After some reflection, inspiration which led to me writing a short essay on the plane about the problems of the world, I commenced the traveling min earnest. Immigration and customs caused me no grief and I got myself sorted with a phone and bus ticket to take me to the centre of the city.
My mum had notified me the day before that the bus station we had arranged to meet was closed a suggested an alternate place to meet. So I arrived at KL sentral station and tried to figure out where to go. If there was a information booth it was nowhere to be found and I walked up two stories of stairs and the down again and back up again before I finally got clarity about how to get to this place bukit jalil that mum had mentioned. Turned out that from the station i had to take a train back the direction I came from, then transfer to another train to get to there. This added an extra hour to my journey and while we were intending to meet at 2, didn't get there until 3:45.
Fortunately as I walked into the station through a backdoor between two tents into the marshaling area, my mum shining rose hat and smile was there to greet me. We completed the formalities, excretion and consumption and stepped on the bus. By this stage is was 4:30 which meant we wouldn't arrive at our destination, Ipoh until after 8 pm. By the time we were on the bus we had realized that our lax planning had been highly inefficient and if we had met a KL sentral and caught the train we would have been there hours earlier and ringgits cheaper.
The bus trip was pleasant enough as we passed palm plantations, deforestation and apartment complexes that only Asian countries aspire to (though necessity I may add) I caught up on mum's family gossip and I filled my mum in on the Aussie gossip.
We arrived in Ipoh and caught a taxi to our hotel in the train station adding further insult to injury. But given the palacial, yet slightly worn out condition of our accommodation all was forgiven. My mother was particularly surprised and amused by the celubrious surroundings. After checking in we wandered through the old quarter of colonial building searching for meal natter considering that we had gone in the wrong direction we stumbled across a streetside restaurant, with accompanying Carlsberg and Tiger girls that was able to serve us snow beer, Tom Yam soup and Thai style chicken. This was much needed respite after a long day on the road. With two longnecks down and full stomachs we stumbled back to the hotel briefly accompanied by some Tamil music from a party next door.
Waking from a hardened beds we emerged onto our balcony to be served breakfast consisting to ho hum noodles, toast and Luke warm tea. Today was the day to travel up in the highlands so we packed our bags an wandered to the bus station to get ticket. The bus left at 11am so i decided that we would wander through the heritage town for an hour and the go to the bus. 15 min in mum turns to me and asks what Sevareid doing before reminding me that she was still feeling I'll and didn't want to spend the next hour walking. So we decided instead to search for a coffee house and were helped on our way by an old man thanking us for visiting Malaysia.
We eventually ambled into an intersection with a restaurant on each corner. We decided on thebfruitiest of the four and sat down for some Cinna juice (what ever that is). It look and tastes a bit like come without the fizz. We talked more and amused ourselves watching a lady slice fruit like she had been doing it for 20 years. I thought that she might lose a finger one day, mum though that unlikely.
By that stage the clock in my head was ticking and we travelled Godspeed back to our hotel, collected our luggage and of to the bus station.
I might take the time to establish some context here. The cameron highland are just that, and only accessible by winding mountain roads. A couple of day before we arrived a bus a driven off the road we were just about to travel killing almost 30 of the 40odd passengers, mostly Thai, on board. This was malaysia's worst ever bus accident. Further more the bus itself, a complete write-off was neatly placed on display between the train and bus station along a main road for all to see. I am not sure if it was the local scrapyard, or the governments way of sending a modest road safety message to the people during this holiday season. Anyway, we passed it for the second time as we walked to the bus to travel that same road having taken photos the first time.
The bus was waiting for husband was probably 20 years older than the bus that crashed and so I was happy we were traveling uphill and not down hill.
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