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Malaysia/Kuala Pilah Round the world trip 2007
7-13
We made lots of kilometers by taxi with Ashim, the most delightful driver and tour guide originally from India. Driving by hundreds of square kilometers of palm oil trees, we learned of the replacement of rubber trees into palm plantations. Also about palm platations: as palm trees age they are injected with poison and younger trees planted.
We saw more rubber trees and learned that the trees must be scored each day to keep the rubber/latex flowing. The workers bring their rubber harvest to a weigh station and are paid for their labors, which they split 50/50 with the plantation owners. The rubber “balls” are trucked to the processing plant which heats and rolls the rubber into flat mats for export. As we got out of the taxi to view the processing plant, Art and I were hit with the stench!! What we had thought was sewage or durians along the road was actually the rubber being processed! UGH!
Our actual destination was Gunung Senyum or ‘smiling mountain’ where we saw huge limestone caves populated by 21 species of bats. There were many lofty caves, but we entered only two: the Moon Cave where a sunlit opening, hundreds of meters above us, created sun beams and light spots inside the cave. These caves had apparently been covered in water 40 million years ago, but how they grew like pinacles above the surrounding forests is a mystery to us.
Our second destination was an elephant sanctuary. This popular attraction had mini buses filled with tourists from Kuala Lampur waiting in line. We fed the elephants, rode the elephants, and for those who brought bathing suits or extra clothes, bathed the elephants. The park is an attempt by Malaysia to protect, not only the forests, but the native animals that populate their jungles. The elephants kept in the sanctuary are orphaned or trained for use in a translocation program. The program relocates elephants whose territory has become too small to sustain their herd: palm plantations vs jungle. An estimated 800-1000 elephants are left in Peninsular Malaysia. Ashim told us that governments: US Bristish, French, Italian, will not buy their products unless Malaysia replants burnt and slashed forests. He explained that to mean replant with rubber or palm oil trees. I’m not so sure that is what the environmentally pro-active governments mean.
Mayalsia is a vital and growing ecomony, with plans to become a developed country (not developing) by 2020. It also has its ‘original people’: the Orang Asli, the people of the forest. The government gives them money, builds them cement houses with sanitary bathrooms, but the people prefer to live in their stick and straw houses, shooting wild boar, squirrels and monkeys with blow guns to suppliment the food the government provides them. It seems every culture has its ‘original people’.
July 14 Malaysia/Temerloh Weltreise 2007 >
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Malaysia/Kuala Pilah Weltreise 2007
We made lots of kilometers by taxi with Ashim, the most delightful driver and tour guide originally from India. Driving by hundreds of square kilometers of palm oil trees, we learned of the replacement of rubber trees into palm plantations. Also about palm platations: as palm trees age they are injected with poison and younger trees planted.
We saw more rubber trees and learned that the trees must be scored each day to keep the rubber/latex flowing. The workers bring their rubber harvest to a weigh station and are paid for their labors, which they split 50/50 with the plantation owners. The rubber “balls” are trucked to the processing plant which heats and rolls the rubber into flat mats for export. As we got out of the taxi to view the processing plant, Art and I were hit with the stench!! What we had thought was sewage or durians along the road was actually the rubber being processed! UGH!
Our actual destination was Gunung Senyum or ‘smiling mountain’ where we saw huge limestone caves populated by 21 species of bats. There were many lofty caves, but we entered only two: the Moon Cave where a sunlit opening, hundreds of meters above us, created sun beams and light spots inside the cave. These caves had apparently been covered in water 40 million years ago, but how they grew like pinacles above the surrounding forests is a mystery to us.
Our second destination was an elephant sanctuary. This popular attraction had mini buses filled with tourists from Kuala Lampur waiting in line. We fed the elephants, rode the elephants, and for those who brought bathing suits or extra clothes, bathed the elephants. The park is an attempt by Malaysia to protect, not only the forests, but the native animals that populate their jungles. The elephants kept in the sanctuary are orphaned or trained for use in a translocation program. The program relocates elephants whose territory has become too small to sustain their herd: palm plantations vs jungle. An estimated 800-1000 elephants are left in Peninsular Malaysia. Ashim told us that governments: US Bristish, French, Italian, will not buy their products unless Malaysia replants burnt and slashed forests. He explained that to mean replant with rubber or palm oil trees. I’m not so sure that is what the environmentally pro-active governments mean.
Mayalsia is a vital and growing ecomony, with plans to become a developed country (not developing) by 2020. It also has its ‘original people’: the Orang Asli, the people of the forest. The government gives them money, builds them cement houses with sanitary bathrooms, but the people prefer to live in their stick and straw houses, shooting wild boar, squirrels and monkeys with blow guns to suppliment the food the government provides them. It seems every culture has its ‘original people’.
