to the East Coast of Malaysia

I thought I would bring everyone quickly up to date with the trip up the Malaysian peninsula, and Birgit and I can then add some reef-related stories plus hopefully get a slide show of pictures up.

We took two long bus rides, Seremban to Ipoh and then, the following day, from Ipoh over the spine of the peninsula to Kota Bharu on the east coast. The buses we took are public - we were the only Westerners on both of the buses. They come in a variety of options, differing mainly between the various competing companies that offer regular services. The largest national carriers seem to provide the most luxurious and fastest buses - I got many opportunities to view them as they overtook us.

The stations are frenetic places but quite user-friendly once you get the concept that there are multiple small booths offering competing services to various destinations. We were lucky on both trips despite having opted for fairly old and slow buses on each occasion. From Seremban we got the last two seats and sat therefore in the rear seats right above the suspension. The ride was however comfortable on good roads all the way up.

At Ipoh we really lucked out. We had failed to think through the implications of the fact that we were intending to travel across the peninsula on the Saturday marking the first day of school holidays. Having dumped our rucksacks at the hotel in Ipoh we rushed back, on the advice of the owner, to the bus station to book the onward journey. Seemingly not a chance ... a relentless litany of apologetic smiles from inside the booths - all sold out until Sunday evening. A real exodus of families was heading back home for the hols. At last however Birgit scored a hit - I guess the last two spaces on any bus heading east. So as you can imagine the prospect of the rear two seats yet again was in fact a happy one.

The ride over the hills and down to the coast was scenic and good fun. For those interested in checking on Wikipedia or Google, the bus didnt follow the route through the Cameron Highlands. This is in all the guidebooks as one of the most picaresque tourist areas of Malaysia - developed by the Brits as a tea-growing hill station in the 1920s and,like many in India, still retaining much of the olde England charm.

Our elderly bus however headed over a more northerly and direct route. The more mountainous terrain seems to have kept the worst of the plantation economy at bay, although you could tell by the logging tracks cut into the surrounding forest that the logging industry was active. I guess there are very few teak trees left that are not going to be featuring in a Homebase catalogue before long unless things change drastically. However, the scenery was great, in particular as the bus began the descent to the east coast as that side of the mountains seems to benefit from most of the precipitation and is much more lush and verdant.

The east coast is demographically the most Malay part of Malaysia - the Chinese and Indian populations being miniscule compared to the 30-50% they seem to comprise in the rest of the country. Its also the most observantly Muslim and seems to be the poorest area. Small farm plots were cut a hundred meters or so back into the forest with a shack built close to the road; a harvest of tropical fruit, a small stall selling produce on the road and a few chickens seemed to be the standard. I guess that explained the diaspora on the west coast all heading back home for the holidays.

However, as we were to find out, people were very warm, outgoing, direct, proud of their culture and country, and down-to-earth and pragmatic. In our experience this was particularly the case with women, which seemed to directly contradict the religious stereotype. The guidebooks report that the east coasters have the reputation in Malaysia of being highly entrepreneurial ... it was the key trade route linking the ancient north east asian economies of China-Japan-Korea with south east asia and the Indian ocean.

After an evening in Kota Bharu we took a 1 hour taxi ride south to the little outpost on the coast where you take the boat to the Perhentian Islands ... which will be the subject of the next entry.