Today I’ve learned something new about myself: I become a cranky bitch when I have to climb a mountain.
We’re in Cameron Highlands and it’s so cold, I must wear this outfit at all times:
Sara and I have booked a half-day tour around Cameron Highlands, which includes a hike in a mossy forest, a visit to a tea plantation and a strawberry farm. We are told to jump on the same bus as our French roommate Jeanne, who has booked a full-day tour, but we don’t think much of it at first. 4 hours of hiking later, we realize that we are on the full-day tour too, but for half the price. Score!
The first hike is up a mountain, and it’s brutal. I am almost hyperventilating, sweating profusely and spitting everywhere like the total babe that I am. We make it to the top in around an hour and admire the view, before having to fucking climb down again. Ugh.
We also go to a tea plantation and cut some tea leaves – like trimming the hedges, basically. We have malay food for lunch, and then go to a Butterfly garden. It’s pretty cool, and one of the butterflies sit on my finger at one point, and I’m like ohmygoshiamananimalwhisperer!
Then we head to a strawberry farm, buy some souvenirs and have some of the berries. It’s delicious, even though I accidentally knock over my bowl of strawberries and cream.
Last stop is at a tea place with a view over some of the plantations. I have an awesome cup of masala chai, which I’ve really missed.
Jeanne’s polaroid of the beautiful view from the mountain earlier
So our 8 hour trip out in Cameron Highlands has been an exhausting success, but now I feel like I can stop feeling so guilty about being a lazy tourist.
Going to a 130 million year old rainforest with only a small village and no ATMs? It sounds like a piece of cake, really.
We begin our journey to Taman Negara early in the morning, by getting on a private bus. I have the pleasure of sitting next to a French guy that sleeps with his legs wide open and rests his head on my shoulder. 3 hours later, we are waiting for our jetty boat to our destination, another 3 hours away. The journey is beautiful, although it’s slightly uncomfortable sitting in a narrow canoe with no leg space whatsoever. We then have the pleasure of climbing a lot of stairs and walk around for what seems like ages to get a hostel. We regrettably settle on the first thing we find, Liana Hostel, where we share a dorm with Allison and Matt from England. We spend the night reading and enjoying the AC in our room as it is uncomfortably hot and humid here, before falling asleep.
The next day, we all get up early to go on a hike in the rainforest.
We get to the canopy walk, which is a few suspension bridges that add up to around 500 metres of walking. Every bridge seems to take us higher up above the ground, and it’s amazing.
After that, Sara and I hike back to the village to meet up at our travel agency, where we have booked a visit to the Orang Asli tribe. We get on a jetty boat to do rapid sailing – you know, where they rock the boat and sail as fast as they can while you get soaked. Then we arrive at the tribe.
Orang Asli means “original people” and is a tribe scattered around. They are nomads, so they move every now and then without warning. They live in simple huts, their chief is their medicine man, and they hunt and gather every day – only what they need, not more. It’s quite admirable seeing how they manage to live a life without greed.
The chief shows us how they make fire, and then he makes a few arrows for the blowpipe, their hunting weapon of choice, followed by a demonstration. Then our group take turns aiming at a teddy bear with the blowpipe – and I am pretty good. Surprisingly.
The arrow on the right, next to the teddy bears face? That’s mine! The chief’s is the one stuck on its face.
Taking pictures of cats, of course
At night, we go on a safari at a plantation. We sit on top of a jeep and the guide points a flashlight at everything in hopes of seeing some animals. We see quite a few: a slow loris, cows, wild boars, owls, kingfishers, foxes and… LEOPARDS!!
Blurry picture of a tiny animal that our guide assured us is a leopard
After a very turbulent, over-prized flight with a cheap airline, we make it to KLIA2 and get a bus to KL Sentral. We have a late dinner at McDonald’s, which is halal! Shoutout to my muzzies in hurr (hi Albulena). Then we get on the sky train and walk around Chinatown for ages before finding Marquee Guest House. Then we pass out.
Close to our hostel
The next day, we wake up quite late and take our sweet time getting up. It’s just one of those days, I guess. We get a skytrain to KLCC, where we stumble upon the Petronas Towers!
Sara suggests going to the Convention Center to check out Aquarium KLCC, so there we go. At first, we can’t find the aquarium, and walk around a massive convention, feeling pretty out of place. By the time we find it, we are a bit disappointed to find out that it’s a total kids thing. It’s still pretty cool though. We see piranhas, sharks, spiders and all that crap.
We walk around the different malls in the city center before going back to relax a bit. Then we have dinner at a street kitchen in Chinatown, which is actually pretty nice, despite looking dirty. Tomorrow it’s time to go somewhere else. I don’t know the name, really, but there’s supposed to be a tribe, so I’m game.
Cambodia is a country I could see myself live in someday. Not permanently, of course. Prior to coming here, I read the book Survival in the Killing Fields, which got me really interested in the country’s unbelievably sad history. It is creepy in a way, seeing all these people on the street, knowing a lot of them have survived this awful event – or been a part of the Khmer Rouge. Despite this, they are among the most friendly people I have ever met. They are good at English, and the kids are adorable. No, really, I am adopting a Cambodian kid someday.
I would love to do social work here one day – especially in Siem Reap – but the party scene is so tempting too! Who knows, all that is certain is that I’ll be back someday!
