All extremely windy mountainous roads lead to... Cameron Highlands

For the first time since arriving in Asia, I spent the last few days wishing I'd packed a jumper.

After a four hour bus ride from Kuala Lumpur, half of which was up a windy mountain-side road not for the weak of stomach (someone behind me was sick halfway up, which left me tightly pursing my lips for the remainder of the journey), we reached Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands. The town is quite the little tourist hub, and I entertained myself guessing nationalities of the Europeans wandering about (Germans, Germans, Germans and more Germans). 

Sitting 1400m above sea level the clouds hang low above Tanah Rata, giving everything a rather damp feel, but the vivid colours of everything reminded me of a cooler Taveuni in Fiji. It was the first opportunity for me to try the new camera I'd purchased in KL (my travel tour manager having purchased his own too every shot was fiercely competitive) as we wandered around town taking in the parks, waterfalls and tea plantations this area is famous for.

Temple Tuesday: Batu Caves, Kuala Lumpur

Temple Tuesday once again fell on an auspicious date for the common man, as we spent the first afternoon of 2013 on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur visiting the Batu Caves. These limestone caves are home to one of the largest Hindu shrines outside of India dedicated to the god Murugan. 

It seems in the world of religious shrines bigger is often better. Upon arrival at the train station we were greeted by an enormous statue of the monkey deity Hanuman (incidentally, almost my entire knowledge of Hindu gods comes from the 1992 animated marathon Ramayana I had to watch several times when I was sick in Fiji one week, Youtube for 170 minutes of occasional lols). A short stroll along and you are faced with a 42 metre high golden statue of Murugan himself, the largest in the world.

A mere 272 steps up the hill (avoiding the rapscallion monkeys and toppling over backwards) and you are rewarded with a nice view of KL, some cool caves and the opportunity to watch a Hindu service in action in a rather unique locale.

(Apologies for the crap quality of the pictures, was relying on the iPhone that day.)

Lazy days in Melaka, Malaysia

We've been staying in Kuala Lumpur these last few days for the New Year (pictures to come soon) but as I haven't yet talked about our time in Melaka I will share some pictures from those few days last week first. 

We left Singapore on the bus last Tuesday, on my first ever crossing to another country that wasn't via plane. The journey from Johor Bahru at the border to Melaka took about three hours along the very good motorway. 

Melaka is a UNESCO World Heritage listed city, due to the various remnants of Dutch and Portuguese colonisation that decorate the city. The Dutch influence is especially obvious when wandering along the river that cuts through Chinatown and Little India.

Here we were able to relax after the full on experience of Singapore, and I must confess I did spend one entire day in bed. I was suuuuper chilled after that.

Singapore by night

When I was in the Bugis Street Market the other day I picked up a souveneir magnet in the style of a Survivor: Singapore logo with the motto "Outeat, Outlast, Outshop". Shopping seems to be a beloved hobby for many of the people here, with the crowds on Orchard Road on Christmas day something that has to be seen to be believed. Many people wear genuine designer clothes and bags. Crowded stores-wise, we had a particularly oppressive experience inside the dark nightclub-esque Abercrombie & Fitch flagship store that left us shaken outside like the morning after a bad pill trip. 

In general, the malls are amazing. When we had to cross a side street off Orchard Road via an underpass, my travel tour manager and I found ourselves in a labyrinthine four level basement of stores, with fast fading hope of ever reaching the other side of the street that had seemed just 25 metres away. Add the number of subterrainian levels to the numerous above ground outlets and you can easily see why Singapore would be a shopper's paradise, and a place I'd feel quite happy to dwell in.

Being a melting pot of cultures Singapore also offers a large variety of cuisines to try at cheap prices. We had dinner in the Gluttons Bay Market that sits alongside Marina Bay, where I had my first dalliance with pineapple fried rice, before strolling about and taking snaps of the city skyline and the high-end Marina Bay Sands shopping complex (including a floating Louis Vuitton store and nightclub).

Singapore by day

On Temple Tuesday, which coincided with Christmas Day for the common folk, we visited the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum in Chinatown. This enormous temple, as you can guess by the name, houses a tooth relic of Buddha that is said to have been found in Myanmar in the 1980s.

Being my first time inside a Buddhist temple, I was very impressed by the hundreds of Buddha statuettes lining the walls of the main gallery and the beautiful silk artwork hangings. The tooth relic itself was kept in a room tiled with gold on the fourth storey. Understandably no photography was allowed in this area, but as you can imagine it was very striking.

The rest of the day was spent walking downtown, then catching the metro to wrangle with the crowds on the main shopping strip Orchard Rd.