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Published: December 6th 2009
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A jungle rain is a hard rain, my friend. It makes a man lose his moral footing and slide down the slippery roots of temptation into the mud of turpitude, where the grasping leeches of vice wait. In the flash of a bolt of lightning they hitch a ride on your shoe unfelt; moments later they sink teeth into your leg or chest or groin and begin to gorge themselves into bloody obesity.
A jungle rain is nothing to the smiling, aloof natives of Taman Negara. But it drives any stray cats or carolinians into their smelly, dingy "family chalets".
Sanity? A temporary, undependable thing, like all other forms of health.
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Taman Negara. It means "National Park" in Malay. All the restaurants here (about six) are built on barges in the river. At closing time they pull in the planks so you can't get to them with dry feet. The menu said "fried fish" so Benjamin ordered it. He got a plate with one thing on it: a whole (but small) fried fish, eyeballs and all. Not exactly what he had in mind. I ate it for him.
After a few hours on a looping
Taking the longboat to Taman Negara
We just made the last boat of the day. That sort of thing seemed to happen a lot on this trip. jungle trail, after the canopy walk, suddenly the trail seemed to stop. It was getting into the afternoon; we weren't exactly lost but the prospect of turning back was unappealing. We searched for the trail for five minutes. I didn't realize how anxious the kids were getting. Finally we discovered a large tree had fallen across the trail and obscured it.
Earlier in the hike we had encountered three Canadian college students and stopped to chat. They told us to look out for the leeches, but once it's attached, don't pull it off or you'll tear a nasty gash. It was an hour later before we started finding them on our shoes, socks, and further north. Interesting little bloodthirsty animals. How they grab onto you so quickly is still a mystery to us. Andrea carried one on her leg very patiently for half an hour. Benjamin was proud to be the only one who didn't get one, until he undressed back in the room and discovered one just above his belly button.
Back in town, somebody told us to sprinkle a little
Canopy Walk
The world's longest, when half of it isn't closed for repair. A bit of an anticlimax. salt on the leech and it'll fall off within seconds. So we acquired some from a restaurant and used it on both kids. Between the leeches and the getting lost, this turned out to be one of their most memorable days of the trip, the one they talk about first.
In town I heard American accents. Turned out to be another family with two kids! Expats, not tourists. They drove from KL where Dad works at the US Embassy. This turned out to be the only Americans we encountered on the whole trip. They hurried off to the resort across the river.
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The gleaming new motorcycles - not scooters - under the teenagers of Taman Negara, and the car keys in their parents' pockets, bode well for global oil demand going forward. When poor people start to earn some spare cash, first they upgrade their rides. The housing upgrade comes later.
The contrast here is striking between Old and New Asia. The two stand literally side-by-side, next door neighbors. More to the point, call them Young and Old Asia.
As the developed nations stumble into senile dotage, the opportunities here are so obvious as
to be almost sensory. Progress beckons. The way forward is clear. Phone booths are obsolete and public transport, doomed.
Malaysia emulates its big brother, Singapore, grudgingly but faithfully. Both cultures offer basic transparency and rule of law, so critical to capitalism, so lacking in places like Russia and Africa.
The future here is bright. Note to self: buy more EWM.
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We approach Lumut. We'll overnight there (it's 6 pm) to let the weekenders have Pangkor for one more night. At first light I'll ferry over by myself first, rent a moterbike (yea!), scout out the situation, and choose a place to hang for 3 whole nights (yea!) before we head to Borneo on Thursday. Beaches! Snorkeling! Wierd Chinese temples!
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