I wanna live like common people...

Just about to blast out 'My Way'

“The traveller sees what he sees; the tourist sees what he has come to see” GK Chesterton

I actually read this on the wall of a guesthouse we’ve been staying at in Kuching, which is the capital city of Sarawak (Malaysian Borneo).

It should actually read;

“Travellers are tourists who are up themselves”,

or more succinctly;

“Travellers are cunts”.

I was already a cunt before I left the UK, however I’m a different kind of cunt. Traveller cunts are the most loathsome, self-important, humourless bastards you are ever likely to encounter. The worst kind of course is the ‘hippy’ traveller, an example of which we crossed paths with only yesterday. In fact there were two of them, husband and wife (or ‘life partners’ probably) who had all the appropriate ethnicky tat, ‘cultural clothing’ nothing shaped or designed to fit properly, wispy goat beard for him, long blonde drippy girl hair only suitable for a girl under 12 or a super-model looking fucking ridiculous on a po-faced early thirties hippy. They also had a kid with them, poor little bastard, she looked at them with the same level of disgust as I did. And Jesus, the conversations these wankers were having…

(Read this aloud in a faux-deep/ serious voice, with no intonation at all)

“So I think we should really look long and hard at where we go next, I believe a number of destinations have some commonalities with where we have already experienced…”

“Yes, yes, I see what you are saying, m’kay”

I added the ‘m’kay’, but they both had a bit of the Mr Mackey (South Park, not The Shield) about them.

And later as they struggled to get their kid ready, whilst simultaneously blocking the stairs with no regard at all for all the people trying to get past.

“Have you packed Amelia’s hat?”

“No, I haven’t packed Amelia’s hat. Did you ask me to pack Amelia’s hat?”

“I think I did ask you pack Amelia’s hat.”

“Should I go and get Amelia’s hat?”

Apparently the kid was called Amelia and there was a hat floating about that belonged to her.

A few minutes later the mother was trying to get Amelia to put the hat on, and this is where the standard passive-aggressive side of the hippie traveller emerged;

“Amelia, please put on your hat…”

Amelia looks at the drip like she’d rather die than spend another moment being the child of these fuckers.

“Amelia, come on now, put your hat on, you’ll need it to protect yourself from the harmful rays from the sun.”

The kid is all of about 3 years old – just put the fucking hat on kid or I’ll knock you one.

“Amelia, if you don’t put the hat on there will be no lunch for you… “

The kid looks to me for help – I can offer none.

“Amelia, I’m getting a little bit frustrated now, if you don’t put this hat on you’ll get no water either, or dinner…”

Charming, that’s not parental control, that’s threatening child abuse.

Eventually Amelia put the hat on, not because she was told to, but probably because like me she couldn’t bear to hear her parents drone on and on any more.

Evil bastard with the evil gushing out of him in a blinding white light of evil

The younger traveller, these gap-year studenty Facebook obsessed traveller bastards are also horribly distasteful, clothed to ‘fit in’ which typically means they have opted like the hippie to dress somewhat ethnicky, despite the fact that EVERYONE who lives here either wears jeans or if they are super religious those fucking ridiculous and vile misogynistic bhurka things. They also come with the standard ethnicky braided friendship bracelet. These are vile things that never get washed and eventually fall off the studenty traveller about the same time they get a fucking job and spend the rest of their miserable lives conforming to ever expected goals (job, kids, death) whilst constantly relating tales of the few weeks they roughed it in Asia.

“Travellers are just tourists without jobs”

Malaysia is packed full of Germans and Austrians who have surprised me greatly by typically being much louder and far more obnoxious than the British we have encountered, who have been merely annoying. I almost threw down with a bald short-arse German fella in the guesthouse who literally pushed me out of the way to get to an internet time-log book and then waved his money in front of my girlfriend who was already speaking with the receptionist. It didn’t come to blows, instead I gave him a hard stare – I know, I’m tough as nails me.

I’m a little concerned that travelling has made me far less tolerant than when I left.

Shhmoking…

I’ve never been a huge anti-smoker, mostly I think because I’ve never been a smoker, so I’ve never quit and become one of those reformed gits that moan about other smokers all the time without any sense of irony.

However, the number of smokers in Malaysia is ridiculous – almost everyone smokes, I’ve even seen toddlers with fags in their mouths (the sex industry here is also a concern). Seriously though, it’s been really bugging me, especially when the bloke who cut my hair in Kuala Lumpur told me that it is generally considered ‘cool’, which of course it is, but we know that it’s the kind of cool that is really bad for you, like reading comic books or being a middle aged video-gamer.

Apparently cigarette companies often hold events in the cities promoting cigarettes trying to get people hooked – I’m not totally surprised, I remember reading or hearing that the ciggie companies had moved on to the 2nd and 3rd world after us Westerners slowly got wise to them. You can smoke everywhere here, and people do – every meal is accompanied by couples chaining it – there are non-smoking areas but these are frequently the less comfortable areas. I feel like snatching the ciggies out of these people’s hands and shouting at them for being so thick;

“They’re going to kill you!”

I’d shout, to which they’d reply,

“Fuck it, with the way we drive our mopeds and our shitty little Korean go-carts we’re not going to see old age anyway.”

Which is a fair point, I guess.

Just moments before, this Proboscis called me an 'Ugly bastard'. Er... kettle - black me thinks.

“Travellers vs tourists? - I’d have to back tourists, they generally look healthier and can probably pack more of a punch”

Anyway, enough with all that, what good stuff have I been doing?

Rainforests, Dolphins and the shits.

