Spread Out & Look Hard - It's Coming!

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Taman Negara

Ten hours of travel and four various modes of transport later by water taxi, boat, mini-van and coach - we finally arrive at Kuala Tahan; the base camp for visiting Taman Negara National Park in the heart of the Malaysian Peninsula.

The ride into town was as smooth as ever-ish! We did however get 5 whole mins notice to dry off from the shower for our water taxi off the island only to be sat bobbing around on the boat for over an hour for some unknown reason. We got unloaded from the minivan without prior warning, then have to un-expectantly pick up our dumped backpacks from the melting tarmac and jump on a random coach at some random hotel stop off. Oh sorry, that's right - I forgot were all telepathic, but we should know by now; anything goes and it's best just to go with the flow, keep our fingers crossed and hope that the shakily pointed fingers and nods on blank looking faces were to where we're actually going! We weren't about to complain though. Scott & me bagged the back 3 seats on the mini-van to ourselves. The three French dudes and a Swiss couple in front were sitting on seats that looked like they could do with a neck rest and less squeek and bounce! I did feel quite guilty about sprawling out and catching 40 winks in comfort while they continued to dish out daggers and probably discuss how jealous they were..but the air-con had broke so the VIP coach with reclyning seats was a bonus for us and a saving grace for them!

Kuala Tahan was a small and friendly village with one road in and one road out. It comprised of only a handful of accommodation options, the usual 7/11 newsagent and a number of floating restaurants close-by on the Sungai Tembeling River. The National Park itself was literally a stones thow over the river, a ten second water taxi costing 50p each. The government protected park covers around 4,000sq km of dense jungle and within it can be found thousands of flowers, bugs and animals. Apparently even Tiger, Ellies and Rhino are knocking about somewhere but thankfully they were elusive enough for the 2 days we were there!

After arriving in the early evening and trotting up the small hill along the main road, we stopped at the first guest house we bumped into and luckily for us it was only a few weeks old, clean, comfy and housed the holy grail that is air-con too! After a week without it, it was h-e-a-v-e-n! The usual routine followed; un-pack, shower, apply jungle strength mozzie spray, arse about doing nothing in particular and were generally ready to have a nosey about our new temporary home and fill our tums with local fare. We sauntered down the steep hill towards the river to the floating restaraunts lit by lanterns which lined the rivers edge. Getting there was a trek in itself, navigating the cobbled stones/boulders from the dried riverbed in low tide in the pitch black. The sky was littered with zillions of brightly shining stars, so again where there's a negative at times, thankfully it usually always turns into a postive experience most of the time! Like sheep we followed the flock and went to the restaurant that seemed the busiest in the hope that it was jam packed for a reason. We ended up being seated on the same table as a young dutch couple. Nothing like gate-crashing a couples romantic dinner! Oh well, at least we looked like we had friends for an hour or two! Were both still a bit wary of ordering anything with meat in so we've turned veggie for now until it looks safe and were daring enough after my dodgy tummy episode! Malaysia is definately cat country and we've yet to even spot a dog here! Whilst having tea we were side-tracked into watching a poor little kitten getting bullied by the big Mr cat who assuming rules the roost along the river, visiting each table in turn hopeful for scraps. He only paw-sed momentarily when a sexy puss puss wandered in and kept him entertained for a few moments. With his attention elsewhere most of the cat loving diners obliged and slyly dropped a few meaty treats under the tables for the scrawny kitty - poor thing :-)

