Temples and fresh fruit

Greetings from the Cameron Highlands!  My bus actually made it here today, although there were times I thought it might break down.  I'm pretty tired because I didn't sleep very long last night, but its only 10pm and I feel I have no excuse not to write.

When I wrote yesterday, I was busy multi-tasking.  I got all three loads of my laundry done while loading my pictures to shutterfly (http://ejltravels.shutterfly.com/) and chatting with my family on skype.  It took me a while to get out of Adam's apartment, but my priority was laundry.  So nice to have all clean clothes.  Since I'd seen a good bit of Georgetown, I walked west along Gurney drive, a road that runs along the water.  It was a beautiful day, maybe a bit too hot, but there was a slight breeze.  (I'm actually very cold right now so next time I'm in the warm weather I'm going to remind myself that its better than being cold.)  As I was walking I noticed a restaurant with tons of fish tanks and ventured in to check it out.  Other than fresh fish/seafood, they also served dim sum.  It was lunch time and the place looked local, so I sat down to have some grub.  The dim sum was the kind where they come by your table with a cart and show you all the choices, but the options were a bit limited.  I ended up with some type of vegetarian dumpling, a prawn dumpling and other type of dumping that had fish. I'm not exactly sure what I ate since it was hard to understand their English.  Another woman came by with a fried roll that had prawn and scallop and I sprung for that too.  It was one too many dishes but I hadn't realized there were additional dumplings.

When I was leaving, I checked with the severs to find out the location of the bus station.  They didn't seem to be sure, but a Chinese man came up to assist and offered me a ride (with him and his daughter) up the road.  It wasn't very far, but its the though that counts.  I have to say, I've found the Malayians to be very helpful and kind.  They dropped me at Plaza Gurney, one of the largest malls on the island, and I strolled around inside for a few minutes.  It was HUGE.  Basically every store you could imagine.  I didn't hang around long because I wanted to get the bus back into town.  The bus came fairly quickly but I got on the one that seemed to go all over town.  It was a 30+ minute ride that could have been 10.  Not only that, it was incredibly crowded.  More people kept getting on and not moving down into the free space, so I was completely squished.  Let's just say I was very happy when we arrived at Komtar.

I stopped into the shop where I'd bought my bus ticket to the Cameron Highlands to find out what bus I needed for Snake Temple.  Unlike the previous evening, I got an express bus which took me down the east coast of the island much faster.  I made it to Snake Temple by 3:20pm and had about 40 minutes to explore before Adam was picking me up.  The Snake Temple is named so because there are live snakes.  I didn't notice them at first and then I saw them in the trees.  You could also take a picture with a snake around your neck; not really my thing.  The temple was fairly small, so I hung out in the shade, sweating.  Adam got off work early so that we could go to Kek Lok Si Temple, the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia with a 36.5 meter high bronze status of Kuan Yin, goddess of mercy.  The temple was spectacular but there were a lot of random gift shops that made it feel a bit too touristy.  We made excellent time though since the temple started closing 45 minutes before the posted time, and we had already had a good look around.

After the temple, Adam decided that I needed to get a sampling of the local fruit.  We first tried durian fruit, which Adam dislikes but is a local favorite.  I had the smallest piece I could.  It was mushy and bitter and I disposed of most of it in the trash.  Next we tried dragon fruit (which had a subtle sweet flavor and was very juicy, and left your hands and teeth pink) and mangosteens (sweet and tangy with a bit of peach flavor).  It was a perfect snack.

From there we headed to the north west coast of the island to Batu Ferringhi to watch the sunset from the beach.  Adam had been to this bar/restaurant before, but for some reason they no longer had a liquor license and could only serve wine or beer and didn't have food.  I enjoyed a nice glass of watermelon juice as the sun sank below the horizon leaving the sky illuminated with various pastel colors.  As we left the beach, it started to drizzle and we walked through the night market.  The stall where Adam buys DVDs was closed, as were the numerous stalls with fake handbags, etc.  Adam concluded that there was some crack-down going on because the street usually had a lot more vendors and the bar usually serves cocktails.  Before dinner I tried one other local fruit, jackfruit, kind of a harder banana like taste.

We ate dinner at a hawker center in Batu Ferringhi; I did the ordering and got to try more local dishes.  Roti canai with chicken curry, asam laksa, char koay teow, some type of Chinese soup and Tiger beer.  Delicious!  (Which reminds me, I forgot to say that at the hawker center the night before, some beer got on the table and slide down the table and got my pants soaked.)  The char koay teow is so popular that we waited 45 minutes for the dish; it was worth it.  By the time we headed back it was 11pm, and I still had to pack up everything.  Somehow I managed to get to sleep really late.

At 6:30am I was up to get ready for the bus to the Cameron Highlands.  Adam offered to drive me to the bus stop, which was a huge help.  Official shout out to Adam for being such an amazing host.  I really appreciate everything.  The bus was running a bit late, so we didn't leave until after 8am.  It was pretty run-down and seemed like it took a lot of effort to get moving....

I know this is an abrupt end but I think I'm going to go to sleep now.  Have to get up for a tour in the morning and don't want to be the last person in the room.