Exploring the interior - Malaysia

We set off bright and early in our hire car on Malaysia's north/south expressway, which to our surprise was as good a road as any we've travelled on in the last four months.





Kilometres get eaten up much quicker than miles, and after a few hours we left the main road to begin the ascent through the Cameron Highlands and into the centre of Malaysia.





The road was hewn through the densely forested mountains, and this was real Rudyard Kipling tropical jungle - tangled creepers, rushing waterfalls, trees and undergrowth that allowed no light to penetrate, and no human being to pass through without a parang (or a strimmer I suppose).





(Just an aside - when did jungles become rainforests? Was it about the same time as the Third World turned into Developing Countries?)





Anyway, we loved this journey. We spotted the shanty villages of the mysterious hill people, and couldn't recognise most of the exotic fruits and vegetables for sale at numerous stalls by the side of the road.





As the road climbed higher the jungle gave way to tea plantations and their gentler but still spectacular scenery, and we relaxed with a pot of our beloved Earl Grey at a roadside cafe.





The towns of the Cameron Highlands, however, were a bit of a disappointment. We had expected genteel hill-stations, and the chaotic, scruffy, over-crowded settlements we passed through didn't tempt us to spend the night there.





In the end, we drove on till dark and pulled into an hotel that looked ok from the outside but turned out to be the Islam version of Fawlty Towers. The boy on reception didn't speak much English, and couldn't understand why I wanted to look at the room before I agreed to stay there and pay for it. When I finally got my way and inspected the room, taking it even though it wasn't great, I touched the wardrobe and its heavy door swung open hanging only on one hinge. A sign said the restaurant was on the ground floor, but after looking for it for five minutes someone told us was on the second floor!



After all that driving, we couldn't get a much-needed beer in the hotel as its licence didn't permit alcohol. We had to go into the Chinese restaurant next door, where none of the smiling, bowing staff could speak a word of English. Luckily, we've made it our business to learn the word for beer in every known language of the world, and "Tsing Tao" shouted loudly several times produced the desired result.



The giggling girls also brought the menu, but we had no intention of eating from a menu that didn't include an English translation - we knew for a fact that fish head curry and pig's bladder soup were delicacies in Malaysian Chinese restaurants and we weren't taking any chances.



Instead, we crossed the road to what looked like a brightly lit parade of shops, all open-fronted in the style of hot countries everywhere. Each shop, and there must have been at least a dozen, sold nothing but pomeloes. (If you didn't know, a pomelo is a green citrus-like fruit, about as big as a football, tasting like a cross between a grapefruit and an orange.) The pomeloes were stacked into towers, hanging from rafters, and piled into boxes. Who they were going to sell them to was a mystery.



At the end of the row of shops we spied an open-sided cafe with lots of men sitting drinking at tables. Aha! we thought, a bar at last! Maybe we can get something to eat and another beer. But no, when we got closer, we saw that they were all sipping Milo. I swear that Milo, the famous malted chocolate concoction, is the national drink in Malaysia. People sip it everywhere, either hot or chilled, all day long. Supermarkets stack it on offer at the entrance, in industrial size tins, the same way Tesco offers Stella Artois. Weird.



So, it was back to Fawlty Minarets if we were going to eat that night. Our Malaysian Manuel wore a black suit that was almost as old and dusty as he was, and all the while he chatted pleasantly, describing the food on offer, he absent-mindedly scratched his crotch. Charming. I was determined he would not touch so much as my plate, so I chose the buffet and helped myself. Brian meanwhile, made of stronger stuff, risked ordering a steak, which arrived with gravy on but was pronounced edible.

With no ill-effects from our strange evening, we continued our journey north the next day, taking a leisurely look at the towns and cities we passed through.

Our favourite was the royal city of Kuala Kangsar, home of the Sultan of Perak. We visited the opulent former royal palace, now a museum housing royal memorabilia, and were surprised to learn that the Sultan was educated at Nottingham University. Just across the road we admired a beautiful white and gold mosque, where a kindly worshipper gave me his bottle of water because there was nowhere to buy any on this very hot and humid day.

Shortly afterwards a torrential downpour sent us scurrying back to our car, and on to the temptations of Penang.