I apologize to my family who has to read the same things on both Joelle and my pages. I have to keep mine appropriate for others, so you can enjoy Joelle's antidotes and my seriousness :)
After spending a night in Singapore, we took a bus up the west coast of the country to Meleka. A historical sight, it was once a big port for Indian, Chinese and Dutch traders. On one side of the river is small little streets piled one on top of the other of little Chinese trinket shops. The other side of the river is somewhat cosmopolitan with a large mega-mall a Holiday Inn and a western-style coffee shop (with the best peanut butter french toast I ever tasted!
We stayed in a little hostel, Travellers lodge, a very clean, cozy, family run guesthouse with a perfect rooftop terrace and a quiet caretaker ZiZi - who I think took a liking to Joelle and my obnoxious behavior. He actually turned out to be pretty cool and hooked up up with bus tickets to Kuala Lumpur, a taxi to the bus station and about six hours of internet research for the price of two. Cha-Ching.
We spent the day walking around Meleka, and for me, the most intriguing sight was these little rickshaws: bicycles with two-seat chair attached to the back, petaled my these old Malayan men. It was like a contest, who ever could make their wheels look more ridiculous would win the tourists attention and get the honor to cart them around the city. There was everything from colorful yellow and pink plastic flowers to fancy white umbrellas and velvet-covered red love seats in the back. 
And some, my personal favorite, would be blasting (understatement) out-dated R&B hits.
(This one is ranked at about a 4 or 5 too...some were dressed to the nines!)
A couple tried to get us to ride; "Come, I take you on nice ride around city!"
When I replied with, "We're just going to walk," it was over.
They would give the slight nod, step back and the sign of relief exploded: "Thank God I don't have to petal those two king berthas around town!"
After that, we spent the day traveling to Tapah. From there, you turn off onto this curvy road up the mountains, where the jungles get intensely lush. It's about 45 minutes until you reach the town of Tanah Ranah and the Cameron Highlands.
The whole ride up Joelle and I had our eyes fixed on the window outside.
1) We almost died.
This large greyhound bus was whipping around these turns like it was nobody's business. Occasionally, he would warn the driver on the other side of the road that he was coming around the bend with a fog-horn honk that was probably scary enough to have the car run off the cliff on it's own anyway.
and
2) on the side of these roads, in the small patches of land, before the cliff plummeted were these little bamboo huts. Not huts really-more like a platform, 5 feet off the ground, with a little bamboo roof. There would be one or two huts every 5km. In these little huts were these small children just sitting there staring. It was so strange because it was not like they were selling vegetables or bananas or bamboo bowls...they were just crouching there. I swear, it was like something straight out of the Lord of the Flies novel.
I feel like these kids should have been dressed in red & white warrior paint. Barbarians - ready to jump at moments notice with their spears and bows ready to attack their next meal and guard their scared land.
Okay mom - don't worry. They were like four and five. I just could not figure out what they were doing and why they were there. Strange - yet endearing - just like the novel :)
(Our home in the Highlands. Don't be scared of the WWII steel-bomb shelter bunkers in the background - it was really quite a charming place!!)
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