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Bramwell Staff - Niki Wilson - Adventures in Malaysia
Back packing with the Gregory cashe 28 & 22 around Malaysia was a bit of a luxury! In fact it was almost not really back packing. I have always had to trawl my pack to the opposite end of the airport from the departure gate to go through the ‘special oddly shaped luggage’ section. Instead I wheeled it to the check-in, waved it fair well and once at the other end threw it over my shoulder with the intended strap to make a dash for river taxi’s etc. I even had the luxury of being able to find items in it without having to unload mountains of clothing from the top to reach a hair brush at the bottom.
Having such a great pack made travelling with a two year old….. a two year old who can’t sit still for two minutes, allot easier. I can't tell you how often I said a prayer of thanks that you can actually run quite fast pulling this bag as I herded small person in the right direction at airports etc.
Our very loose itinerary included an acclimatisation period in Singapore, an island of inspired cocktails and designer shoe shops, (my most treasured shoes are still my Meindl Softlines) before setting off to the contrasting Island of Tioman on the Eastern coast of Malaysia. We arrived in time for some remarkable monsoon weather.
The little boat that took us from airport to beach front hut looked set to disappear under waves more than a couple of times. My biggest worry was for our now much loved Gregory bags as the rest of us can swim...... which we eventually had to do – all bags made it to land and the contents were much drier than us!
Explorations around the island were land based until the storms finally blew through and the weather allowed us to hop into sea kayaks loaded with snorkelling gear, water proof camera and our all-important Source flip flops. The coral reefs were teeming with fish and under water colours you only see in David Attenborough documentaries. We met some friendly locals who cooked up some of their freshly caught lobster, crabs and fish for us. It was the best meal I think I ever had!
We left the wonderful Island of Tioman, very reluctantly and moved on into Malaysia. The easiest way to explore places like Taman Negara National Park with a small child was by boat. The guides were incredibly skilled paddlers and my fifteen years of canoeing left me looking like an absolute amateur in comparison.
Here in the National Park, we were reliably informed, there were only two hundred tigers left in an area the size of Wales, but a breeding program was proving to be very successful. Having seen the short work made by 1 tiger to a chicken in the Singapore Zoo, I was quite glad that we had two guides and a boat. The rain forest was very thick in places, so even exploring on foot we would not have been able to see some of the incredible wild life we knew to be there.
It was great to see some of the Malaysian wildlife protection programs being run, including an elephant relocation scheme using trained elephants to re-home wild elephants. Modern palm oil and rubber plantations encroach on their living space causing a conflict between animal and industry that is actually dealt with very sensitively. After meeting the mahouts and being taken for a ride with them, our little one still trumps up and down the stairs at home with her arm sticking out pretending to be an elephant, as if this excuses her stealing peanuts from the snack box!
We gradually made our way north via the Highlands and the West Coast before finishing our journey in the bustling city of Georgetown Penang.