You room, room, room?

Our time in the Cameron Highlands was great. The town attracts many backpackers but not many tourists. Almost everybody we met had been on the road for at least a couple weeks. It's a popular hiking location and definitely reminded me of Estes Park, just smaller and with less Cowboys fans. I got a chance to drive in my dream car too, the Land Rover Defender 110. The Highlands actually have more Land Rovers per square mile than anywhere else in the world (the picture above is the day we left our guest house when there happened to be 4 of them in front of our building)! The Land Rover ride took us to the highest road in Malaysia and up into a lookout tower. We went to a tea farm and got to have a fresh cup in their cafe which is perched at the top of the plantation.

After 4 nights in the Cameron Highlands we hopped a bus to Georgetown on the island of Penang. The city was built by the Dutch, and many of the original structures still stand. In fact, most of our time there was spent in the huge area that is protected from development. The streets are narrow and busy with a different shop in every building. Georgetown is renowned for it's street food, and we definitely took advantage of the opportunity to eat at incredibly cheap stalls. It's not hard to get a filling Indian breakfast, coffee and all, for $1.50 USD. We rented a scooter for the day and explored the island, we got to see some places that not many others do, and we had fresh fruit and coconut water at a mountaintop farm. 

We also have a knack for finding the cheapest beer. We heard of one small shop that had a good selection and searched it out. It was simply another store front with two fridges full of drinks and a couple tables in the alley. We pulled up some chairs to some younger locals and introduced ourselves. We quickly started a lengthily conversation with a Sri Lankan immigrant, we talked about how our homes are much different and how we as people are much the same. 2 of his friends showed up and we sat talking for hours. We made a plan to go fishing the next night. Many people fish throughout the night time here and we were mostly focused on having fun and playing bongo music. We didn't catch anything, but we had an awesome time. We continued to meet up with our 3 Sri Lankan friends for the last 2 nights of our 5 night stay. We became good friends and we hugged them all before saying our final farewell. 

Yesterday, we took a 3 hour boat ride to the Island of Langkawi. After over a month on the road, we finally made it to the beach! This place is beautiful and relaxing, I will update more photos later. I suppose relaxing on different beaches is mostly what we will be doing for the next month or so. Not a bad way to spend the winter!