Large mug of tea please!

Heading for the hills after the heat and humidity of KL was an easy choice, so we booked a bus from KL to Tanaha Rata, in the centre of the Cameron Highlands. This area is where much of Malaysian tea comes from, and its mild climate also lends itself to other plantations, including flowers and strawberries.

We strayed at the excellent Fathers Guest House, which served excellent breakfasts ranging from fruit salads up to full on cooked english, as well as huge mugs of tea, something we hadnt found anywhere else previously. The guest house also had a great chilled out vibe, with travellers from a wide range of countries staying.

The town also had a plethora of tasty budget food available, the pick of which for us were the curry houses serving spicy food on large banana leaves for less than 15RM each, including drinks (about £3).

We walked on our own into the jungle near to the town, and were immediately slithering around in the mud on the path as the rainy season is well underway. The walk went past the Robinson Falls, but the jungle itself was the best part.

Dead Snake - I bravely poked it with a long stick to make sure

Robinson Falls - Tanaha Rata

Foot long millipede in jungle

The next day we booked on a Rafflesia guided tour day. The main aim of the day was to visit the Rafflesia “flower”. Little did we know quite what was going to be entailed getting to the flower. After a bumpy 45mins on the road cramped into the back of a Landrover, the off roading started. The rainy season had made the track more of a river than road, with deep red mud everywhere. The track soon became impassable, so we all hiked to the flower, most of the time in ankle deep red mud, and often crossing streams and rivers by jumping from rock to rock or via rickety bamboo bridges. Overall the round trip took over three hours of walking, and the reward was - you’ve guessed it - a single large red flower....

Land rover getting sketchy on the way up the hill - fuzzy photo taken through glass of vehicle in front

Ursh concentrating on a very wobbly bridge

The flower is actually quite interesting. The Rafflesia, named after Sir Stamford Raffles of Singapore governership fame, is actually a very rare, large parasitic fungi, that feeds off tree roots. After a very long development period (several months) it “blooms” for a period of about 1 week only, at the end of which it decomposes to what the locals refer to as elephant poo... The flower we saw was about 80cm wide, but some examples in Borneo get to over 1m.

Rafflesia Fungi

The rest of the tour consisted of a trip to a butterfly, insect and snake zoo, and then on to the “Boh” tea plantations, where we drank several more large mugs of strong tea, and had a brief tour of the old school tea production machinery. A quick visit to a strawberry farm followed (strawberry shakes, cakes, ice creams and more all consumed), before a tired and muddy return to the guest house.

I was told to stay very still - I obeyed........

Boh Tea Plantation

And the word for today is...........

Juxtaposition!

Never one to shy away from the (over) use of a cliche, I expect that this word will crop up a lot to describe much of what we find in South East Asia, but it particularly well describes the mix that is Kuala Lumpur.

We paid up front for a bus from Singapore to KL, and were surprised at how comfortable it was - with only three huge seats per row. The journey took about 6 hours, but disappointingly the scenery wasn't that great.

As KL was to be our Xmas stop over point, we choose to bypass the usual hostel accommodation and go for a swanky(ish) hotel. Our excuse for this was that we needed internet for a marathon skype session on Christmas day, but it didn't hurt to have a good a/c and buffet breakfast available. Walking the short distance from the bus to the hotel proved that KL is quite hot (30C), and very humid.

Kuala Lumpur Tower

Petronas Towers - worlds tallest buildings from 1995 to 2003

Much of the tourism in KL was based around shopping, and unsurprisingly the shopping centres had gone xmas crazy, with pantomime like performances and huge christmas trees. Most of the shopping centres were massive, one even had its own theme park......

"Times Square" shopping centre / theme park

We enjoyed christmas in KL, but unfortunately discovered the chinatown area too late, as this proved to be where the best bars and cheap food was. We spent a fun boxing day evening here though, and had a few beers and spent some time haggling for tourist fake t shirts.

English man abroad - "I've got my beer, now where's my sausage, egg and chips?"

 

Putting things on top of other things?

Singapore is widely touted as an "easy" introduction to south east asia, with good levels of hygiene, and lots of western food and comforts available. In many ways, its perhaps gone too far, as the strict rules and regulations are apparently backed up by officious police who are a little trigger happy with fines and worse.

Arty Farty Shot of Marina Development Tower Behind Sun Grill

Its also probably the most intensely high rise city I've ever visited, with prolific development where every building site seems to be trying to out elevate its neighbour. Not only are the boundaries of height being pushed, but also the imaginations of the architects. I don't think the Gerkhin in London would have got past the drawing stage, as it would be far too conventional.  

Singapore flyer - largest observation wheel in the world

Chinatown in front of CBD

The improbable shapes of some new high rise architecture often reminds me of the monty python sketch (hence the blog post title): Anyone unfamiliar with the sketch? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pBTK-pdMP0  Maybe all this travelling is getting to me!

