Many transports
Sunday, 27 February 2005
We arrived in Malaysia last nigt after an epic, 18 hour journey involving: 6 minibus's, 3 taxis, 1 ferry, 1 "normal" bus, 4 suspected cases of DVT, 2 unidentifiable foods and some whinging (not from me though cos I'm dead Zen).
The last leg of the journey (from Butterworth to Lumut) was ace. We were in a taxi with this bloke who couldn't stop his really loud burping, and kept driving on the wrong side of the road. We were going through the jungle, totally dark appart from the headlights and the burnt moon, and huge flashes of tropical lightening from this really fierce tropical storm. Apparently it has been dry in Malaysia for ages so there were fires in the jungle that we went past. It all smelt like the inside of a greenhouse but had this wierd bloke belching, thunder and rain like grenades and a wierd beginning of the rocky horror show type atmos.
In an excellent way, Malaysia has Cadburys chocolate and British stye road signs and nearly everything is written using the Roman Alphabet, which all added to the trippiness of it. We then arrived at Mr Darren Lee's Mother's colonial type Condo, which is a proper flat. With Air Con. And Beds. And a Flush Toilet. And not even one other species to share with.
As Peri would say "ThankyouverymuchMrsLee" Daz's mum is great. Not as Great as Our Mam, of course, but good all the same and has given us lots of hospitality. Today we had a wander around the steamy jungly areas, and saw a Themepark/ Chinese Temple, with a miniature version of the Great Wall of China in it, plus Peacocks, enormous 5 foot long Carp, terapins and monkeys. Malaysia has Four main ethnicities so it's really multicultural - there are Malays (Who are mainly muslim and wear the full garb), Indians (who are mainly Hindu and wear beautiful saris), Chinese (Who have a complexe sort of Buddhist type religion I don't understand and have everything in the country excellently decorated from Chinese new year; fairy lights, lanterns, glitter and Tinsel); and Western Ex-Pats (Colonial attitude anyone?). Each type brings it's own fodder so there is much opportunity for cultural gluttony. Me and Rachel have already been disgusting Dan with our noodle soup in fermented fish broth soup. Dan had a burger from KFC. Apparently they are zingier than in England. Any other questions about Fast food around the world can be addressed to Mr Webb personally.
Also the Mossies here are hard Viet Cong Style Urber Mossies, and are eating me alive in this Internet Cafe.
So see yas later.
