"Welcome to the Jungle"

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These were the first words we heard as we stepped off the coach at Taman Negara.

We left you last dashing off to the "City Tour" of Kuala Lumpur, lead by one of the hostel receptionists (Elliott). What an interesting and entertaining experience this was. To give you an idea of what Elliott is like, his dream is to perform 'One Moment in Time' in front of Simon Cowell on X-Factor (his face was a picture of pure distress when we informed him Simon was no longer on the UK X-Factor). He also carried around a small spray water bottle (we assumed it was either alcohol or for keeping cool) which he used to spray the ground to feed the 'tiny tiny animals', including a lucky very flat and very dead rat.

He took us to the areas of Kuala Lumpur where we could find 'Ladyboys and hookers' as well as taking the 4 of us to Prada and Burberry shops within a large shopping centre, bearing in mind we are in shorts, t-shirts and flip flops (and not very clean), he thought we might like to buy the real deal instead of the fakes of Chinatown. The tour culminated in a visit to his local eatery.

After leaving KL we had an action packed morning. First stop - The Batu Caves, although the caves were fascinating the highlight was the monkeys that ruled the (many) steps up to the caves, stealing food and generally causing mayhem around the 100ft (or at least really really big) golden statue. After this quick stop, we were ushered into our own private mini van as the bus was too full. This actually worked out well for us as it meant we got our own tour guide and personal photographer. He took us to 'Deerland' where we fed some over excited and heavy hoofed deer, made friends with a Honey Bear and even held a python!!

From Deerland we headed straight to the Elephant Sanctuary, where we were shown a strange and disturbing video of how elephants are captured for their own safety and transported to the park. We then had a lot of fun feeding, riding and bathing the elephants.

Taman Negara

Upon arrival it was obvious that this jungle setting would be very different to KL - noises of insects and apes replaced the constant chatter of people and traffic. After checking into our room - not the most salubrious of places! - we headed down to the floating restaurant to continue our diet of chicken and rice prior to hopping on a boat that took us deeper into the jungle for our night trek. Slightly disappointing as we were hoping for a Slow Loris or Tiger, but only saw the odd stick insect/overgrown millipede. Nonetheless still an incredible experience and the jungle sounds were deafening!

Day 2:

Having befriended a nice German couple, who became our buddies for the next couple of days, we found out at breakfast we were quite lucky with our room as there was no bed-bug infestation.
So, day 2 began with an early morning canopy walk - a narrow walkway (and even a ladder!) suspended over 40 meters above the jungle floor. A 1.2km trek followed, which we thought would be a breeze...until we realised it was 1.2km up. Not uphill, just up. When we finally made it to the top the views were worth the sweat and dehydration in the muggy jungle weather and morning sun.

After lunch at the restaurant - we again jumped in the boat and headed down river to the Orang Asli (Original People) settlement, via some rapids. Turning up looking like drowned rats we're not surprised they seemed dubious of us. The settlement was an interesting place, even if the back story seemed slightly unbelievable. We tried our hand at blow dart hunting after a demo by one of the tribesmen, and using Winnie the Pooh as a target...we were able to have a dip in the river before returning for our evening meal of rice and chicken. After which we were allowed 'Free and Easy' time - which we were not quite sure what to do with ourselves after so many activities.

Day 3:

After a second and slightly more bug infested night at Taman Negara, we waved good-bye to the jungle and set off for the tea plantations of the Cameron Highlands. 4 bumby hours later, we found ourselves in a strangely familiar seeming environment - with old English style buildings, a much cooler climate and many many more western faces. After checking into our very up-market appearing hostel (compared to the jungle!!) we headed straight out to the Sam Poh Temple, witnessing a Buddhist ritual and exploring the ornate building.

Which leads us to now, where we're sitting in a large internet centre (next to a 40+ chinese man looking at porn) writing to you!

Tonight we're going to try the 'steamboat' cuisine (it had better live up to it's recommendation Chris!!) before hitting the night-market. Tomorrow, we plan to explore the tea plantations, butterfly farms and strawberry farms, we'll have a busy day as we've got seats booked on a bus to Penang at 8am on Sunday morning.

Speak to you from Penang! x

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