Goodbye Thailand, Hello Malaysia

Hello All

We arrived at Ko Lanta ready for a good session of chillaxing. Our hotel was ideal for this as it had three pools and a sea-front restaurant! What a treat for us 'backpackers' lol. We mastered the art of non-competitive water volleyball and may had broken the world record for continuous play :)

The next day we decided to explore the beautiful of Ko Lanta so we hired a moped and scooted off. Can I say at this point that Marc is getting pretty dab handed at riding these mean 125cc bikes despite the rutted dirt roads and steep hills lol. (And Liz is pretty good at giving me instructions from the back seat too!) We stopped off at a lovely old fishing village. Very sleepy and here we ate durian, another favourite new fruit, and ate coconut milk puddings. Yum yum! Then the coastal road to the national park. We didn't have to wait long to see wildlife as saw a 4 ft long Monitor lizard at the side of the road! For those of you who don't know these Lizards can grow up to 10ft long, are black and look like Comodo dragons... spooky :) As soon as it heard us it sped off back into the forest. We stopped and to look for it, yes I am getting brave in my old age (Liz) but no joy and not photographic evidence I'm afraid :(

By the time we arrived at the NP it was getting fairly late. Hardly anyone was around and not even anyone to take our entrance fee . We took a trail into the forest where we saw some distant gibbons swinging through the trees chasing each other. We watched for a couple of minutes, but got a better view than we bargained for when they swung over our heads just a few metres above us! They were pretty noisy as they thrashed about in the trees, grunting and making other monkey noises, this startled me (Liz) so I stepped backwards. The problem was I was standing on a 4 foot ledge so I plummeted to the ground. Luckily Marc came to the rescue and prevented me from going head over heels ha ha.

A Ko lanta Beach

Guess where I am?

Planet of the Apes?

As if this wasn't enough 'wild life action' as we walked further through the park close to the beach we saw tons the more common monkeys. Seriously, there must have been about 20 of them playing, eating, fighting and hanging out on the beach. We got lots of photos of these ones :). Finally we saw a third type of monkey in the trees as the sun was setting - a group of dusky leaf monkeys. Impossible to photograph, but fun to watch.

We got a much closer look at a lizard the following day however. Liz came round the corner in our hotel and saw a 2ft Lizard. It ran and dived into the pool where it was able to swim around expertly, but it couldn't climb back out. Half hour of comedy followed, with the hotel staff in the water chasing after a lizard that was a far better swimmer than they were, and a German tourist trying to video the whole episode with a snorkel and an underwater camera. Finally, with the help of a noose the lizard was caught, and released, but not before getting it's picture taken.

Not what one expects to find in the pool!

Swimming time is up for you little guy!

We returned to the National Park a couple of days later for a trek and a swim. As on every beach we went to in Ko Lanta, there was nobody else there. Travelling in the rainy season is not such a bad idea after all, and it mainly rains at night.

View of beach from top of the hill

After Ko Lanta we said goodbye to Thailand and hello Malaysia. Our first stop was the island of Langkawi. This seems to be the place most Malaysians go for their holidays. It is (was) a beautiful island, but has been spoilt by some pretty ugly buildings. We enjoyed taking a cable car to the highest peak on the island for some amazing views of the coastline, and went on a slightly scary raised bridge over the jungle canopy. But other than that we didn't hang around for too long.

Langkawi Gondola

View from the top.

And again...

Next we visited the Cameron Highlands in central Malaysia. This is a great place to cool down as it's at higher altitude. Less heat and humidity for a few days were very welcome. The Highlands are famous for their tea plantations and strawberry farms which, although necessary, are an eyesore of deforestation and polytunnels. We did manage to get into some unspoilt jungle though, via some of the muddiest, bumpiest 'roads' imaginable and an ancient Land Rover. In fact about every third car in the highlands was an ancient Land Rover, all of which look like Top Gear's indestructible pick up truck (sorry if you don't watch that show). In the jungle we trekked to see 'the world's biggest flower'. The one we actually saw was about 2ft across (not a particularly big one of it's kind) but still a bit weird. It was pink/orange and rubbery looking and is apparently related to the mushroom. Unfortunately the sole of Marc's boot came unstuck near the start, put with some hobbling and some jungle engineering, he was able to complete the walk without resorting to hopping.

A Land Rover ride we will never forget!

But I've only had these boots for 16 yrs!!!

Rafflesia Arnoldii - largest flower in the world!

We also trekked to the most amazing, pristine, mossy covered rainforest we've ever seen, up in the clouds. Dark, atmospheric and a little bit spooky - we imagined tigers stalking us, but we didn't see anything scarier than the usual assortment of bugs! We also visited a tea plantation, and had a go at using the blowpipes and darts used by the indigenous people to hunt (before the government re-settled them in ugly concrete houses), and got up close with some huge bugs at an insect farm.

Tea planation and us :)

Huge beatle :)

Cool trees in the Cameron Highlands

We topped off our visit to the Highlands with a late night, having met a devout Saudi Arabian muslim guy and a gay Chinese Malaysian.This made for some very interesting conversations, accompanied by too much Guinness and excellent Indian food. In hindsight that wasn't such a smart idea considering the long bus/boat journey the following day, but let's not go into any more detail than that!

Take care all
Love Liz & Marc

ps - More pics to follow when we get a more reliable internet connection.