Malaysia, things are not what they seem!

We landed in Kualar Lumpa and got the bus from the airport to the city... We enjoyed being on good roads and saw on the way into town more high voltage power lines than we have for the past seven months,,, Ah we thought a country more like the west where organisation means organisation.

We spent the night in the city and rather than explore KL we thought we would catch the bus over to Tiomen Island which has the reputation of great snorkaling and nice jungle walks. So a shuttle bus to the bus station which is the most modern bus station we have ever seen in any country. Our trips round KL had led us to think that the best description you could come up with was a modern Birmingham with air conditioning. Malaysia is obviously much richer than anywhere else we had been and KL is a city of motorways. Our bus was very luzorious only 3 seats wide with as always in Asia with the A/C on so high you need a jumper. The drive however was really boring, (advertised 6h - took 8h) as I have never been in a country with such a mono-culture, we drove past miles and miles and miles of Palm oil trees, in fact it was often the case that all you could see was plantations of them stretching as far a s the eye could see. After a night in the small port town of Maning we caught the boat (advertised 1h... took 2h). to Tioman which was however as beautiful as described.

 We walked up the gentle incline through the jungle that gets from one side to the other....Here Liza looks fully eager to see what we can find.

 That included these two critters!

We has a couple of wonderful electrical storms.... managed to shoot this which I quite like!

Onward from Tiomen we took another bus to Channing a small coastal resort where we stayed for a couple of nights drawn by the chance to go and see fireflys and turtles. The fireflys were wonderful, floating leds across the river. Flash photography does them no good as does any light ie from the infrared of focus control on modern cameras consequently there are no photos of a superb evening.

On the following evening we went to see turtles laying eggs and to release turtles that had hatched into the sea. (there is a conservation project going so all the eggs laid are collected, and reburied in the conservationists own sand pit and then released on the same beach they were laid.

Onward to the Cameron Highlands, where the height makes the evenings cool. Our first day there we had a day of tropical rain which we spent the afternoon dodging while going on a half day tour. Tea plantations, mossy forests and butterfly farms were the order of the day.... Here's the pictures... all taken in the damp.

Leaving the highlands we went to Georgetown in the north, just near the Thai boarder where the British first established themselves in Malaysia, apparently it was at one time a settlement to rival Hong Kong and Singapore only politics and location meant that no longer.This has meant that the old colonial and Chinese buildings are still there which makes it an interesting place to look around. The food is superb, Chinese rather than the Indian that was available in the Cameron Highlands.

 Two angry birds!

  3 above of Chinese temple

George town tourist information!

We then returned to KL to spend a day wandering around before heading back to the UK via Hong Kong where we again spent an enjoyable day with Kerry going to a couple of exhibitions one featuring an inflatable Stonehenge

and the other a trip around the city from the perspective of the totally blind.

Anyway here are our KL pictures:-

 The view from the top of the KL tower is quite spectacular, especially the haze of pollution over the city.

The modern central mosque is fairly spectacular too...

Anyway greet ings to all from our current location London.... Hope to see some of you before we depart on the 22nd to Argentina.