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After spending the night in Kota Bahru we took the early morning mail train along the 'Jungle Railway' - so called as it runs through the rainforest of Taman Negara National Park. As the sun rose spectacularly from the darkness, local folk frantically loaded the train with their goods for market - fruit, vegetables, even mattresses, thankfully no livestock. We managed to find some seats and got plenty of "what are those crazy white people doing on this train?" looks from the locals.
This train was not fast. I don't think it even met the criteria for slow, maybe sub-slow. At times I could have walked along side and kept up. Not only was this train sub-slow, it stopped everywhere. Some stations were nothing more than a bench placed at the track side - no platforms, a few times we simply pulled up in someone's back garden! As someone who has previously worked on train safety in the UK, I was shocked to see that the doors on the carriages were left wide open while the train was moving. Meaning a trip to the loo combined with a bumpy or uneven bit of track (the majority of the track) could
easily have resulted in an unwanted early exit. Maybe this is not an issue, the low speed exit would probably leave you with no more than a bruised ego. You could even dust yourself down, catch the train up and jump back on through the open door. Established, the train was slow.
The speed of the train was not really an issue, the scenery was stunning. At times surrounded by jungle on either side and then opening out into views across the mountains - a rolling sea of lush green rainforest interspersed with chocolate brown rivers and limestone cliffs. How much was the train? Equivalent to a few quid which at home might get you to the end of the platform!
We stopped at Kuala Lipis for what seemed to be longer than normal, everybody started getting off the train which was odd as we had not yet reached our destination - Jerantut. Some crazy old guy on the platform motioned at us to get off, the guy looked very pleased to see me and shook my hand when we got off, I'm not quite sure why he did this. Later we saw him rooting through the bins
- I washed my hands. A guy who spoke good English informed us that the train was stopping here for 1.5 hours, why? who knows! As we were waiting to get back on the train we were approached by some local school kids who were interested to find out about our culture and practice their english. They seemed to giggle uncontrollably at everything we said and couldn't understand how we could be together and not be married. We found out loads about the Malay culture and it was fun to talk to them.
We got to Jerantut late in the afternoon, about 10 hours after we had set off and had probably covered a distance equivalent to Derby - Nottingham! A memorable experience none the less.
The following day we took the boat up river to Kuala Tahan - the gateway to the Taman Negara National Park. A sleepy journey surrounded by beautiful forest, rugged mountains and accompanied by the soothing sounds of the native birds, insects and animals.
Sweat is the word I would most associate with our experience in the rainforest, we went on a few treks and within minutes our clothes were soaked and
sweat pouring down our faces, not a good look. My Nivea anti-perspirant didn't even turn up with it's schedules bout with the jungle. That aside the jungle was pretty cool. The canopy walkway was spectacular - suspended high up in the tree tops giving a birds eye view of the rainforest below. Back on terra firma there were plenty of opportunities for tarzan-esk moments.
Cameron Highlands next, which we were told was similar weather to home. When we arrived this was very much the case - cold and wet. However, the next morning when we awoke to blue skies we knew this wasn't true! However, it was significantly cooler than the rest of the country and was a good escape from the tropical heat that had been trying it's best to melt us. We took advantage of the lower temperatures and took a 'stroll' through the countryside. This turned out to be anything but a stroll - at times crawling on our hands and knees to get up and down the very steep hills grabbing hold of anything within our reach to aid us - branches, roots, each other! The problem with the forest is it all looks the
same making navigation very difficult couple this with a really crap map and we were destined to get lost, having to spend the night at the forest and its' creepy crawly residents mercy. Being male I obviously instinctively knew how to find our way back to civilization and subsequently got us even more lost! After a few tough hours we eventually found our way to a local town - a relief. We wouldn't be going on any more 'strolls'.
We spent the rest of our time in the Cameron Highlands pursuing less dangerous activities such as eating strawberries and drinking tea. We took a tour of the area which included visits to a strawberry farm, tea plantation, honey farm and a reptile house. The reptile house was cool, they had loads of giant beatles, grass-hoppers, stick insects, leaf insects, lizards, snakes, oh yes and a crazy frog. Most of these animals were housed safely in glass enclosures. However our guide decided we needed to get 'closer to nature', this was fine for the beatles and insects, but next was the big black scorpions.... everybody in our group refused to hold one, one guy from Holland nearly punched the guide
when he started getting the scorpions out and waving them around - he was petrified. I did not want to let the British contingent down in this way and agreed to hold one, I immediately regretted this! The one in my hand I was just about OK with, I was even getting confident and posing for photographs, this really wasnt too bad. It was then that the guide decided I was enjoying this far to much and slapped another one on my chest - this was not good, I could see the scorpions stinging tail clearly now and did not want to die. After what seemed like an hour later the scorpions were thankfully put back, my macho pride just about intact.
We had some really good food in the Cameron Highlands. The banana leaf curries were textbook, from what we could gather it was just a shed load of food arranged on a banana leaf - certainly filled a hole. A learned a very important lesson whilst eating one of these curries, that is the lesson of the rouge chilli. Somehow one of these deadly chilies had stealthed its way into my relatively mild and creamy curry -
I though I had sweated a lot in the jungle, everything burned, even my ears. The rouge chilli strikes again.
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