I’m sitting here in the fancy, new Air Asia airport in Kuala Lumpur waiting for my flight to Padang soaking up the last bit of relatively luxurious living before heading back into the steamy jungle. KL is a great city to decompress in as it has all of those comforts you crave when you’ve been living in rural Aisa for awhile: hamburgers, Western toilets (with toilet paper!), frappuccinos, free wifi, air conditioning, steak, ice cubes, ice cream, and a private room all to myself to sleep for as long as I want to.

I’m usually able to cope well for long periods of time without these things but, this time, I could hardly wait to get to Malaysia and descend upon the Starbucks. I had been sick for my last week in Indonesia and I also went off the food and was sustaining myself on peanut butter and jam sandwiches. The thought of eating another mouthful of rice made me gag and I successfully avoided it all week here in KL, instead feeding my face with Western crap that probably didn’t do too much to help make me get healthy, but it certainly made me feel better!

After a week of indulging on goodies, hanging out in shopping malls for the air conditioning and wifi, and hibernating, my batteries are charged and I’m ready to clobber some buildings with a sledge hammer back in Indonesia. I really needed this break, possibly more than on any other project I’ve done with Hands On, but I can only take so much luxury before I start to long for dorm living, 7:30am starts, long, hot work days and humid nights. I would still be happy if I never saw rice again but I’ve come prepared with a stockpile of tuna fish, pasta, tomato sauce and other goodies that will give me a break once or twice a week from the routine having the same thing to eat almost every day.

Even when I’m backpacking around I can’t usually go for much longer than a month of constantly moving or being in a really rural location. Little breaks from my travels, either on the beach, in a major city, or just unpacking somewhere for a week and doing nothing, go a long way towards keeping me sane on the road.

But I’m ready to get back and am looking forward to shoveling me some rubble and getting sweaty. I’m hoping this week of luxury hasn’t made me soft!

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Hiking for me has never been an enjoyable experience. It’s just a thing I feel like I need to do along the way so I don’t feel lazy. The reality of it is that hiking is a test of whether of not I can drag my unfit arse up a mountain or across a field without hyperventalating or falling down. So a approach these little walks with a bit of apprehension and thought I’d give a report on each to see if I slowly grow more fond of the outdoors.

The Hike: Cameron Highlands, parts of paths 3, 4, 5 and 6.

Distance: No idea.

Time: About 4 hours.

Weather: Beautiful the whole way.

Guide: As I approached where I thought path 4 was to start an old Indian-Malaysian guy asked me where I was heading and then convinced me that path 5 was the way to go. I was quite keen to just put my iPod on and zone out while wandering around snapping some photos but, considering I had no idea where any of these paths started, I decided to follow along. I was kind of expecting (and hoping) him to take me to the beginning of the path and then carry on on his way to wherever he was going. It turns out though that he’s a trekking guide and was going for a walk since he had no customers that day.  So I was stuck with him for the entire walk but except for a somewhat dodgy offer of a leg massage and him putting mosquito cream on a bite above my right boob, it was handy having him around. He explained a lot of the plants, pointed out some cool things and pimped me out with lots of jungle goodies. By the end of my walk I had a plant that could blow like a whistle, a bamboo walking stick, a corporal punishment whipping stick, a hat made from a fern, and a bracelet he weaved out of some sort of bamboo-like plant. The bracelet was way too small for my hand and while it eventually wiggled on, I’m not sure my hand will ever be the same again. He made another one for my right wrist but I managed to dodge that one and put it into my pocket. After the hike he kind of headed off quite abruptly. He said he could show me the way back to my hostel but I had to go to an ATM machine in the opposite direction and off he went. Strangely, a few minutes later when I was paying for stuff at the front of a shop I noticed that he was standing on the sidewalk and then he saw that I saw him and left really quickly without aknowledging that he’d seen me. Which he did. No idea what that was all about. Good guide but a little odd and and semi creepy at times.

Time Spent Lost: Because I bumped into that guy I managed not to get lost at all. If I was without him I doubt very much that I would have even found the start of any of the trails, let alone got myself around a whole bunch of them. Once you’re on them they’re reasonably well signed but finding the start of any of them seemed to involve ducking through schools, into people’s back yards and through farmland. I would still be wandering around now if I was on my own.

Moments of Hyperventalation: I pretty much made the guide guy promise me that there were no steep bits and he assured me that this walk was easy and that families do it. If grandma and the kiddies can do it then I’ll be damned if I’m not going to have a crack. For the most part the trail was easy but due to my extreme lack of fitness and general wimpyness, there were a couple of moments where I thought I was done for. But after a stop for water and a fake shoe tying stop life was good again.

Moments of Injury: I only stacked it once and it was right at the end of the hike. The lame thing is that I managed to fall on a paved path. The entire way was frought with roots, rivers, slippy rocks, soft mud soakers and steep hills but it was the damned path at the end that got me. That thing is slippery. The guide guy actually told me to walk on the dirt beside the path and I did for a minute but then switched back to the path. Then I started thinking ‘wouldn’t it be funny if I fell down because I’m totally ignoring his advice’ and immediately afterwards I bit it, falling backwards onto my hand. No harm done though, only a battered ego.

How much I hated it: Surprisingly, I didn’t hate it at all. It was a nice day, nice trail, nice (if a bit creepy) guide. Maybe hiking isn’t so bad after all.

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