Happy New Year

Well the kids have gone back to school and the holiday rush to the beach and the mountains has let up a bit. Rooms will be easier to find and cheaper too. Its been a hectic few weeks, but filled with some good hard travelling and we're still going strong with about seven weeks to go till our return to Canada. Here's a brief summary of our recent travels:
We returned to Bangkok on Dec. 22 from northern Thailand, picked up our bags at Gerry's condo in Pattaya and took the overnight train to Koh Lanta island and its Andamann Sea beaches in the far south of Thailand. Spent Xmas and the following week on beach and in the water. We entered Malaysia on Dec. 30 in the middle of a 12 hour bus trip to Georgetown on the island of Penang. We spent New Years there and celebrated my 57th on Jan.2. We travelled to our current location in the Cameron Highlands on Jan.3, a 6 hour bus ride south of Penang and up into the mountain spine in the central part of the Malayan penninsula. We both continue to enjoy good health and are having a very fine time soaking it all up.

The beach was fun. We were lucky to find a nice place to stay at reasonable price. Prices were double to triple for rooms over the Xmas week. We ended up in the typical one room bungalo with shower, bathroom and fan (no air) for about $15 Can a night. 30 meters from a good beach. The 22 km stretch of beaches has dozens of low rise hotels and guesthouses and bungalows and they were packed with Europeans, mainly young folks with a few weeks holiday and families. Highlights were a 25 km speedboat trip to an island famous for its striking cliffs, beaches, and shallow coral reefs, which we snorkelled for hours. We also took another slow boat trip to sea kayak around enormous limestones cliffs; we paddled through the undercuts and explored caves along the way. And we motorbiked the whole island without incident.

Georgeotwn is a fairly large city with the typical highrise and chrome development, but unlike Bangkok and the Chinese cities we visited, its old colonial architecture and Chinese shop buildings have been mainly preserved. The city population is typically Malaysian, that is a mix of Malays, Chinese and Indians, and the place has an old world charm and character.We walked the streets and sampled the great food.(and the expensive beer) Again we were lucky to find accomodation arriving as we did, without a reservation, on a Saturday the day before New Years. Still cheap at $15 Can for simple room with aircon and shower. We rented a motor bike with the intention of going to the beach, but ended so lost we never saw a grain of sand. New Years Eve was a big street party and the beer bars were doing an enormous business. Although the various racial groups tend to live in their own areas of the old town, they were mixing it up real well and all having a great time.

The weather has been very hot. We managed without air con on the beach (lows of 28 C) but it would have brutal without aircon in Penang where the temperatures and humidity were even higher and with little breeze. We had no real plans to come to this small mountain town until we read about the climate here. After the past month, this place is heavenly. The daytime highs are 23 C and the lows are 15 C. And that's what it is 365 days a year!!! Actually our guest house owner tells us that it might climb to 25C or dip to 13C on infrequent occasions, but it is in fact perpetual spring here. It rains 260 cm a year and at an elevation of 4500 to 6000 feet, the air is light and soft, a mix of of mist, sun and a few showers over the last two days. It is a true equatorial mountain rain forest; and while lots of it remains in a mature and conserved state, great pressures exist to further level the forest in favour of the vibrant flower and vegetable industry that has taken hold.


Today we took the rubbernecker tour of the vicinity and visited the huge tea plantation, the strawberry farm, the butterfly and insect attraction and a flower garden. Tomorrow, if it doesn't rain I'm going to spluge and golf the 18 hole course, which looks like I fancy Augusta might, with all the flowering trees and floral varieties ($30 Cnd total for fees and rental) I'll probably get hooked up with some of the Japanese businessmen who fly in for a few rounds or some retirees(Japanese) who spend a few months for the golf and climate. Joan plans to go on an interpretive jungle tour in search of rare mountain plants.
We are looking forward to the the trip to Bali and not too worried about terrorist threats. As our friend Gerry S.C. notes, 275 people were killed in Bangkok in traffic accidents over the Xmas week. We'll be doing our best to practice traffic safety and to minmize any other risks that might be out there.
Last thing; here's a Canadiana sports question. Who is the most famous Canadian professional athlete in the world, under the age of 19? WRONG, Its not Crosby, its David Edgar. David WHO??
In his first professional game for Newcastle United, yesterday, in the English premier soccer league, Edgar scored the come from behind tieing goal against league leading mighty Manchester United. His picture and story occupied most of the first page of the English, Chinese and Malay language newspapers. I'm guessing coverage would have been the same in China, Japan, Viet Nam, Thailand etc. It was our guest house owner that brought the story to my attention. Did it get a line or two in any of the Canadian rags??