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| Camping by the Melacca Strait |
After a busy time back in the UK visiting family we returned to Malaysia to meet our van which had been shipped from New Zealand. It took a while to get used to the heat and humidity of Kuala Lumpur, but within a week we had managed to get the paperwork for the car sorted and we were back on the road.
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| Melacca Kampung Kling Mosque |
We first headed south from KL to Melacca - one of the oldest colonial towns in Malaysia. Much of the old town has remained much as it was when it was built in the 1800's, and includes the oldest mosque in SE Asia which is on Harmony street, so called because a few hundred yards away is the old Buddhist Confucian temple, and a Hindu temple, and on a nearby street is a Christian church. The Mosque contains components from many countries, Portuguese tiles, Dutch painting, English carving and middle eastern carpets, all blended beautifully together.
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| Cameron Highlands |
Camping on the coast just north of Melacca it was amazing to see the continuous stream of huge container ships heading north, presumably carrying goods from China and SE Asia to Europe. Virtually all shipping from east of Singapore to Europe passes through the Melacca straits reflecting how strategic the port was when first established.
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| Cameron Highlands tea Plantation |
Heading north we drove to Frasers Hill in the highlands to find some cooler weather. Frasers Hill is an old town built as a resort for the colonials to escape the heat and humidity of the coast, and is located in forested mountains. From there we headed to the Cameron Highlands, driving through the famous tea plantations on a very busy Sunday afternoon, and camping at just under 2000m where we even had to wear extra layers to keep warm.
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| Ipoh Railway Station |
Ipoh, one of the main towns on the railway line north of Kuala Lumpur, has a magnificent railway station built in 1844 just alongside the old town which has a strong Chinese influence. Amongst the many old building are a series of murals painted on walls depicting scenes from old Ipoh.
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| Old Ipoh |
The town sits under some beautiful limestone hills, and was established when tin was found nearby. In the last hundred years many new temples have been built, either in caves in the limestone or in the lee of the cliffs. The Perak Cave temple was built in 1914 by the local Chinese community and in addition to one large Buddha it has turned many smaller side caves into chapels to different Buddhas, and has a staircase up through the caves to a view point over the town.
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| Rickshaw mural in Ipoh |
A more recent Tibetan Pagoda constructed in the 1930's houses a Buddha at the top of an eight storey pagoda. The inside of the pagoda has suspended platforms which can be reached from an internal staircase providing an unusual perspective.
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| Perak Cave Temple |
The last couple of days in Malaysia we drove through the beautiful forested mountains in the centre of the country. A treetop walk 20m above the forest floor gave fantastic views of the forest canopy, and camping by a lake where elephants had clearly been browsing in the previous few days. Although we heard them trumpeting in the forest we sadly did not see them.
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| Tibetan Pagoda - Ipoh |
Today we successfully crossed the border and are now in Thailand.
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| Inside Tibetan Pagoda |
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| Treetop Walk |
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| Malaysian Mountain Lake |
