Cameron Highlands - Tea, Forest, Run

I finally got on the road and arrived from KL to the Cameron Highlands region in the center of continental Malaysia (the other half of the country is sharing Borneo with Brunei and Indonesia).

Tanah Rata is my host city for 2 nights before following my route towards Bangkok.

I have been meeting again a lot of new faces but funnily enough I got reminded just how small the world is. The first night I shared a 6 beds dorm with 2 French girls that graduated from the same school as I did (IAE Grenoble) but 9 years after... and a Canadian girl that had cross path during her travels with the American guy I was with at the roof top bar the night before. We had a good laugh telling each other how random this all was.

Anyway, on arrival I had booked a tour for early this morning and went discovering the region with my guide and... 10 tourists from China. It was a lot of fun for most of the tour... An intensely noisy experience but somehow fun. The kids were dabbing all the time (imagine 4 little Chinese Pogba doing the Dab, every 2 minutes).

The tour started with a visit of the tea plantation in the area.
A few facts from what I could hear and understand (these Chinese...):
- A British "discovered" the potential of the region while mapping the area. Not sure when.
- It took a Scot to develop and manage a 1200+ hectares black tea plantation.
- The 3rd generation of that Scottish family still owns the plantation.
- The tea leafs are harvested every 3 to 4 weeks.

The place is absolutely breath taking and no pictures can do justice to the beauty of these hills.
I took a bit more than a 700 pictures today just in that area with both my phone and my GoPro.
I deleted most to keep just 52. And here are a couple for you :)

Tea plantation (black tea)

Green is the new black

I am trying as much as possible to organise the picture on the go, otherwise I am pretty sure it will never be done. I have to admit that I am adapting quickly to my MacBook air. The software developed by Apple are making it so easy for you to arrange organise and edit your pictures (no they are not paying me to write that ...).

After the tea plantation a short visit to the tea factory. Interesting stuffs again. The process seems to be both easy and quick. From the tea tree to the tea bag there is less than a day of work. The leaves are being processed in some big machinery, dry with hot air and that's it really...

A couple of extra visits were scheduled:
- the Mossy Forest. A rain forest as there are a lot in the region.
- the Mt Brinchang (2032m above see level).

Very interesting explanations from the guide but towards the end of the tour I was not as entertained as in the beginning. The Chinese had won their battle against my patience and tolerance... I decided to step back a little rather than screaming at the adults that kept throwing garbage everywhere in the forest and on the roads... and there were unfortunately nothing I could do to make it stop. I tried to tell them twice, they pretended not to understand. To add to my disappointment the guide did not seem to care so much either.

I went back to the Hotel for a small nape. The day had been intense up until now. I had woke up at 6am, run through the hills for an hour and had an intense tour.

Tomorrow will be another day. For the first time I will set foot on an island in Asia as I will take a ferry from Kuala Perlis to Langkawi. The bus going north will leave at 8am and go for 6 or 7 hours depending on the traffic. After 2 nights in the mountain at 1500m above see level, it will be nice to finally get to the sea :)

Kuala Lumpur - getting around and first day

As I should have expected, the plan did not go so much... as planned.

The aim of the day was to visit the National Mosque and the Islamic arts Museum Of Malaysia.

Both are located in the same area of the city, short distance from the central train station. I decided to head there walking... which was not a bad idea but the difficulty to reach these places efficiently was doomed by the fact that I was not carrying a good map, just a poorly printed copy displaying only the main roads.

One of the entrance of the National Mosque

For that reason I took several detours around the National Mosque. When I eventually got there I was welcome by a group of devoted Muslims giving free gifts (a piece of cake and a little perfume). The Islamic community is celebrating the birthday of the Prophet, hence the little present to visitors. Unfortunately, no access was granted to me at the Mosque since I arrived during praying hours. 

Islamic arts Museum

Next stop the Museum located 5 minutes walk from the Mosque.

Getting there, the emptiness of the place really surprised me. It would turn out that I arrived after the first round of group visits and left before the second round of group visits. Lunch time IS the perfect time of the day to visit this place, you skip the noisy and not always interested foreigners.

The different exhibits were absolutely wonderful. I got to learn a lot of things about Muhammed, Islam, Prayers, Architecture, Calligraphy ... and Islamic arts in general. A temporary exhibition of Austria and Islam highlighted the influence of the Muslim world to this european nation.

This museum is a must if you are curious and want to learn about another culture. I have to thank Thierry for the tip there. It turned out I spent much more time than expected visiting the collections loosing another opportunity to go to the Mosque (visits in between prayers).

I decided to return and go towards the Twin Towers, walking around the city for a total of 20km according to the activity tracker of my watch. I eventually got back to the park I was running in the same morning... but absolutely crowded. It would have been impossible to run during the day. 

Shopping mall underneath the Petronas Twin Towers facing the KLCC park

Petronas Twin Towers. Once the tallest building in the world.