We only had one full day here, we could have stayed longer if we wanted but to be honest this place seemed to be more of a haven for package tourists signed up for 3 day trekking tours. It was also suprisingly fairly busy with younger families too. Unfortunately most of the activities were way out of our budget but we were happy with taking the one short hike to the Canopy Walkway for the afternoon. Being the scivvy's we are we even managed to find it all by ourselves. The jungle itself was dark and thick, with tree top foliage fighting for there dose of vitamin D and blocking the sun's light to everything else below. Inside was a tangle of trees and buttressed root systems reclaiming well trodden mud trails and were evidently the local insect super highway! To top it off it was unbelievably SER-weaty! 90+% humidity made even the short 2km walk seem like climbing Mount Everest. Even a group of local over 60's passed us laughing - "Too hot for you ha aha! Where you come from." We replied England! They instantly understood why were struggling slightly and the OAP train kindly gave us a wink and a smile as they continued there accent towards the Canopy. Anyway, luck had it we had stopped for a rest just round the corner from the entrance. Scotts hands get really sweaty at the thought of heights so for me this was going to be slightly amusing as I obviously seem to revel in situations where he's slightly out of his confort zone. Karma will no doubt come back and bite me in the ass at some point but until then I'll continue taking the piss where possible! For Scott this was another chance for him to tick off another fear, he didn't command & conquer this time but at least he can say he walked 1/2km suspended on a hanging rope bridge constructed of wooden planks and ladders elevated 45 meters above the ground! So it was extremely high and very wobbly in parts! This cost us a mere quid each and was an absolute bargain. It probably cost us an extra fiver each re-hydrating our selves but it was well worth it. We both really enjoyed the views and the OAP train were real fun, we enjoyed chit chatting with them on the way round and I even managed to get a spot of speacial treatment from the herbal doctor who rubbed a drop or two of an un-known plant extrant into an old cut from the week before. Initially I was a bit concerned she'd drugged me but I actually think it worked and my scabby hand was spic & span a few days later!

During the walk back Scott managed to spot a large black & white animal in the undergrowth. It was either a Tapier and baby which can also be found here or Zebra which I dont think inhabit these parts of the world but you never know! We stopped at the park entrance area after; grabbed a quick pic and I happily tucked into a few of our favourite tasty treats - hazelnut wafer, nom nom! What I didn't realise at the time was, the troop of monkeys that had followed us back swinging through the tree tops must have heard me rustling the packet. The next thing I knew a few of them were making there way down the tree stumps towards me....eeek! Before I had chance to slope off one had me cornered. I stood up with my bag full of goodies and decided to (as my dad would say...) "spread out & look hard!" Dad - Just so you know, either monky's dont get the concept, or little old me obviously didn't look that hard whilst holding a bag filled with food better than nuts and bananas! I stood up, he moved forward (less than a meter away). I stomped my foot and moved closer a little more as if to imply that I wasn't scared for a single second... but before I knew it the evil bugger leapt towards my head. I instantly dropped the bag and within nano-seconds he was in and out with a pack of yummy chocolate chip cookies and back up the tree before I could scream CHEEKY MONKEY! He had no problems tearing them open with his teeth and sat there tucking into 4 at a time! We did find it funny but decided not to stick around after some other non-suspecting couple sat down to drink a can of pop and he was down again callling his troops for back up. I dread to think what happened but as we left they were pretending to look all cute and innocent as they began some other cunning plan no doubt. Come to think of it, maybe that was my payback after laughing at scott tree hugging earlier!

The rest of the afternoon was spent typing up previous blogs and arranging our transport back out the next morning to KL. As we didn't have much time to explore here we decided rather than get the bus direct out of town we would enjoy a 3 hour slow boat downstream on the Tembeling river through thick mountainous jungle to catch a bus from Jerantut. The boat trip itself was beautiful and a really nice way to travel for a change. Scott found the motion of the (not ocean) boat too comforting and nodded off straight-away!

Kuala Lumpur

Back to Kuala Lumpur for the second time then. After giving some friendly advice to the Swiss couple we managed to ride along with back from the Perentians and met again on the journey from Teman Negara we made it back to the hotel we stayed at last time for the one night we were there. We had both briefly discussed our route onward from Malaysia over previous weeks and decided we would head to Indonesia for 6 weeks then the Philippines for 3 weeks. Now the famous quote springs to mind " If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." Evidently we had! I had a look on the web to see if we could get cheap flights to Bali and continue island hopping East. However as it turned out flights were approx £150 each even with cheapp Air Asia - This was an epic fail. Especially when I had looked this route up months previously and it was only a quarter of the price. After much deliberation, toing and froing we settled on a complete change of plan! It's funny how we were expecting to be touching down in Bali within 24hrs and suddenly we were purchasing tickets to Bangkok! We were happy with our decision though and in hindsight it was probably a wise one. We hadn't pre-arranged a 60 day visa for Indonesia or anything else for that matter. With the reducing time frame we knew we had to be back in Bangkok to meet Charlie, Leigh & Dolly at the end of September which would be much easier to navigate from the Indochina area. Our wise-ness coming from Scotts ever increasing number of greys in his fro and a small number of albino eyebrow hairs from me!