I’ve fallen in love with Siem Reap. As a long term traveller, it’s just nice to rest your head in one place for a while, and Siem Reap seem perfect for just that: small enough to get around, yet lively enough to keep us entertained.
Our first day is dedicated to sightseeing. Clem, the guy working at the hostel, drives us to see Angkor Wat, Bayom Temple and the tomb featured in Tomb Raider. While it takes a “normal” tourist several hours to look around, it takes us under 2. Clem laughs at us and called us lazy, while he starts the tuk tuk and heads back to Angkor Wonder Hotel. And then it starts to rain. I guess our laziness is really just a good instinct.
Tried to be Lara Croft and failed
After the now mandatory nap, we go check out the night market. I buy some gifts for my family – only the ladies, since I am shit at picking out presents for guys. I buy stuff like pillow cases, scented candles and jewelry. For dinner, we head to the pub street and eat at Temple, a bar/restaurant that has an Apsara dance show. They have beautiful girls in the heavy khmer dress I got to wear in Phnom Penh just slowly dancing to traditional songs, and every now and then they switch it up and do a fun coconut dance with a group of guys.
The next day, we get massages and pedicures. Sometimes I can be a total lady. I am talking to the really nice ladies in the salon and they tell me my chin cleft is cute. That’s a first.
At night, we go to Little Italy and get pizzas and a bottle of white wine – so naturally we also get a tiramisu and pana cotta too. By the time we are finished, we still have a bit of wine left but are too drunk to have it at the table, so I pour it into my water bottle, because I am classy. Shut up. We basically pass out after that.
We sleep for ages and have breakfast at noon. After that, I walk around town looking for the Angkor Hospital for Children, and of course I get lost. I find a hospital and ask some locals for help, but they don’t understand me and it’s awkward and everyone’s staring at me. Someone points me to the right hospital eventually, though. When I finally find it, a lady at the desk tells me to come back an hour later, as the guards who will escort me to the lab are on lunch break. I walk back to the hostel and relax for a while before I drag my lazy butt back to the hospital.
A guard takes me through the big outdoor area, where lots of families sit with their kids in their laps, staring at me like I am an alien. I’m pretty uncomfortable, mostly since I feel like my presence is making their misery a tourist thing. I meet with another guard that takes me to the lab way in the back of the hospital premises. The lab has a waiting hallway and two cubicles; one for taking the children’s blood samples, and one for blood donations. The lab itself is behind the cubicles.
I get a form to fill out, and then a nurse takes a blood sample to see if my blood can be used. Then I am laying on a bed, being drained for blood. Only 350 ml, but it takes quite some time. I am feeling a bit lightheaded and have a strong urge to giggle, all while I can hear children crying and screaming only three metres away from me, and families are waiting out in the hallway, looking at me with great interest – the door isn’t closed. You’d think they are checking to see if my blood is a different color than theirs. Half an hour later, the doctor gives me a coke, some crackers and a T-shirt. I relaxe a little bit in the cubicle before heading out again – this time by myself, which just makes people stare at me even more.
I go back home and have a long nap, feeling pretty good about myself. Days prior to it, I had finally taken out the (healed!) piercing that has been infected since Thailand and went off my antibiotics and malaria pills – and of course alcohol. While that is normally not good enough, the hospitals here are so desperate to recieve blood because of the dengue fever outbreak, that they accept everyone as long as they are healthy. They seem grateful that I went through the “trouble”, and I don’t see any other donors or westeners around for that matter in the hour I am there. So if anyone plan on going to Siem Reap, please donate, they really need your help!
I’m really trying to diet lately, and we’ve been on salads mostly, which we order the next day while having lunch on pub street. I need a drink after being off the wagon for almost a week, and one thing leads to another – we get drunk and decide to have pizza – after our lunch! We go to Il Forno and share a pizza and some wine. Then we decide to eat dessert at Little Italy. We are super wasted at 5 in the afternoon, giggling and falling over stuff back at the hostel. I’m sure Clem thinks we were hilarious. When we wake up from the nap we obviously just had, it’s 10 at night. So we go for happy pizza. Now, that means that they put weed on the pizza. While I am only feeling a bit lightheaded, we go for drinks on pub street and we run into Edda! I end up drinking with her and her Irish friend Amanda until around 2 at night, when we all decide that it’s sleepy time. It hasn’t been a very eventful night, other than that everyone starts dancing on the pub street and then I go home and apparently creat a profile on an interracial dating site. Whoops. I definitely delete that when I wake up, I promise.
Today I’ve learned something new about myself: I become a cranky bitch when I have to climb a mountain.
We have malay food for lunch, and then go to a Butterfly garden. It’s pretty cool, and one of the butterflies sit on my finger at one point, and I’m like ohmygoshiamananimalwhisperer!
Jeanne’s polaroid of the beautiful view from the mountain earlier
Going to a 130 million year old rainforest with only a small village and no ATMs? It sounds like a piece of cake, really.
After a very turbulent, over-prized flight with a cheap airline, we make it to KLIA2 and get a bus to KL Sentral. We have a late dinner at McDonald’s, which is halal! Shoutout to my muzzies in hurr (hi Albulena). Then we get on the sky train and walk around Chinatown for ages before finding Marquee Guest House. Then we pass out.