Over the last few weeks we had been staying at a really decent little rainforest resort in a tree house. This was actually one of the better places we’ve stayed – the tree house which sat about 10 metres up and about 5 metres from the shore was cool, clean and comfortable. We did a couple of jungle treks (fucking exhausting) and we took a trip out to Bako National Park where Irrawaddy dolphins swam in a massive group next to our boat – not sure how the Irrawaddy differ from standard dolphins but they were cool with the pod comprising three types of colour schemes, grey, white and pink. The pink ones were a little odd if I’m honest – like how a 40 year-old Goth would look without his clothes on, all translucent white and veiny.

There was an incident at Bako which involved a mad dash by speedboat back to the National Park HQ and a quick and nervous walk to the toilets (filthy) where I went from blind panic to utter joyful relief as I struggled to get my shorts down and my arse on a toilet in time. Thankfully on this occasion, I made it.

Cat City

Anyway, we’ve deaded the guesthouse which was basic in the extreme and moved to the Kuching Hilton in an Executive room overlooking the city, which is far more expensive but also far nicer. We originally planned to go back and stay a night at the Bako National Park to see the big nosed monkeys (Proboscis) – we did see the funny looking fellas but didn’t stay because unfortunately the accommodation there was the most fucking disgusting thing I have ever seen in my life, and I lived in Liverpool for a year - and if I had to stay a single night there I was going to get the next flight home – which is basically what I said as I freaked out and demanded we go back to a nice hotel (the Hilton) – see, I’m not a fucking traveller cunt at all, just a cunt.

We’ve seen all sorts of wildlife over the last few days which I listed via the photos above.

Next we are going to Batang Ai Longhouse Resort, it’s on the border with Indonesia. After that we’re going to Brunei (pronounced ‘Brown Eye’ with a Scottish accent).

I’m rather hoping we can avoid any terrorist incident during our final month in Asia - there do seem to be a lot of these sweeping this area at the moment.

"I'm gonna rip your fucking face off"

“Travellers experience the places they visit, and then go back home to hygienic bathrooms and kitchens and low infant mortality rates.”

Camerooooooon Highlands, Laddie.

This one goes out to Garfer, who I know is up there in some highlands himself...


Sniff that tea, it smell good, ja?

Today we will start by talking about The Cameron Highlands which is in the middle and up a bit of Malaysia (ignore Borneo for a minute). It's a lot cooler than the rest of Malaysia which is mostly hot and humid (baby).

The most interesting thing about this place is that they make tea here and it's very much like where I was brought up - Great Malvern, Worcestershire, in the sense that they are both hilly, green, boring and wet.

No one makes tea in Malvern, well, obviously loads of people make tea, but not many people grow it - you know what I mean. They mostly make old people and frustrated kids in Malvern and the occasional Morgan motor car, which is like a normal car only a lot shitter, massively over-priced and that's all there is to them.

They also have water in Malvern, which is now owned by Coke.

We visted the 'Boh' tea plantation, as in; "I've dropped my tea, b'oh!". The plantation was nice. Had a tour of the factory which took literally about 2 minutes.

"Here we shred the tea leaf, here we put them in tiny bags..."



Malvern, in Malaysia... with tea plants and a bit of sun.

We stayed in the Cameron Highlands much longer than we really needed to, we stayed 3 nights when about 45 minutes would have been plenty of time.

Tana Rata which is the main town *cough* in the Cameron Highlands has a new Starbucks with great free internet and compfy sofas, y'know just like all Starbucks have - except this one was empty most of the time, presumeably because a cup of tea and a muffin costs about as much as an average months pay in Malaysia. Which is a shame for them but great for us as we didn't have to fight students and fucking mothers meetings to get a sofa and a plug socket.

Our hotel was a depressing mock-ye olde England with horse brasses and tudory exterior - like all the really shitty pubs in the UK. It was also very damp - my rucksack now weighs about four times as much as it did when I arrived.

Before this we were at Taman Negara which is a massive national park. It was shockingly hot and humid (quite moist), packed with critters and very hazardous to my health. In the space of an hour I got savaged by mozzies (again), cut my face almost taking out my eye on a branch on a trail and almost sucked to death by leeches that had found their way into my shoes (like a fuckwit I didn't wear socks) giving my multiple nasty sucks. I lost almost a pint of blood to all the fucking insects in Taman Negara, and that's almost an arm full.

The 'kinda' highlight was a river boat trip to Lata Burkha, a waterfall about an hour from the main resort compound. The river trip was great, almost got murdered by a harmless bright green snake (looked well plastic) however the waterfall was shite, I've seen better waterfalls when filling a bath.


Jungles are bastards... also, I appear to be pulling a chimp face.

Interestingly or not, Taman Negara was chocka with German coach trip tourists, which my girlfriends assures me makes me racist for noticing.

Jumping back to the Highlands - we finally left there this morning, thank gawd.

I am now in a much fancy Ye Olde style hotel in a place called Bukit Fraser (Fraser's Hill) which is another Englishy get away located way up in another set of highlands, but much closer to Kuala Lumpur.

Our room is massive; we decided to go for the best suite here which is not damp, has it's own heater, jucuzzi (I know!) little lounge area and four poster bed. Best of all the bathroom is decent, with said jucuzzi, his and her sinks, big shower and best of all, comfortable clean trustworthy toilet.

The food here is dead bland; no asian food on the menu at all. Tonight I will be dining on roast beef, yorkshire puds and roast potatos, which I have to admit I have been craving...

Fuck off I'm English, I can't help it.