I fell asleep on the bus from Kuala Lumpur to the Cameron Highlands. When I awoke, I thought I must have arrived on another planet. On either side of the highway was an utterly devastated landscape, brutally clear cut land without any sign whatsoever of the lush jungle that used to thrive there. Not a green speck. All that remains is terraced red earth, ready for monoculture plantings of oil palms. I had seen multitudes of palms from the plane before landing in the KL airport. From the air they look beautiful; repetitive floral star shapes in endless green rows. On the ground I realized the raw, alive, breathing jungle was being steadily transformed into a single commodity, an orderly, controlled, one crop nation ruled by short term gain.
Farther away from KL and closer to the Cameron Highlands we entered into steeper territory, more difficult to conquer, the jungle still reigning. The roads were winding and narrow. We sensed monkeys and wild things in the mountains. In our travel group of two families we had animals of our own; 4 rowdy little girls with big voices. The busload of Malays and Indians must have been glad when we reached our destination.
We stuffed the taxi van to the limit with luggage and ourselves, and it deposited us at a Scottish style chalet, built during the colonial era, now run by an Indian family, done up for Christmas. Both the chalet and the family. It was Christmas Eve. Our friends waxed nostalgic for Christmas in England and partook of the evening special with cocktails, turkey dinner, Christmas pudding, songs and games beside the fireplace. Asher and I opted out and went into the tiny town, during a downpour, searching for something fresh and ending up with vegetarian south Indian food served on a banana leaf. We returned in time for a round of musical chairs. I never knew it was a Christmas activity. Even an Indian Santa arrived, beard askew. Christmas, in a Muslim country, served up British style by Hindus. Surreal.
We intended to hike through spongy jungle in search of the legendary giant Rafflesia flowers while in the Cameron Highlands. We hired a guide, Balan, a third generation Cameron Highlander of Indian decent driving a heavy duty old Land Rover mounted with cow horns. Balan was willing to take us on the jungle trails, but informed us we would wade through knee deep mud. We decided that might be a bit much for the 4 little howler monkey girls and opted for easier tourist paths with a view and a tea plantation stopover. Half of Malaysia, it seemed, was vacationing in the Cameron Highlands which is rapidly sacrificing its natural beauty to develop into a commercial tourist trap, a phenomena sweeping Asia. The narrow roads can get clogged to the point where a drive that should take 15 minutes lasts four hours. Balan knew how to get around so that we never once got caught in traffic. Our jungle walk was ho hum, but the rolling hillsides carpeted with vibrant green pruned tea plants were stunning. Asher loaded up on a year supply of Boh tea while the girls had lunch in the plantation restaurant serving up food I couldn’t even look at, but instead feasted my eyes on the surprisingly sophisticated modern architecture design cantilevered over the growing tea. For dinner Chinese steamboats, a Cameron Highlands specialty of a dozen vegetables you can plop for yourself, table side, into steaming broth -- or, in my case, skip the boiling pot and consume the veggies raw -- finally gave me something to eat that I didn’t mind consuming.
Moving further north, again by bus, we made our way to Penang, the Pearl of the Orient, a large island in the Malacca Straits almost kissing the coast of northwestern Malaysia. An old trade route, Penang bears Dutch, Portuguese and British colonial influences as well as having seen waves of Chinese, Indian and Armenian immigration. Word has it that Penang offers the best street food in Asia. We arrived in George Town, Penang between Christmas and New Years without reservations or a plan, but with 4 wiggly girls wanting to run their legs and needing a meal. Sofia also needed a toilet, but the bus station didn’t seem to offer that kind of amenity and we found a nice, hidden patch of grass. We also found, immediately, two taxis able to take us to a hotel that happened to have rooms available at a decent rate and the rooms happened to have views of the ocean. In no time at all we were on the streets sampling the cuisine, trying a bit of this here and a taste of that there. It was super handy having our friend Edith with us (mother of the 3 stair-step girls two years apart), who grew up speaking Mandarin at home and could explain to the baffled street chefs, used to tossing everything into a sizzling wok, that I really didn’t want my Chinese cabbage fried. Really.
George Town is a UNESCO World Heritage site which means plentiful strolling opportunities down side streets with colonial architecture and glimpses into the past. We found a few wonderfully restored buildings, converted into restaurants or hotels, but most of George Town is more in the category of shabby chic. Or just shabby. On an early morning run I found some structures from a previous century that the jungle was in the process of reclaiming, trees and vines climbing through the windows. Later we found a coffee bar with a wifi signal and were able to sit curbside sipping espresso and hopping on skype with my parents and son while surrounded by the streets of Penang just waking up, a confluence of influences and time periods merging. Outside our hotel were updated versions of the rickshaw, pulled by a human on a bicycle, always waiting for a fare. We hired two -- all the rickshaw drivers seem to be older men -- and they took us for a spin around town and down to the original port where the first Chinese immigrants made their homes. The tiny rustic houses, still inhabited, look much as they always had only now each one has a television. We determined that Penang offered a more authentic view into 19th century China than China does, Penang never having gone through the Mao era cultural wipeout.
On one outing we took the munchkins to the Penang State Museum. Entering the initial exhibit my surprised eye caught sight of a large photograph of the Lubavitcher Rebbi. I learned that Penang’s Armenian quarter had once contained a small Jewish section and a Jewish cemetery, maintained by Muslims, still exists. As my friends and the children continued sweeping through the museum, I fell into a lengthy conversation, before the Rebbi’s watchful eye, with two Jewish New Yorkers, Santa Fe transplants. We had much in common including mutual friends who live in Bali. This couple had just come from Koh Lipe, Thailand and it just so happened that Asher and I had recently decided Koh Lipe would be our next stop after Penang. They gave us a big thumb’s up about going there and were able to recommend a place to stay. Eventually I caught up with our group and had fun photographing the kids in front of the museum’s historic photographs, looking like they had stepped into the past.
Jon and Edith took the children to the Botanical Gardens while Asher and I had a meal with friends of friends who live in Penang. Kung Wai, native to Penang, works with an NGO promoting organic farming and his Japanese wife, Junko, runs a Waldorf inspired preschool. We had a lively conversation about raw food, public health and the politics of organic agriculture. Malaysia, Kung Wai informed us, imports the vast majority of its food from Thailand and China. What a dead-end course for a country to take, removing itself from its own food supply, choosing to chop down its jungle, import food necessities and focus on a single crop, palm oil, for export. We left Penang with thoughts of gratitude for the Green School and the opportunity to put our beliefs into practice, serving up healthy, organic, locally grown food, and a sense of how important that model will be in the future.
Part 3 yet to come...
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