If cabbages ruled the world

If my first impressions of Indonesia were- how shall i put it- well, how DID i put it, wow, i used "rather disappointed" -how very restrained of me, Malaysia couldn't be more different. I'll fill in the gaps in a bit, for now i'm going to talk about Malaysia. I love it already. We got a bus up from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur (KL), upon arrival we headed for the chinatown district where the majority of backpackers stay. A guy from one of the hostels saw us and guided us back to his hostel. From the outside it looked like an absolute dump, but inside was perfectly nice with a good atmosphere and loads of other backpackers.

Now, imagine you've never been to Ireland -I suppose a fair few of you haven't but if you have just imagine. Then imagine your travelling around and don't know every countrys' national day, and it just so happens that you arrive in Ireland on St Paddys day. You'd think that was pretty cool huh?. Well, now imagine that, not only is it St Paddy's day but it is the 50th anniversary of St Paddy's day!! Awesome hey. Well my friends, that (in a rather longwinded and slightly random metaphorical way) was what happened to us in Malaysia. Oh except of coarse we arrived into KL (the capitol) so in the whole imaginary thing you would have to arrive into Dublin.
So after a few drinks in the hostel we went out to join in with the street celebrations shouting Merdeka (meaning independance) at the top of our voices. We then spent the next day seeing the sights of KL as well as booking our bus up to the Cameron highlands where i am writing this.

Bus travel in Malaysia is 18249% better than in Indonesia- trust me, i did the math. It is cheaper, a lot faster, more comfortable and you don't get ripped off. Oh and people don't try to steal things from your bags. Now, as I say, we are in the Cameron highlands well Tanah rata to be precise and it's lovely. It's nice and cool with mountains, jungle, tea plantations and ok so it rains a fair amount but hey, we're British- we can cope with a few drops of rain. Yesterday we walked to a nearby tea plantation, learn't how to make tea -there are 5 key stages don't you know, and got rather wet. Despite the rain it was very nice- you can't beat a nice cup of tea. Today the rain has held off so we were able to do some walking of the jungle tracks. The views were by no means amazing but it wern't half nice to do a good bit of walking. Tomorrow we're off to the largest national park in Malaysia for more jungley adventures.

Right. Now for the gaps. I left you in Maninjau, from there we took a 34hr bus trip down to Bandur Lampung. I was a thoroughly enjoyable trip -NAT!!!. Our aim, as i believe i mentioned, was to visit the Taman National Way Kambas but either the tour organisers had all skipped town or they have been taken under the powers of the mighty cabbage over-lord. So it turned out to be the Taman National No-Way Kambas. We toyed with the idea of visiting the famous volcano to see if it was all it was krakatoered up to be but that was looking like it would be a tad too pricey. So with no-where else in our plans we headed to Jakarta. This gave us four full days in Jakarta which is roughly four full days too many. It did have a rather impressive shopping mall which proved useful for escaping the heat/smell of the city. Then it was on to Singapore aka. the Lion city. It is a rather impressive city and when your arriving from Indonesia you feel as if you've travelled into the future. We spent two nights there exploring the city and visiting the rather impressive (if a little too big) asian civilisations museum. After singapore, it was onto malaysia which I won't write about now on account of the fact that i have already done so.
There are at last some more photos on the website and more will follow in the not too distant.
xx Matt xx