Sunburnt, Bitten and Happy

Been a while since I posted and this is just a quick update that I'll maybe expand on later, but I've got a bit of time to kill at an internet cafe before my bus leaves, so here I am. I left the Cameron highlands on a whim one morning when it was raining yet again and the forecast was for more of the same over the next 3-4 days, and I headed for an island called Puala Pangkor, where I am now. I know I promised some pictures of the Cameron highlands and I certainly didn't get a chance to take any that do it justice, so I tried stealing some from the internet, to no avail. I already showed you what a tea field looks like, and all the pictures I can find are of that. What google images won't show you is the massive quantities of land devoted to greenhouses and farming vegetables. 

Now multiply that by about a billionty trillion because I only was able to get my camera out for like 5 minutes between rainfalls, and you have a sense of how much farming goes on in the area. I wish I had the pictures to show you because it's both amazing and depressing at the same time give that a) exploitation has apparently really eroded the soil quality and caused a lot of problems with landslides, etc, and b) Malays don't eat vegetables. Like, at all. I would be that 50% of the produce goes overseas, 40% to Singapore, and Malays MAYBE eat 10% of it. Maybe. And it woulde be easy to throw some vegetables into their noodle and rice dishes, but it's all starches and proteins here. I actually have to search for vegetables in markets, where you can really only get cauliflower, carrots, and like chilis and onions and garlic and such. It's crazy. 

In fact I was reading a book while at my last hostel about a kid who grew up in Britain in the 70s and he talks about shitty junk food all the time because processed food was suddenly available, cheap and easy, and nobody knew any better. Strikes me as being a pretty perfect parallel; development without education and information is an unhappy trap. You can buy every kind of desert you could think of here, but try finding a box of crackers that isn't butter-flavoured, or chocolate covered, etc. Everything is processed, everything is sugary. The only exception is the cheap, fresh seafood. Random pro tip I learned the other day though: when choosing fresh seafood, look at the eyes. If they're milky coloured, not so fresh. If clear, you're good. You needed to know this.

Anyway, now I'm in leaving Pulau Pangkor, all sunburt (it's actually pretty bad, I'm blistering a bit on my back) and bug bitten (one night of having your feet in the sand after dark is all the lesson you need there). I didn't take a ton of photos, but here's a couple to make you jealous with:

From what I'm told, these are nothing compared to Thailand and Vietnam's beaches, which makes me a bit giddy since it won't be long until I'm in Thailand.

How's the weather in Canada by the way? Bwahahahahaha.