Malaysia was a country that I did not know much about. I didn’t even know that they were a mostly Muslim country. Arab food and culture as well as Chinese and English and Portuguese culture is visible. They have their own take on tea, coffee, rice and noodles. If you are ever in the Netherlands you see that Nasi Goreng is a popular dish. You can clearly see how the Dutch adopted some dishes as well. Nasi means rice in Malaysian and Goreng means fried.

Kuala Lumpur is an ugly city. Especially when you come from the clean Singapore. It is a busy city with a lot of malls, footstalls and traffic. All smells from pleasantly sweat to rotten and decayed sneak into your nose at once. Your brain doesn’t even know where to put this information. Endless street food stalls and restaurants plaster the city. The smog makes breathing a little bit difficult and we’re already annoyed by the noise. Sally is already complaining, that she wants to go to the beach. Understandable, she didn’t have endless beaches like I did the last six month! We make this a quick stay in Kuala Lumpur. First we visit the Batu caves. It is several temples and is even carved into a cave. When we get there, we see, that a thousand monkeys roam this place in the different colorful temples.

Lord Muruga, statue you can see in the left picture, is said to be the son of the god Shiva. It is 42,7m tall and is guarding the entrance of the cave. In Tamil culture it is believed, that Lord Muruga will lead you towards spiritual evolution. The worship of this god is supposed to help overcome three obstacles. Karma or else known as destiny. Maya, which translates to illusion and Ahankar, which is ego. When you climb the colorful 272 steps you find the temple in the cave. Note that if you want to enter the temple you need loose clothes that hide most of your skin. This is for the spiritual believe of the Tamil.

We try to get to the Chinese Buddhist temple afterwards. This is also the first time we installed Grab on our phones. Grab is like Uber and a convenient way to get around in Asia. Looks the same, feels the same. It’s just a different name. In Southeast Asia there is a saying. Same, same but different. It fits perfectly to this app. We order a Grab and we arrive right at sunset at the Thokon Thean Hou temple. At the first glance the temple didn’t seem too impressive. After the sun set completely all the lights were switched on. Suddenly this temple turns into this beautiful lighted scenery. Some scented sticks burn and bring an amazing peaceful atmosphere. A few people are praying, but the temple is almost empty. A wonderful quiet place in a noisy city that. We enjoy the peaceful moment as the Hainanese pray for their wishes to be fulfilled.

After this we have enough of the city and make our way to the Cameroon highlands. The name originated from Sir William Cameron. He scouted the area in 1885. Fifty years later the first tea plantation started growing tea. Today their tea industry is booming. The green hills also get a few tourists nowadays for the pristine views of the hills. We rent a scooter and try our first scooter ride together. He asked for our drivers license. I just gave him my Id, because I didn’t have my drivers license with me. He didn’t seem to notice. After a short briefing the scooter rental gave us only one rule. We were not allowed to drive to the mossy forest with the scooter. We assured, that we would not go there. And then we are already on the road. For me this is the first country, where I have to drive on the left side. This is something you have to get used to. Sometimes I took some turns and habit kicked in. This had to be corrected fast, because this can get pretty dangerous pretty fast.

After enjoying a fresh cup of tea, with pristine views of the hillside and petting some dogs on the road we decided to drive the scooter to the mossy forest anyways. It was pretty steep but manageable. The tea fields gave way to the jungle pretty quickly. We go up and up. I was feeling a little bit anxious, because there must be a reason the scooter renter forbid us to do it. On the other side he also wanted to sell transport from the tea farm to the mossy forest. We’re still cruising up the small road. After going up for twenty minutes we finally arrive. Turns out, that the mossy forest was located at 2000m above sea level. It was quite astonishing. On the left side a big cloud front was creeping up the mountain. The right side was still sunny.

The mossy forest was a fun little sight. However you pay an entrance fee. Since this forrest is located in a touristy area it is a bit too expensive for what it has to offer. The best part was actually driving up there. I’m glad we didn’t miss out on that drive. Not because it was forbidden. Rather for the beautiful scenery. The green tea fields and higher up the jungle make it worth the drive. On the way back we saw some tea farmers gathering the tea leaves in these massive bags. It created this beautiful picture.

Thanks for tuning in again as we travel north to Thailand. Cheers and until next time!