Penang

We arrived in Penang just after dark, and were dropped at the En Ang hostel in the heart of town. We took a look at some of the rooms, and they were disgusting, so we walked up the Lebuh Chulia eventually settling at the excellent Cathay Hotel, a stately looking ex colonial mansion. It's a little faded inside, but adequately comfy. We dropped our gear and set off for food. Malaysia is a melting pot of different cultures and religions, principally Indian, Chinese and ethnic Malay, but also English, German and Japanese, not to mention Burmese and Thai. As such there is a very eclectic choice of cuisine. We were feeling nostalgic for a spot of Indian curry, and found ourselves diving into an underground place called the Kashmir. There was a live band in full swing performing shrieky Bollywood numbers. It was just like being back in Rajasthan. It was late by time we'd finished, and on the way back to the hotel the prostitutes were out dangling their legs all over the street. Then I heard them talking in deep baritone voices. Ugh, Lady Men!

Georgetown is one of the best places to take in well-preserved examples of Malaysia's colonial history. Georgetown was the site of the first British settlement in Malaysia, when Sir Francis Light, a wealthy merchant first raised the Union flag in 1786. He negotiated a lease on the island from the local Sultan in return for British Naval protection and £30,000 a year. The Sultan never got the promised protection, and soon became angered by the British presence. He sent the heavy mob round to get rid of these irritating foreigners, only to get badly beaten. The lease was reduced to £6000 a year. Penang soon grew to be the foremost British trading entrepot in South East Asia. However it's glory days were short lived as Singapore rose to prominence in the mid-1800s.

A gentle stroll round the city streets on a Sunday morning is a good way to take in the history without the bustle. Quaint Chinese 'shophouses' and temples can be found cheek by jowl with modern 5-star hotels. The esplanade is a good place to see some of the old fortifications (Fort Cornwallis). The Penang Art and History museum is worth a visit, especially since it's free, and more so because of its blissful air conditioning. The displays take you through the city's interesting history.

Cameron Highlands

The Cameron Highlands are one of the worlds major tea growing regions. Huge plantations stretch up the valley floor. We took a local bus to the village of Brinchang, from where we hiked for 4km through a seemingly endless maze of tea bushes to the centre of the Sungei Palas Tea estate. This estate is part of the enormous Boh tea company, established in the 1890's by a Brit, John Archibald Russel, known affectionately as 'Archie'. He arrived in Malaysia from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) where his family had been running successful tea plantations for years. The tea bushes are clipped every 15 days or so, sometimes by hand, but more usually these days by an odd looking machine that looks like a lawnmower on stilts.

At the centre of the plantation, you walk past the wooden huts of the tea workers. They are well looked after these days. The factory is also at the centre, and you can you can take a tour, where a worker explains the process of curling and rolling the tea leaves to break down the sells before heating them in a large fan oven and fermenting them to achieve a rich flavour. The fermentation process is halted by a final blast of hot air, after which the tea is sorted into different grades and packaged. Needless to say, you can sample the product in the onsite cafe, and then buy the stuff from the shop.

Gunung Brinchang is one of the highest peaks in the Cameron Highlands, at 2000m it sounds like quite a trek, but when you start at 1700m it's actually quite an easy hike along a little used dead end road. The jungle-lined road leads up to a small radar station on top of the mountain. Look out for the fly trap plants that dissolve unwitting insects in a soup of enzymes and acid. There is a large watchtower at the top, which you can climb for spectacular views across the valleys. I tried taking a bearing on the village to help us on our way down through the jungle, but the compass needle veered erratically all over the place. Obviously the radar station was inducing some weird magnetic fields in the watchtower. We ate our packed lunch at the top before diving down into a hole in the tree line. We descended down a ridiculously steep muddy chute under the dark jungle canopy. It was a rough walk down, booby trapped with tree roots, loose rock and mud. We could hear the occasional eerie cry of monkeys as we piled through the woods. It took over an hour to reach the edge of Brinchang village, which we walked straight through towards Tanah Rata past the pristine golf course. There is a halfway point on this road that is well worth stopping at. Ye Old Smokehouse is a nineteenth century pub / hotel. It looks like it's been lifted straight out of Surrey and dumped in the middle of the jungle. The cream teas are absolutely fabulous, not to be missed.

Kuala Lumpur

Singapore

Singapore was better than I thought it would be. We stayed at a flat belonging to a friend of Katie's which helped save on accommodation, which is just as well, since everything is very expensive here. The city is very orderly, uncannily so, a bit like it's run by robots or something. The government, as is well known, is very paternalistic, and likes to take a hands on approach to running everybody's life. Encouragingly, we did see some signs of rebelliousness in the local population. I saw a couple cross the street without using a pedestrian crossing, and I saw some lads sitting on the steps in the tube. There are government warnings everywhere threatening huge fines for minor indiscretions "Vandals will be caned and/or imprisoned". (I'm in favour of that one though), "No Litter, fine $1000", and "No explosive gases or liquids on the metro, fine $5000". That's a pretty expensive fart you've just let off mate...

Despite these draconian penalties, most citizens seem to be going about the place with big smiles on their faces. It must be the programming. We even found ourselves enjoying the place. They say 'It's so clean you could eat off the floor', which was just as well, since that's about all we could afford to do.