Khota Baru

Up early, at 6:30, showered, had breakfast, then got a boat taxi out to our slow boat back to Kuala Besut. Got a shared taxi with another couple back to Khota Baru for 27 ringget. We were chatting with the taxi driver, and he asked us where we were going, and we told him the Cameron Highlands. He told us we had to catch an express bus to Ipoh, then catch la local bus from Ipoh to Tapah, then another local bus to Cameron Highlands. He told us there are only two buses to Ipoh, one at about 9:00AM, the other at 9:00PM (a night bus). We had already missed the day bus. The taxi driver drops us off at the central bus station in Khota Baru, and points us in the direction of the ticket office to get our ticket to Ipoh, and then he told us we could store our bags at his guest house, which is just half a block from the ticket office, and he gave us the name (RV Inn). We walked to the ticket office, bought our ticket for the 9:30PM bus to Ipoh, then walked down to RV and dropped our bags off, then went out to try to kill the day in Khota Baru.

First we went to a Bata shoe store to buy some flip-flops, because Court busted mine while we were walking to the ticket office, and Court bought a new pair as well, then we went to A&W for lunch, walked around the Central Market, walked through a few air conditioned department stores (just to cool off), bought a 10-in-1 board game set (that ended up being a "pieces of paper" of paper game set), hit the internet for a few hours, went to McDonalds for a drink and a snack, played Snakes and Ladders there, went to the night food market for supper and had some gross beef roti (beef and veggies wrapped in a dough), then chicken shwarma (a Muslim dish), played some pick-up sticks.

The markets are already selling pirate DVD copies of the new Matrix movie (Matrix: Reloaded, I believe).

We went back to the RV Inn about 7:15 and relaxed. About 8:00, our taxi driver finished his taxi day, and came back to the inn, and had a big bag of mango fruit. He offered us a bunch of mango, and we ate mango with him and chatted with him. He also does treks into the Malaysian jungle, and he showed us pictures of some of his treks. He was a super nice guy.

About 9:00, we walked down to the bus station and got on our bus. Nice, new air-conditioned bus. Bus left about 9:30, and everyone on the bus curled up and tried to sleep.

People super friendly in Malaysia. The east coast of Malaysia is very Muslim, they even have separate men and women checkouts in the supermarkets (but no one actually pays any attention to them). Virtually all the women have their heads covered. Being here totally reminds Court of being in Jordan.

Everyone speaks English in Malaysia as well. It's great.

When Court and I were shopping, we walked through a food market, so we decided to buy a bunch of stuff that we had no idea what it was, and do some taste tests. Most of the stuff was gross.