1. Jungle Trekking: No animal sightings unfortunately -only their footprints (elephants, wild boar, bears etc.) Just huge crawling insects & numerous encounters with leeches - only one managed to draw blood!
2. Night Markets: Huge variety of food - cooked before your eyes - to feast on. Each dish around 30p! Only downside was avoiding the rats scuttling around under the tables for the scraps!
3. Culture: No alcohol available for days; the Koran loudspeakered around the town from 5.30am; few other westerners; rice with everything; getting stared at everwhere we go. These could be considered lowlights. However, they were so different to anything else we have encountered, & to see Muslim life close up, was a great experience.
4. People: were very friendly. On the road, they waved, tooted and shouted "hello" all the time. In conversation, they were keen to emphasize that Malaysians were peaceful, warm & friendly. We couldn't disagree.
CYCLING
Was a mixture of three different experiences.
Firstly, setting out of the southern port city of Johor Bahru meant negotiating an "M25 like" ring road at 9.00 in the morning. Negotiating the slip roads at each exit, when we wanted to stay on the road, but numerous lorries, vans & cars wanted to get off, ranks as some of the scarier moments on the bike!
The next day we were out of inhabited areas and rode through 50 miles of plantations & jungle. Here we encountered wild monkeys swinging through the trees or occassionally sitting by the side of the road curiously watching us cycle by.
For the rest of the 400 mile journey north, the road became one long village, interspersed with towns - some large some small. This constant village consisted of homes of wooden shacks, small stalls selling home grown fruit & numerous eating & drinking places (cafes would be too strong a word!) where we would point to a pot of food (hopefully edible) & have a portion served with rice or just a cup of "The 'O" (black tea - as white was served with sickly condensed milk)
OBSERVATIONS
Despite the friendliness of the people we met, the culture & life style is quite foreign and appears quite oppresive. Women were almost always covered up - even at the swimming pool where they stayed out of the water or went in fully clothed!
Men & women don't often mix. We once stayed at a resort with c. 150 local teachers who were on a conference. The men & women sat & ate their meals seprerately with virtually no interaction - quite strange!
Often the local men would speak & direct conversation at me & not Caroline. (However, it was probably the Scottish accent that was the problem!)