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unfortunately there isn't an activity category I can choose on this website called Eating, as thatis what has dominated the last week or so since we last wrote! Of course some sightseeing and a moderate amount of exercise, but mainly eating and discussions about where and what to eat next.
I think we left you in Penang, where we had taken in the sights and foods of little india, chinatown and a small fishing village to the north of the island. (it's worth mentioning about both malaysia and Singapore that there is still a British Legacy apparant. Malaysia was appropriated by the East India Trading Company as an excellent port from which to trade in the East Indies. In Malaysia a most companies reflect this british history by calling there company something Trading. As we arrived we commented on what a shame it was that Mr Poo chose to follow this tradition rather than strike out on a new tack. His company, the unappealing sounding Poo Trading would not have been one i would have called from Yellow Pages.) We'd scaled Penang hill on the funicular, and yes I've taken lots of photos for the railway fans. So together with Ruth and Ian we travelled to the Cameron Highlands where the weather is a lot cooler, fresher, rainier and the food is just as excellent. We stayed at Twin Pines guest house ,otherwise known as Twin Peaks and made full use of long trousers and cagouls.
We spent about 3 days in Tanah Rata in the highlands relaxing ,taking in a tea plantation, talking about food, visiting a butterfly farm, eating food, doing a jungle walk with ridiculously bad maps and no signage whilst talking about how being a transformer ( robots in disguise) would seriously aid our downward tramp through jungly tree roots and muddy stuff ( I have no idea where that came from, although I blame Joe and Jack, two lads from Leicester who we picked up halfway through our walk. )(We also found opportunity to slip (punn) Flat Stanley into the conversation.... i was pretty proud of that i can tell you... anyone remember flat Stanley?) We also spent one of those rare days where we had no plans. I think our last one of those days was in ko lanta, and before that probably Laos as every day there is something to do ( oh the hardship I'm sure you're all weeping buckets for us) but anyway, on our day of rest, as Evan put it we just " milled about between meals" which is his way of saying we managed to fit in breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner and not much else. ( There are great south indian eats in Tanah Rata ,and i developed severe addiction to idly, ottapom and dosas) Actually weplayed 3 frames of snooker which was very productive ,and bought lots of tat from the cheap souvenir shops( she means expensive local specialities from talented local craftsmen, if you are one of the lucky ones to receive some of the cheap tat) . We also had a running battle with the TV room at Twin Peaks because every time we managed to get control of the remote there was only dreadful films on, and all the DVDs were awful pirate copies of films that would have been dreadful had they not be recorded on a handheld in a Bangkok cinema, but they had.... we had the misfortune of " because of Winn Dixie" and several striaght t ovideo 80s classics, AND we had to endure Keira Knightley pretend pout her way through Elizabeth Bennet AGAIN .We did manage to find a copy of Miami Vice with Colin Farrell for our last night, but this turned out to be an awful film, so don't anybody watch it, if you were considering it. (i hated it, couldn't hear a word they said which was probably just as well)
Anyway, so after a thoroughly productive few days, we said a sad farewell for now to Ruth and Ian and headed to Kuala Lumpur. Here we ate more delicious food ( malaysian and indian, although not as good chinese) and visited the petronas towers and went across the sky bridge which involved seeing a 3D film about how brilliant the Petronas oil compnay is and the ntaking a high speed lift to floor 42 ( out of hundreds of floors.) We also bumped into Amanda and Phil last seen in Kanchanburi, which was nice, took in Little India ,and Chinatown and ate some more .
After a day in KL, we headed across the border to Singapore. here we are staying in Little India and today is Sunday which is when 100s of indian men who are all here as cheap labour come out to play and the place is literally jammed with young men, it took me a while to work out why it was so odd adn it's becuase there are no women! They are all in India as it's too expensive for the mto come out too. Anyway, in england if you had this many men out to play all at once someone would have been trampled to death or glassed, but here the worst case scenario is that someone drops their leaflet about cheap calls abroad in the gutter ( heinous crime in spotless singapore.)
We've done lots of very interesting things here in Singapore, but I'll leave Evan to tell you about them....
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