Tea, tourists and a dodgy fish curry....

Our latest Malaysian adventure was a trip to Cameron Highlands, an area high on some mountains in the middle of the country, famous for its tea, strawberries and other farm produce.  It is a popular destination because, being high up, the air is cooler and - allegedly - fresher.  I say allegedly because if you go on a public holiday weekend, like we did, you end up being caught in long traffic jams (caused largely by bad parking), and stuck behind buses giving out obnoxious exhaust fumes that would definitely earn them a black mark for pollution back in the UK.  Or, if you're really lucky, you could get stuck behind a dustbin lorry - very unpleasant in this heat....

It's fair to say that the weekend was, as my friend put it, a bit of a curate's egg.  The bad was the jams, the many, many tourists, and the somewhat tacky feel to some of the main areas.  (Anything that couldn't move fast enough had a strawberry motif on it!).  Plus the dodgy fish curry mentioned in the blog title, eaten by Alex in the hotel on the Saturday night.  It kept him up most of the night, and he was in bed all day Sunday and most of Monday :(  But obviously it's OK, and we won't let it put us off going back to that hotel, because we got the cost of the curry back..... hmmm - not sure whether to be pleased that I at least got something back, or insulted by the paltry compensation!

The good was the fantastic scenery that could be found once you left the main road - just look at this:

Rows and rows of verdant tea bushes, stretching out across rolling hills.

Here is Caitie, enjoying the novelty of cooler air, and being able to wear a fleece!

The tea and cake we had at a plantation was lovely, and very welcome given that by then it was very definitely cool and more than a little misty!  The strawberries we sampled were delicious too.

Would we go again?  Possibly, in another year or two - but not on a public holiday weekend, and not to the same hotel!

Just a quickie.....

Just a quick post today to share a layout I did a couple of weeks ago.  The photo is of Will at Pangkor Laut last month.  It isn't easy to get a photo of him with a natural smile, he's usually too busy posing!  Love this one though :)  Stash info for my scrappy friends - the papers are from the My Mind's Eye Stomp! pad, stars are stamped with some ancient Autumn Leaves stamps, and I used a Becky Fleck sketch.

Thanks for looking.

272 steps (phew!), brightly-coloured shrines and gigantic gold statues....

...sums up Batu Caves in Kuala Lumpur in just a few words, but really doesn't do the famous site much justice.  Especially when you consider that it is one of the biggest Hindu shrines outside India, and attracts over a million people during the Hindu Thaipusam festival.
Yes, there are lots of steps - hard work in this heat, but it is quite humbling to watch older people determined to visit the shrines, even if they have to sit down at regular intervals to catch their breath before continuing their long climb to the caves at the top.  It is hard to imagine, too, what it must be like there during Thaipusam, when the pilgrims flock there and carry offerings of milk to Lord Muruga, each and every one of them climbing all the steps.  Apparently some of these offerings are in huge containers, some weighing as much as 100kg, set on frames with skewers which pierce the skin of the carrier.  That truly is a sign of devotion.

So, as we were walking up the 272 steps (or being dragged up by our teenage son in some cases!), it was good to stop every now and again with the excuse of photographing a macaque monkey or two.  There's no shortage of these - some enjoy chasing unsuspecting tourists who have made the mistake of having food with them - not that they get to keep the food for long in some cases!  Some are happy to just perch on the top of posts, looking for all the world like just one of the many carved decorations - until they move!

At the top of the steps are caves, huge limestone ones, with shrines dotted here and there, all lovingly carved and painted in gloriously bright (albeit sometimes faded) colours.  No doubt a better knowledge of Hinduism would help the appreciation of them, as apparently many tell the tale of Lord Murugan's victory over the demon Soorapadam.  The caves, as you may have guessed, are dedicated to Lord Murugan, God of War and Victory, and it is his likeness that towers over visitors to the caves, in the form of a 140-foot high golden statue by the entrance to the steps.

It wasn't a long visit by any means - in fact we popped in on our way back from the elephant sanctuary - but one that was definitely worth making.

Rather than upload loads of photos, I've uploaded the scrapbook layout I've done - I have to say, it was hard narrowing the hundred or so photos I took to just 14!  But it does at least give a flavour of the visual feast we enjoyed.

Elephants!

This week, we finally got around to visiting Kuala Gandah National Elephant Conservation Centre. It's been on our to-do list ever since we got here, but what with wanting to avoid the crowds there at weekends, and Alex being at work weekdays, it just hadn't happened. So Alex booked a day off work, and off we went!

We had a great time. We hand-fed some baby and injured elephants, kept in enclosures, with peanuts; and also fed some much bigger elephants with fruit - no space between us this time. Just look at this photo - no zoom lens needed, I really was that close!

We also got to ride on them:

And Will braved the muddy river to bathe with them!
 

We had a great time - we all love elephants, and it was wonderful to get the chance to be up close and personal with them.

Bird park album

A mini album showing the photos from the trip that Alex, Caitie and I took to the Bird Park in KL a few weeks ago.  Lesson learnt here - don't choose something really complicated or time-consuming for a mini album, you may well regret it!  All the stamping, together with cutting and inking every single leaf, took somewhat longer than anticipated!  Thanks for looking :-)

 

Pangkor Laut - a taste of paradise

Last week was spent on Pangkor Laut, a gorgeous, private island just off the western coast of Malaysia.  The tag line is "one island, one resort", which sums it up very well.  There are villas dotted around the island, some over the sea on stilts, a few by the beach, and some up the hillside.  There are also a few private "estates", ie extra-posh, extra-large villas with their own staff, grounds, pool, etc, where the rich and famous stay.  Pavarotti apparently liked it there, as did Joan Collins and Nick Faldo.

We were in a beach villa, with a beautiful view over towards the main island of Pangkor.  We spent our time just chilling out - swimming, lazing around, reading, eating - you get the idea.  Alex and Will also exercised in the resort's gym and squash and tennis courts.

There was only one beach suitable for swimming at (the others had nasty things in the water like spiky sea urchins!) - it is, however, rated one of the top ten beaches in the world.  Look at this photo (it's not been touched up at all!), and you'll see why:

It really was a taste of paradise, and somewhere we would never have seen if we hadn't moved here.

Birds, birds and more birds!

As we walked through the gate into KL Bird Park, our immediate action was "wow" - so many birds, brightly coloured with shimmering hues of blues, greens, yellows, reds - it was amazing.

The park is in Lake Gardens, a big "green lung" in KL city centre.  Apparently it is the world's largest free-flight walk in aviary.  We arrived there fairly early on a Saturday morning.  The rain was just stopping, and it was a bit over-cast - but the joy of this is that it was also relatively quiet, not many other visitors.

We ooo'ed and aaah'ed over a variety of birds, Caitie and I taking photos right, left and centre.  We loved the photo shoot booth, packed with all sorts of exotic birds, and couldn't resist the temptation to have our photo taken with them.

We fed some ostriches and emus - fortunately they were behind a big fence.  I say fortunately as they were really quite big, not at all shy, and VERY greedy!  They snatched the leaves from our hands, and were soon back for more.

Then we spotted some chicks and ducklings in the park's nursery - cue lots and lots of cooing from Caitie!

Caitie also got to feed some Lorys, very brightly coloured little birds who were quite happy to use her hands as a perch while they drank milk from the tiny cup she was holding.

Not all of them were interested in food though, some just wanted somewhere comfy to rest...

As you can see, we had a great time filled with some memorable experiences, I'm sure we'll return at some point.  I'll leave you with a fantastic photo that Caitie took.