We bought freight tickets to there, assuming we would be able to cope when the time came. I raced around for an hour at the border, but once again discovered that if you present people with a problem and sit back and wait, they will solve it. We ended up with our bikes on the platform of the last car and headed into Malaysia.
We arrived at Butterworth and headed for the bus station, again being assured by the ticket seller that they bus could handle bicycles. Faced with a driver who did not do baggage, we stood around looking pitiful and the ticket agent told us to just stick them in the last few seats. Not easy, but we got all our stuff to Ipoh!
I follow a email list that was started by a few of those people to share their bird pictures. I sent an email to one of the Ipoh digiscopers, Ooi Beng Yean, telling him we would be in Malaysia and asking him for local places to look at birds. I emailed again just before we left Thailand and he told me to phone when we got to town.
Well, we checked into the Station Hotel (once a great building, has seen some bad times, now owned by a hotel group with big plans that might see it a great building again) and called him. He took over from there.
They also suggested that the place to stay was a narrowing in the road on the way up the mountain called The Gap.
This is the Malaysian rest house at the Gap. Like Sri Lanka, there used to be rest houses all over the country intended for use by government officials during their official travels around the country. It is definitely a holdover from the colonial era. This is one of the last rest houses in Malaysia - its days may be numbered.
It has 8 rooms and a restaurant. No way it make sense economically - it is just too small. Fun to stay at for a couple of days while I birded the mountains.
The mountain top is a jungle - a rain/cloud forest - that includes monkeys and apes. The clouds were sweeping into the area most of the day. Perhaps there are better seasons for tourists. Not bad time for birders though.
Beng took us to a cave temple near his home. Cave temples (where have we seen those before) are pretty popular in the area. The caves have always been there, but recently the idea of putting an outdoor temple into caves has caught on - in a commercial sense as well as with the people.
Aside from being a cave and a buddhist temple, it is also a good location for birds. That is Beng with the tripod leading Brenda through the cave temple. Beng was going to show us digiscopting techniques with the local specialty birds. Unfortunately, a helicopter had been delivering parts to build a new electrical transmission tower in the area and there were no birds!
I did get to see some birds though when Beng and his friend Mr. Chu took me on a birding tour of the Cameron Highlands another mountain birding area nearer Ipoh. A great birding time for me. The birds and the friendly people in Malaysia were wonderful.
A fast food court with 35 different cooks all competing for your dining dollar. You got a table, walked around to the various stalls and ordered your dinner, paid, then waited for it to be delivered. The regulars were able to order a meal by combining food from several stalls. We made do with Chicken Rice from one stall and Guiness from another.
Aside from the variety of food, it was interesting to see a very different style of restaurant.
While tall, they do not dominate the surrounding area since the bases are actually quite small.
They are just a little taller than Brenda in fact!
