Kicking the Bukit

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I've spent my last few days in the middle of nowhere... or more precisely an insy wincy village called Kaki Bukit (hilariously mispronounced by myself as Khaki Bucket). To say there isn't much to do there would be misleading. There is nothing to do. The village has 1 place to stay, 1 or 2 places to eat.. 3 or 4 stores... a strange unspecified building that thumps out the same small selection of Malay tunes at random occasions during the day for no discernable reason... Meng Motors... Gua Kelum national park...and not a lot else as far as we could tell. The nice wrinkly fella at the shop using an abacus to add up my grocery bill really hit home just how remote we were. I was thankful there were no Banjo's playing!

Now what the hell was i doing in such a place? Well there was actually one thing to do. Climb.

The title Gua Kelum National Park suggests something more grand then we actually discovered. It's pretty, with potential, but ultimately a bit too dilapidated to dazzle the eye. With work though it could be beautiful along the lines of a Japanese garden... mini pagoda's, little streams and whispy trees all gaving something of an oriental look, but overgrown paths, fallen leaves, scorched earth and random rubbish unfortunately clouded this image. The scorched earth was particularly confusing until we worked out that people light little fires to keep away Bees. Rich managed to find some though. Halfway up a route. Hiding in a little crevice that looked like the perfect place to put your hand!!

The climbing was good... the routes are tougher for their grade than Tonsai and i spent a lot of time sweating, struggling and eventually succeeding. We met a few Malay at the wall. Really nice poeple whom we've made vague plans to meet up with in KL. One guy Ajis even gave Rich his climbing guide book about an hour after we met him for us to either give back in KL or post to him!! Other than this we didn't really meet anyone as few locals spoke more than a few words of English... which made meals times an interesting lottery. We're trying to not think about what the slightly fishy, slightly salty white balls we ate were!

I can't really think of too much more to say about Kaki Bukit. The days drifted by with some eating, climbing, more eating, more climbing, lots of reading and a little more eating. It was nice to get away from the backpacker trail and in a lot of ways from the modern world. The original plan involved a tent and really getting away from it.. but unfortunately the campsite was closed and we soon decided that pitching up randomly by the roadside wasn't the most sensible of ideas.

Kaki Bukit... a nice place to visit... but you wouldn't want to stay too long!

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