides of the canal were covered with lovely street art murals, and I've since learned that it is really the focal point of street art in the city. I walked the length of the painted sections of the canal admiring the art before climbing back to stree level and continuing on.

I also visited the Central Market, which is a building full of shops focused on Malaysian art and culture. A few parts were neat, but I found a lot of it to be just more gift shop like places selling the same cheap stuff you find everywhere else, only more concentrated. I also visited the nearby Petaling Street, which is the central hub of KL Chinatown. It's a long pedestrian market street similar in feel to the markets in Hong Kong and Taipei.

After a good sleep today was my day to really explore Kuala Lumpur. I wasn't sure how much Christmas would alter the. The signs of it were certainly present, but not like you'd fine in North America (for one thing, everything was open). The big shopping malls all had Christmas displays out, and I came across a group singing carols in one mall, but the malls didn't seem unusually crowded. The people working at food stalls and in convience stores all wished me a merry Christmas, but that could just because I'm western.

I found a very cool shopping mall called parkamaya that had a definite Japanese flavour to it (it's the one with the purple trees above). It had cosplaying mall girls handing out flyers and all the walls were posted with anime/manga figures. One of the shops had legitimate anime for sale at ridiculously low prices that I just couldn't pass up. In the end I spend about $35 CDN for what would have cost me over $400 to buy at home. It's going to be a bit of a pain to carry it around for the next 4 months, especially since I can't watch any of it on my tablet, but I didn't go as crazy as I could have, so I'm sure I'll manage. After that I swung by the famous Petronas Towers. After visiting most of the famous cities of the world a few more towers aren't all that impressive, but there was a park nearby that was a nice place to take a rest and enjoy the day. I suspect the weather at home doesn't allow for quite the same sort of outdoor recreation.

The collection of unique towers in Kuala Lumpur makes it pretty easy to keep track of where you are when travelling on foot, although the roads tend to wind and cross over each other a lot. On my way back towards the hostel area I angled by the even taller KL Tower.

Back at the hostel I was treated with some of the other guests to a Christmas dinner prepared by one of the hostel co-owners and her girlfriend. We had spaghetti, chicken, potatoes, salad and corn, along with a mix of desserts. Not quite the traditional Christmas dinners of Canada, but the food was good and the gesture very much appreciated!

Day 274: Jungle Trails

I decided to spend today on my own instead of doing any more tours. There are a lot of jungle hiking trails around Tanah Rata and in the morning I walked to the one around Robinson Falls to go for a walk. The trail started off innocently enough, but past the waterfall it seemed to become less maintained, with lots of slippery, muddy sections and fallen trees to climb over. At some point, I think I must have taken a wrong turn because the trail I was on eventually became hard to see all the time, and went on for quite a bit longer than the signposts at the start had indiciated. It was a nice trip through the jungle, but the path was pretty tricky and I was pretty muddy by the time I finally broke out of the trees. Instead of coming to some nice central location I instead found myself in a row of corn at the back of a farmer's field - supporting my opinion that I probably took a wrong turn somewhere.

I walked through the farm, walked through the hills a bit and cut through a power station's grounds. There was a bit of a path alongside the water pipe running from the falls to the power station, but it was steep and muddy to get up, so it was a bit slow going. Eventually I got up and managed to reconnect with the original path and follow it back out to the road and eventually back to town.

Day 273: Being Touristy in Cameron Highlands

The day tour I signed up for around Cameron Highlands was a mix of attractions, some of which were much more appealing than others. Our first real stop was in the Mossy Forest, which is, according to our guide, is part of the oldest rainforest in the world. I somewhat suspect that this claim is one of those vague, unproveable ones that more than one place claim, but I'll at least accept that it's really, really old. We first drove all the way to the top of the hills to visit the highest point in Cameron Highlands. Unfortunately it was above the level of the low-hanging clouds, so all we could really see was mist. While leaving this point I managed to accidently slam a girl's finger in my door. I felt terrible about it, despite it not really being my fault or anything I could have done to prevent it (I was sitting in the front seat, and everybody else was sitting in the back of a van - I still don't really know how her fingers got into the frame of my door). It was a substantial wound with blood and probably a nail torn off, and the first injury I've caused another my entire trip, but she handled it very well and trooped on.

For the Mossy Forest, the group does one of two walks. One is a rugged jungle hike and the other is a walk of the same length, but over a maintained boardwalk through a similar terrain. Obviously I would have preferred the first option, but due to heavy rain in the last week there was a high risk of cobras so our guides opted for the boardwalk. It was still a nice walk, and the forest was one of the most beautiful I've been to.

Our next stop was at one of the major Cameron Highlands Tea Plantations. This one produces BOH Tea, which I'm not familiar with, but maybe is a recognized brand by one of you tea people. It's quite shocking how beautiful a tea plantation really is. You'd think it would just look like a normal field, or an orchard, but when the tea bushes are spread out over the hills and valleys it's quite striking.

The tour included a visit to the tea processing plant, which is a pretty straightforward process. I also learned an awful lot about growing tea, which will probably never be terribly useful information, but I have a special fondness for mostly useless knowledge.

