Some of the three weeks that I've gone without blogging is my own fault. The rest, I think I deserve a break on.
First I should look back to where I left off, in Kuala Lumpur. After my first fun day in the city, I got up early and headed for the Petronas Towers. The line was very long, as it snaked around the waiting area a number of times. When you first arrive, they ask you where you are from and write it down with your name on a slip of paper, probably to prevent queue jumping. They were out of tickets once another 200 or so people got in line after me. The ticket costs $3.30 and gets you up to the bridge between the twin towers. It was a rainy day, so the view, while very good, might have been even better. I checked out some markets and found plenty of food. That night I visited one of the city's many big malls. It had a theme park, bowling, and archery just to name a few things. The next day, I just tooled around again until my rental car was ready, and off I went.
I had that car for a week, and driving in Malaysia is an experience, not such a bad one I should say. They drive like most former British colonies, on the left. Gas is cheap, about 60 cents per liter, and I had GPS to make sure that there would not be problems. And I was amazed at how often I thought about driving back home. In terms of the proportion of drivers that are in a big rush versus those that a cruising along, it's very similar to roads like the Garden State Parkway. Now, what those hurried drivers are willing to do to get where they're going can be a bit more extreme (like making up their own lanes), but for most part there was just some speeding, some red lights being run, nothing too insane. The least nice part would all of the drivers on motorbikes that follow hardly any traffic rules, and don't seem to care whether it kills them or not. Road quality is not a problem though.
I started by driving north about 3 hrs. to Penang, a little island connected to the coast by one of Asia's longest bridges. Penang's food is very good, with lots of Chinese and Indian influences. Georgetown, the capital, is a city with a very multicultural background. I saw locations of Chinese religion, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, and even Judaism. To think that one city had all of this history was incredible. Other Penang highlights included: a fishing village with the smallest national park you've ever seen and eagles; an enormous Buddha up on a hill; the Snake Temple, which has some uncaged vipers (though they seem to be hardly able to move themselves) and a snake exhibit. After leaving Penang, I drove to Ipoh, an inland town. There, they have cave temples (Buddhists again) with impressive stalactite and stalagmite formations. One cave temple had monkeys.
From Ipoh, I mad the long drive to Taman Negara, the National Park that's all rain forest. I spent one night outside the park because of how late it was, then the next morning I rented some camping gear, got a permit for a hide, and headed off into the forest. They had a canopy walk which was just great. It consisted of 15 or so tree-to-tree bridges, each around 50 or more meters long, supposedly the longest in the world. When I finished that, I took the path over a hill to get to the inland track to hide. The climb up was great and from the top I could see many colorful birds. I saw monkeys swinging away from me on the way down. It was great. Then everything went south quickly. First I noticed my first leeches of the day. Not too perturbed, I brushed them off. But I had hardly taken 10 steps when I noticed that there were more. This would continue without many pauses for the rest of the time in the jungle. Then it began to rain. My poncho handled it fairly well, but much of my stuff was damp any way. Then the path was blocked in many places. Elephants roam this rain forest, and when they're on the move they tend to flatten many trees, one of their many services to the jungle. But this, mud, and leech checks all slowed me down, down to a minuscule 1.5km/hr. Late, I finally reached the hide, a well-constructed building on stilts with a thin opening overlooking the salt lick. The big animals often show up to these salt licks in the evening, which was why I and the other 12 young adults were there. I removed the last of the leeches and washed the blood off of my feet. Unfortunately, nobody showed up to the salt lick that night, so the effort was all for naught. In the morning, I got out of the jungle as quickly as possible, taking a 2.5km path to the river, then waving to try and flag a boat that was heading downstream.
I needed a nice place to go as a retreat, and decided on Fraser's Hill. The Hill is a getaway town from Kuala Lumpur, and being almost a mile up, it took many turns on the winding road to reach. I found a nice hotel with a single room ($30), showered, and kicked back. The night featured some impressive lightning. In the morning, I decided that I needed to do something less strenuous, something that would allow me to forget about frustration. I played golf. The course at Fraser's is 9 holes, but you get to go around as many times as you want. Including the clubs and trolley that I rented, the balls and tees that I bought, and greens fees, it came out to about $30. The course was wet, and I had almost no form to speak of (not having swung a club in over a year), but it was very fun and I even managed to get par on the 3-shot 8th. After one go-around I had to leave, as cars can only get out on Fraser's sole, one-lane road in even hours. I had to get the car back to KL. I did, and took a tour of Little India on my last afternoon in the country.
When I woke up and headed for the airport, I started noticing a problem on my left heel. It was starting to feel tender like a pimple. I got on my flight, not too concerned about it. When we landed in Beijing and I stood up, it was obvious that things were much worse. It hurt to walk on the foot, even with a sock on. The medical people of China's border control pulled me over, noticing the limp. They took my temperature and found a fever, which automatically triggers a hospital visit. They stamped my passport and ambulanced me to Beijing Ditan Hospital, where I was to spend the next 8 days. Yeah, a real bummer. The heel was infected with a staphylococcus bacterium. After lots of antibiotics, lots of Chinese sports television, and little English, I was finally able to begin my adventure in China.
I'm running out of time right now, and this post is long enough, but I will detail my adventures in Beijing (which I leave tonight for Xi'an) and elsewhere when I get the chance. That chance might not be for a while though as Chinese cyberpolice prevent blogging (this hostel pays for a service that covertly routes their internet through Hong Kong, where the laws of the People's Republic don't apply). In any event, I'm back to full-strength and as excited as ever to be traveling again.
