Malaysia and Phnom Penh, Cambodia

The Petronas towers were by appointment only so the KL Tower had to suffice. We climbed its huge mountain to get there and jumped in the life before being greeted by a set of headphones and a PDA. We walked in platform looking over what Kuala Lumpur has now become. A city of high rises, trees and motorways. We walked its street for the first 2 days, exploring every museum and park that we could fit in. We ate delights from the Indian section and may have had a sneaky pizza hut to satisfy our cravings. The hotel was great, very comfortable and quiet with ear plugs in. After having enough of city life, we ventured 30 minutes out of town to the Batu caves. When we arrived we were greeted by a huge 135 feet gold statue of a Hindu deity of Murugan which cost approximately 24 million rupees and is made of 300 litres of gold paint! We climbed the 272 stone steps to the entrance of a huge cave covered with Hindu statues and religious devotees kneeling to their gods.

After experiencing a little of the real Malaysia we decided to take an 5 hour bus journey to the Cameron highlands, land of tea plantations and jungle. The journey was pretty breathtaking, in terms of view and height, many times we felt as if we were going to tip over to our deaths. Waterfalls used part of the highway to escape further down the mountains and monkeys regularly jumped in the driver’s way as we drove higher and higher into the Malaysian highlands.

Once we arrived, we were grabbed left and right by local taxi drivers and hostel owners but we had already booked ‘fathers guesthouse’ for our accommodation. We arrived to our room, a lovely little room overlooking tea plantations and met with our local guide to be taken on a 2 day exploration of the jungle and plantations. It all began the same afternoon, we drove to the local plantations and ate cake and drank tea after having an introduction into how the plantation works. After this we drove further and further into the jungle before jumping out and starting a nice hours trek through jungle that looked like it directly came out of Lord of the Rings. Mossy forest it was called for all of its distinct features, moss and ferns everywhere. We were shown amazing new plants, brightly coloured and massive. After an hour, we finally arrived at a small community village. The village elder came to greet us and allowed us into his house for some local food and music. The children ran around the village and tried to peek in at us with the elders but they were shooed away at each attempt. We tried out the local musical instruments, one that you had to place up your nose to blow! Once we were accepted into the community we went outside to be shown how the village people catch animals for their dinner by using a blow pipe. We all, of course, had a go and were all equally terrible! The children were beautiful, all with no hair on their heads and scruffy attempts at clothes. After an hour playing marbles and stone throwing with the kids we left the village and trekked back to the car, being shown on the way local face painting techniques.

Once we arrived back in KL, we went straight away by taxi to the airport for our flight up to Cambodia. Although only having a whistle-stop tour of Malaysia, it was still an amazing highlight.

Yesterday we arrived in Phnom Penh. A hot, smelly and busy city. Coming from a very clean, modern and rich capital was a shock to the system. After getting our visas on entry we left the airport for a herd of taxi drivers. We accepted the cheapest price and went to the hostel we have prearranged in Malaysia. The hostel was fine, a very small place with lots of hidden rooms. The bed was absolutely massive and we had a school just outside of window so lots of screaming kids when we arrived but it was sufficient for the purpose. The hostel movie of the night was an eerie ‘Killing Fields’ so we sat down to some chips and pizza and cried our eyes out at the horror of Cambodia’s recent history. The hostel had 2 options for a day trip around Phnom Pehn. As it was our first day in the country we thought we would take what they were offering and we chose option number 2, a day visiting the Killing Fields, the Toung Seul Musuem and the Russian Market, omitting the option to shoot AK47’s (why anyone would want to do that after going to the Killing Fields I have no idea!) The road to the Killy Fields was full of people, children and adults alike but so many of them begging and wounded from previous injuries caused by the Khmer Rouge such as lost limbs. The fields were full of visitors all facing the graveyard of thousands of people murdered by the Khmer Rouge. There is a tower of skulls shadowing over the uneven ground and emerging clothes of the graveyard. The place of eerily quiet and sorrowful. There was no a visitor in sight with a dry eye. The graves were organised by type of person, whether a child, male, female and were placed so close to the surfrace that the ground was full of bumps and clothes were everywhere you looked.

We left the fields in silence and moved on to the Toung Suel Musuem, a school that was used to execute and torture people during the evil reign. Within 5 minutes, I personally had had enough and could not stare into the eyes of people murdered by looking at theier photographs or witness the rooms with the original instruments in used for torure. It was too much. I decided to sit outside and wait for Terry as he finished the trip around. Whilst waiting, I was pretty much hounded by disabled and effected people who needed help.

After this, we really needed cheering up, our first impressions of Cambodia was sadness and devastation so we took our driver and tuk tu to the huge Russian market and spent a few hours walking around and looking at all of the nice souvenirs they sold. Our bags were tightly around our fronts due to the fact there were thousands of kids running around the tightly spaced corridors. We brought 4 children their lunch as they were so sad looking. They sat in front of us and ate the whole place in seconds. In 2 days we are leaving Phomn Penh by bus to travel to Battambang. From there we are taking a slow boat to Siem reap. We have left our passports with the owners of the hostel to get our Indian visas for us at the moment, fingers crossed we get them back!