Malaysian Jungle, day two.  Our goal is hiking to the top of the peak behind our resort for a view of the rest of Taman Negara national park.  The view below was our reward for a very sweaty two hours of trekking.  The way down was not much easier then the way up.

Looking down the stairs from the resorts entrance you can see all of the stores and restaurants that float along the river.

Exactly one month before I was born flood waters here reached 74 meters.  The image above was taken from same spot I took the one below.  That is an enormous amount of water, hard to imagine.  The village from my previous posts, Kuala Lipis, was wiped out by a similar flood in 1926.

This gallery is a few images of the amazing plant life we saw along the trail and our boat trip on one of the small tributaries near the resort.

Serious root system that seems to be lost above ground.

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Judging from the image above you would think we were intrepid explorers with our trusty guide….

Wrong, just tourists in pink shirts and big sunglasses!

We really were deep in the jungle but this particular location is a major stopping point for tourists entering into the Taman Negara national park.  It is an amazing place and traveling the rivers in a long boat was a great experience.  We did not see an enormous amount of wildlife but we also did not have the time to go deep into the jungle and sleep in a hide, which is where it is more likely.  Anyway, enjoy the images.  More to come soon!

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Typical long boat for getting to and from our resort.

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Donald Duck says “Welcome to Kuala Lipis”.  Our first morning in Malaysia we found the Chinese hawker center for breakfast and we were greeted by our friend Donald and these two kids, who roared with laughter and ran when I turned my camera on them.

You may remember this location from the food postings, it is worth a second look.  This was very early in our trip an it was an amazing experience to get off the train in a city where we were two of maybe 4 or 5 westerners around.  Anyway, below is a group of images including the market we found for breakfast and a few views of the city itself.

Jeanne, eagerly anticipating breakfast.

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So far our food ratings, in terms of what might cause us harm in one form or another, have shaped up in what we are calling the FEARED scale, as in what to be feared and how feared do we need to be before we eat.

1.  Most dangerous:  SID  or better known as Serious Intestinal Destruction.

This can be brought on by many things including tap water, ice and all sorts of scary food that is not hot or of questionable origins.  A good example of this is the the scariest food we ever saw on the night train from Phan Thiet to Danang.  No, we did not tempt fate and stuck to our baguettes and fully pastuerized cheese products.

Scary food! Note we were in the 10th car on this train so this stuff was not in anyway hot.

2.  Could be dangerous but we still might eat it because it looks yummy:  MAID, Mildly Annoying Intestinal Distress.

This is more or less a fact of life and can be brought on simply by looking at the buffet at your hotel the wrong way.  Good examples of this are the various street vendors who serve up food that is hot and tasty but you might question the lack of hygiene.  The picture below is a good example of a great market stall that served up a mean grilled porkchop in a soy/teriyaki type marinade.  We ate two.  It was worth the risk!

It is hot, but is it clean?! Who cares it smelled amazing!

3.  Will more then likely make us sick but we should eat it because we don’t want to insult the very nice people that made it for us: PAID, Politley Annoying Instetinal Distress.

The best example of this happened just two nights ago.  We went to a crowded street market here in Hoi An, Vietnam.  The very nice lady who cooked for us assured us of making her best dishes for us so we let her make more or less whatever she wished.  We got a pancake style egg dish stuffed with bean sprouts and spicy beef, very tasty, but it came with fresh greens and rice paper to wrap it all up in.  The fresh greens looked less then fresh and we know not to trust just exactly how and in what they may have been washed.  But, with the chef and waitress eagerly showing us how to stuff our rice paper full of greens (“No, more salad, more salad!”) we dove in wrapping up greens and pancake and then dipping it in a deceivingly spicy, fishy, delicious sauce.  Did I mention the chefs nails where less the clean (try black around edges) leading us to seriously question our judgment and worry about getting a full nights sleep?   Happily we both seem fine and the food was fantastic.

4.  Last but not least is the dreaded POO Finger.  No fancy acronym here just plain and simple bacteria.  The worst thing about the Poo finger is that it is everywhere and you never know when it will point at YOU!  It is like culinary Russian roulette, it knows no bounderies and obeys no rules.  It is hard to pin down an example of the poo finger but rest assured it will find you eventually and when it does, it is best not to blame any one dish, restaurant or cook but to accept it as the price paid for having so many amazing meals, like the one below!

Simple fresh, amazing. "Dry" noodles with shrimp, eggs and hot chilli paste/sauce/stuff, not sure what to call it but it was spicy!

This is a very rough first video from a shrine in Singapore.  We happened by during an evening ceremony.  I had no idea at the time and still do not know what exactly was going on.  It was fascinating and the sound was amazing.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AP5MoMdEJg

 

 

Finally catching up with ourselves so I thought a few random images from our first couple of weeks would be a good post.

OK, some long awaited food images.  Impossible to describe all of the great meals we have had and the experiences that have gone with them.  Nevermind that Ho Chi Minh is having his revenge on my gut right now and I am limited to rice and bananas.

While cruising down the Mekong after visiting elephants, a number of local villages and the Buddha Cave, we ended up inadvertently in an international game of comparing scars and injuries with our guide.  We noticed a small scar above his eye and he told us it was a shaving accident when he was studying to be a monk.  One of his brothers got a bit sloppy with the razor.  This moved on to various other scars and wounds that we all showed off in a sort of escalating back and forth exchange.  Finally, he pulled our his trump card, a huge scar running all the way around his index finger ending in a bump the size of a marble on the side near the second knuckle.

He proceeded to tell us that when he was four years old he lived in a village in the hills.  No power and no running water, needless to say no hospital of any kind.  Anyway, he was using a large knife and when the knife slipped it cut off his finger.  The finger dropped to the ground.  He quickly grabbed the finger away from the chicken that had grabbed it thinking it was a quick snack.  His parents took him to the local shaman.  The shaman had been taught many years ago how to put fingers and toes back on but this was his first real experience the reattachment of parts.  The shaman stuck the finger back in place wrapped it in some kind of medicinal plant and after what sounded like many weeks and months the finger was back in place and working, albeit with a large scar and the bump.

Stepping back a week or so, back to Singapore.  I thought I would post a group of images from one of the oldest remaining cemeteries in Singapore.  Many of the old cemetaries are being moved or destroyed because of development.  This one, called Bukit (meaning hill) Brown (being the former colonial owner of the property) is still intact and quite large.  Make that very large!  We touched on just a small section and it was very overgrown and in poor condition, which is not uncommon among chinese cemetaries.  They do not view upkeep of the garden style cemetery the same way we do.  They do however still make offerings and visit the graves.  It is an amazing place!

I am finding it very hard to set aside time to edit and post images.  So, my postings may lag a few weeks behind where we actually are on our trip.  There is just way too much to see and do.  We are in Luang Prabang, Laos right now and its is an amazing town/small city with a French influence in both the architecture and the food.  The people here are amazing, friendly and genuinely curious about our culture and happy to share theirs with us. So, I have decided to skip over many days of adventure and catch you up to where we are right now. I will try to fill in the gaps when I can.  All the best from Loas!

Oh, and did I mention, ELEPHANTS!