The last two stops were to those sort of manufactured attractions I mentioned earlier. The first one was to a butterfly/insect/reptile/etc garden, which I guess is the Malaysian equivelant of a petting zoo. Despite my skepticism, parts of it were actually quite cool. My favourite part were the camouflage insects, like the stick and leaf bugs and the dead leaf and orchid mantis'. The last stop was a strawberry farm, where we couldn't even go to the farm, and was really just a stop to buy strawberries and strawberry products. Dull.

Day 272: Ride to Tanah Rata

I was supposed to take the 11:30am mini-van from George Town to Tanah Rata in Cameron Highlands, but because of traffic the van was an hour late. It was a bit over 4 hours to get there, but much of the trip was quite picturesque as we were winding up through mountain passes with nice open views.

Cameron Highlands is way up in the hills, and the extra elevation makes it much cooler. It's still very wet, and despite the cooler weather never gets cold enough for frost, so it's an ideal spot to grow some crops. When the British were in control they brought in tea and rubber tree plants from other parts of the world to grow in the area, and they are now some of the major exports. I was just looking to get away from the heat and see a different part of Malaysia's climate. The area kind of has the feel you get in some rural parts of Canada where people are trying to make an area touristy that doesn't really have any natural attractions. The villages dotting the area are lined with pick you own strawberry farms, butterfly and lizard parks, nature tours and cheap little gift shops. You can't go 100m through a town without seeing a giant artificial strawberry standing in front of a building or hanging from its roof.

My hostel is pretty bare bones, feeling a bit like a larger version of the tea houses I was staying at in Nepal while trekking. After getting my things settled I went and signed up for one of the tours for the next day, even though I know parts of it will probably be a little tacky. It does include a walk through a mossy tropical rainforest, and that should be cool, if nothing else.

Spotlight: Ernest Zacharevic

Ernest Zacharevic is a Lithuanian artist living in Penang. As part of George Town promoting itself, they commissioned him to liven up the streets with pieces of street art showing the vibrance and personality of the city in a project called Mirrors George Town. Most of the art pieces are half-painting, half-sculpture, and they are absolutely brilliantly done. Here are some of my favourites.

Lithuanian street art - who knew?

Day 271: Getting Organized and An Unexpected Quest

Since the wifi in my hostel in George Town had been terrible, I had fallen behind on planning things and getting information. I was planning on leaving the following day, so I couldn't really put things off any longer. I walked to the huge mall nearby. It's not as fancy as the one I went to earlier in the week, but far more massive and with an interesting personality. I've always found malls fascinating, as in many ways they become little mini cities. This one deserved that title more than most, as over the years it had branched from the main building to adjacent ones, connected with walkways and tunnels. The core building is fairly modern and has lots big brand name shops, but turn down a few side alleys in the mall and it becomes the run down wild west of shuttered shops, abandoned hallways and security guards in the jewellry shops sitting with shotguns across their lap. It is also where all the tourism companies set up shop, so after searching around a bit I bought a ticket to Cameron Highlands.

I wasn't able to book a hostel my normal way, but I sent out a few emails to some places in the area and by the end of the day was able to make a reservation. Not wanting to leave Penang on quite such a dreary note, I decided to go on one final walk through the city. During my walk, I saw a few really nice pieces of street art that were similar in style to a few pieces I'd seen in town earlier. I also found a map with the locations of most of the pieces by the same artist, and the hunt was on!
(Continued in the following Spotlight, since I haven't had a chance to do one in awhile!)

Day 270: A Walk in the Jungle

I finally had to figure out the bus system (not much of an accomplishment) to get to penang national park since it was on the west side of the island over 20km away. Even on the bus it took quite awhile because of a fair amount of traffic slowing the single lane much of the way. Once at the park there were a few choices. The park is crossed by quite a few trails, but they all mostly lead to Monkey Beach or Turtle Beach (which has a more sophisticated name I can't remember). Monkey Beach is far more touristy and crowded, and I've already seen plenty of monkeys, so I decided to aim at Turtle Beach, but taking an indirect route of trails to get there. Along the way I did another canopy walk, but unlike the reinforced steel one in Singapore this one was made of rope, so it was at least a little more exciting to walk along.

Crossing between the main on a smaller trail through the interior of the jungle was a bit of a workout. It probably was only an hour of walking, but some parts were blocked by fallen trees or slippery slopes of wet clay. Worst of all, the humidity was insane, and by the time I reached the beach I was covered in sweat. The beach itself was nice and very quiet, but apparently not the time of year when it actually has turtles.

There may not have been any turtles, but the jungle flora and fauna was still interesting. Two things especially impressed me. First were the zealous ants, who make the ants back home look lazy and unorganized. The ones here had elaborate trails stretching up trees, over crossing branches, back down another tree, etc all over the place. Next were the monitor lizards which I saw both along the beach and in the jungle, some of which must have been over a meter long. They were quite shy, rushing off whenever they heard a noise, so I wasn't able to get too close.

I only saw the monkeys after I left the park and was walking through the surrounding village. Food must be a lot easier to find rooting through garbage. I'm not even sure this monkey could climb a tree anymore.