So after jumping on the city subway to secure our tickets at Sentral station, we chomped through yet more rice and noodles in China town and did a spot of shopping at the local market and handicraft centre! Well I did anyway! I parted ways with 6 whole pounds for a pair of 100% hippy fisherman pants which also converts into a jumpsuit too...see I'm getting savvy and this is now my fave outfit amongst the 29 I have already! On the map I'd noticed we'd missed out an area not far away from where we were shopping so swung past for an hour or so to kill some time considering we wern't leaving till late that night to catch the sleeper train to Penang.

No sooner after we arrived in Kuala Lupur, we departed. Bound for bonkers Bangkok. There wasn't a direct route to Thailand's capital so we had to endure our first over-night journey which would leave at 11pm and arrive at Penang (Butterworth Station) at 7.30am the next morning. But true to form we were delayed an hour. A friendly elderly man chatted with us at the platform - a retired Major in the Army who was en-route to visit family for the weekend. Even though he was pleasant enough I was too tired to make small talk for any longer than the time it took to embark the train but alas...it was my lucky day and he was opposite our bunks! I think he could tell I was tired with my eyes red from rubbing like a baby and the fact I hopped into the top bunk immediatley, bed N31 to be precise! It wasn't the best time for me to indulge in small talk so thankfully he conversed with another local loudly for hours and hours. And when he did finally talk himself to sleep...he continued to fart even louder until the conductor cried "Butterworth, stop for Penang!" I'm not sure if I slept that much but my Ipod earphones had imprinted themselves onto the side of my face so I guess I dropped off at somepoint!

We dis-embarked our carriage at half past eight the next morning and swiftly made our way to buy the next leg of our trip to Bangkok before all the 2nd Class Sleeper Bunks sold out. We had six hours to wait until we were off again so hailed a taxi to the nearest/only Mall in the area which was roughly 15 mins drive away. At our request the cab driver dropped us off at the McDonald's just in front of the shopping centre so we could indulge in a McBreakfast and make use of the wifi - which didn't work! Oh well, we aimlessly wandered around department stores, electrical shops and marvelled at the local line dancing class that was being held in the centre before hunking down in Starbucks for a few hours, catching up with friends and making great use of the working free wifi whilst sipping on iced Chocca Mocha's! Oh and I managed to last minute pre-plan some accommodation as I didn't fancy looking like fresh meat to the local Bangkok vultures at the other end. We enjoyed this luxury so much so that we lost track of time and probably under-estimated how long it would take to hail another taxi in the midle of nowhere. We did make it back just in time but of course we were delayed again so no matter this time.

The last leg and the last time our feet would touch Malaysian soil, for the foreseeable future anyway. It's onwards to another country and chapter two in our travelling adventures. I think Scott will agree with me that Malaysia was a wonderful country filled with incredible jungles of both concrete and the natural green variety, and lets not forget the beautiful landscapes both rural countryside and paradise islands too!

So this should take us right up to just before we roll into Bangkok after crossing the border safe & sound into Thigh-land (as the one-man wolf pack Alan pronounces!) Apart from near starvation that is as we did stupidly forget snacks for the 20 hour journey thinking the would be a food cart attached! We sat and salavated over some dutch couples dinner, tea and hourly snack break that they had loving PRE-pared in a huge coolbox. We did consider at one point doing a smash & grab but instead managed to squeeze in a lightening quick supermarket sweep after having our passports stamped with a 14 day visa, phew! As we chugged and finally whistled into Bangkok station we were both reminiscing over scenes from the movie Hangover 2 and crossing our fingers that this city would chew us up but spit us back out alive and well!

Until then folks...

x x x

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