Singapore GP street circuit

Despite all the modern stuff, there is of course some interesting older parts of the city to view, including the authentically busy and noisy "little india", and the few sections of chinatown that have survived recent developments

Chinatown temple

We stayed in a Chinese run hostel which was very different from the modern chain hotels that are the norm. The room was tiny, had no windows and featured one bunk bed complete with winnie the pooh sheet and pillow sets. It was cheap though.

Raffles Hotel

There are of course many colonial buildings still present, mostly these are high price tourist destinations now.

Christmas parade

Its the dark side don't ya know......

So windsurfers (the good side!) and kitesurfers (the dark side!) don't always have the easiest of relationships.... To my mind its not down to a them and us mentality, but more a simple case of the best use of the space available on the water, with the kiters seeming to need a clear water radius of about 50 metres, which is tricky in the crowded south east of the UK.

I hadn't really anticipated learning to kitesurf, but the high number of kitesurfing instructors in NZ, and the lack of windsurfing kit hire made it an easy choice. I took a couple of lessons with an excellent instructor, Steve (http://www.facebook.com/pages/RipD-Kite-Boarding/183343693393?ref=ts),with a total of almost 6 hours of tuition.

Right location - wrong kiter (no camera due to rain)

I found learning to kite a very interesting challenge. I've done a bit of wakeboarding before, and the kite board is very similar, and I've also flown kites on land a few times, although I've not used a four line kite before. I've been told before that success in kiting is more down to kite, not board control, which seems only partly true, as if the board control doesn't come quite easily, then its easy to loose focus on the kite, shortly after which it either slams into the water, or it drags you face first through the brine.

At the end of lesson two i was quite consistently getting up on the board, and managed about 10 runs of 50-100 metres. The wind was perhaps lower than I would have liked - but an experienced kiter would have had much more success with getting enough power than I did. 

With diving and windsurfing I am very used to getting face fulls of salt water thrown at me, but the kite learning process certainly took this to a new level, as the inevitable body drags always seem to be head first. I really hope I'm past the worst of this.......

I'll definitely give it another go, but I'm still a windsurfer - if nothing else I don't have enough garage space for another load of kit.

Who are you calling riff raff?

Ok we are looking a bit scruffy now after travelling for 9 weeks, but......

Richard Obrien statue

Hard to believe, but Hamilton NZ was apparently part of the inspiration for the Rocky horror picture show -who'd have thought it......

C'est une conspiration, n'est pa?

Getting the ferry across the Cook straights, we arrived in Wellington at 1 am. We didn't try and find anywhere to legally park up the van, instead we headed for a parking area in a nice (read safe) area. Sods law states that we found one of the only train lines in the area, so an early start was inevitable.

NZ's primary museum is called "Te papa", and proved to be excellent (and free), which modern, interactive displays. Quite an achievement for a relatively small country.

One of my primary motivations for spending time in the north island was that it is apparently home to some excellent windsurfing. Unfortunately, there is a complete absence of hire kit, although there is shop with excellent kit, although at quite a price. It was gutting to look out across the bay at a particularly windy day and not be able to sail.

Mt Taranaki

Heading north, we stopped at Mt Taranaki, which also promised windsurfing, but again the conditions delivered, but the kit availability didnt. There is an Mt Fuji esque volcano here though, so had I not been so perverse we could have done some excellent altitude hiking

With time running short, we continued north to Paihia, in the "bay of islands". We had two things to do here:
1. As a boat obsessed teenager, I always wanted to have a go on a big racing catamaran. In activity obsessed NZ, trips on such craft a readily available, irritatingly the boat was not available at the time

On the Edge - No show!

2. Dive the Rainbow Warrier Wreck.
Famously sunk by French secret agents in 1985, the rainbow warrier was relocated and donated to the ocean as an artificial reef, and is now a famous dive site. We booked in to dive it on a rainy but otherwise ok looking day, and got up at 6 (ish) to join the group heading there via minibus and then a RIB speedboat. With the northisland run of luck continuing, the fog prevented the boat from getting to the reck, so we had to dive an ok reef  instead (good puffer fish, octopus and conger eels though)

The Rainbow Warrior Memorial

'Scuse the geography......

The last blogging session managed to completely ignore the west coast of the south island - not quite sure how this happened as we don't have a teleportation / tardis etc device at our disposal.

Following the the Keppler track, we headed north, sadly missing the Fjordland area which is a must see on many itineriaries. The first area of interest was the massive glaciers at Fox and Franz Joseph areas.

Fox Glacier

Fox Glacier from trailhead

One of the great attractions of the area are the views of the surrounding mountains, including Mt Cook, australisias highest, which can often be seen reflected in the glacial lakes in the area. Unfortunately we chose a day to visit where the cloud base was particularly low, and the drizzle was also quite consistent. 

Franz Joseph Glacier

Water falls in the side of the glacial valley

Heading north from the glaciers, we stopped at Punnakaki, home to the "pancake rocks". This is a stunning area, with a coast reminiscant of dorsets jurrassic coast, but perhaps on a bigger scale.

Punnakaki

Sea Blow hole

Pancake Rocks