I returned to the hostel around 5 pm, lied down for a little bit while uploading the pictures on the computer and speaking to other guests. We decided at 6pm to go have a drink at the Heli Bar, a heliport during the day that transforms in a lounge bar in the evening. The view up there is amazing: KL tower on one side, Twin Towers on the other side. The group of people I am with could hardly be more international: an American, a few Brits, an Ukrainian, a Dutch and a Malaysian. 

That's what travelling is all about, meeting different people and sharing experiences.

Photo credit Aizad.

Tomorrow I will be heading to Cameron Highlands, known for its tea plantation and endless hiking possibilities.

And some more photos and curiosities:

KLCC park. Despite being rather small, it is possible to take pictures without humans on it!

Sidewalks with roof are found everywhere in KL.

View from the heli lounge bar before sunset.

Departure Day and Festival of Lights in Lyon

This is probably the 60th time I am boarding an airplane this year and never have I been so stressed.

Not quite sure why, maybe because for the first time since a long time I am on my own and will be for the coming weeks. The last 4 months - ever since I left Barcelona - I have been surrounded by family and friends, feeding myself with their love and energy.

I am now alone on the road on a journey that should help me find the past to my future.

As a good friend keeps telling me: It's all about the journey, not the destination.

Well I hope there are nice waves to surf on in that journey :)

Anyway the last 24 hours have been close to perfect in Lyon spending quality time with old friends and wandering the city's streets at night admiring the Festival of Lights.

For the reason we know security this year have been increased but the overall experience remains special. The building of the old town and the Saint Jean area coming to life in these perfect display of image and sound. Take a minute to see the piece of art that transformed the facade of cathedral Saint Jean (make sure you watch it in 1080p).

The city of Lyon claims that more than 4 millions visitors pass by during the week end.

My journey away from that madness will take me to Malaysia for the first time with a short layover in Istanbul.

It was a fun last day in Europe. I got to share a coffee and couple of hours with an old college of mine from Amsterdam! Was cool to see you Lee :)

As I am writing these line, it appears that a bombing took place in the center of the city, close to the Besiktas stadium. I am safe, at the airport at the moment enjoying a beer waiting for my connecting flight.

Next post will be from Kuala Lumpur :)

The bag packing...

I have spent quite some time thinking what I should bring to that trip.

During my investigation, I came across a lot of valuable information shared by other travellers.

The main point was to travel light and carry as least as possible.

Bringing little clothes will require to hand wash what i have every 2 or 3 days.

This is not my area of expertise, so youtube tutorials and Google are helping me loads :)

Here is a Globetrotter travelling the world with 3 under wears and 3 shirts :

I did my best to reduce the load considering that I have to bring my running gears. On the picture below is not appearing the electronics and travel documents / papers. Are missing:

- MacBook Air + external HD

- GoPro + poll + chest harness

- Power bank + all sorts of charging cables + international plug adaptor.

The latest additions were purchased yesterday in Decathlon and I can't wait to try are a Camping sleeping liner and a portable hammock!

As for the bag pack itself, I'll be carrying a 40L duffel bag maybe not the most confortable but definitely large enough and waterproof.

Heavy chillin ahead.

About time to update this blog!

I had almost forgotten about this blog I started in 2011... (Don't try to look for older posts... I deleted everything besides the first post).

3 weeks ago I tried to quit smoking once more and remembered that I once upon the time wrote my very own blog. Around the same time I have started to train a bit harder and more consistently than I ever did (if you are familiar with Strava, you can follow my trainings here).

Objective is clearly to be and stay fit, healthy and happy.

So far so good :)

The initial purpose has not change.

The only difference being that I am currently not working and enjoying a LOT of free time.

I have been busy travelling and meeting a lot of my family members and friends across the continent having an absolute blast along the way.

Now that this Euro Tour is over (what an incredible 2 months it was...), I will be going further away for another 2 months. Flying out from Lyon to Kuala Lumpur on Saturday the 10th of December.

Upon requests from many of you I have been thinking of a way to share that adventure.

Facebook is probably the easiest media to do so... and I will surely post a lot of pictures, anecdotes, videos to make you jealous as hell.

Updating this blog will be something I will try regularly, sharing more insights and details of that trip.

Being a bit preoccupied to leave Europe alone for some time to unknown locations, I did prepare myself a little:

- I will be landing in Kuala Lumpur and spending 2 days there.

- From the 13th until the 24th I will be travelling overland from Malaysia to Thailand (Bangkok). For this I am getting a lot of inspiration from this blogger.

- On Xmas day I will be running the Thailand International mini marathon, a half half marathon (10.5km)

- The 27th of December, I will be flying from Thailand to Philippines (Manila) and spend there 3 weeks wandering about the islands. I will be in Cebu on the 7th - 8th of January to run a half marathon with the objective of breaking my PB.

- From mid January until mid February there is nothing sure.

2 more days, better packing my bag :)