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Published: June 23rd 2010
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Got up at about 8am as apparently it's best to get to the canopy walkway early. My slight dislike of dorms turned into a deep dislike this morning when I went to the toilet to find that someone we're sharing with cannot aim straight and they'd missed the squat bowl and pooed a bit on the floor.....urgh. Talked to one of the UK guys inour dorm about snorkelling in the Perhentians and he scared me by mentioning the 4-5ft sharks he'd seen, that are harmless of course, yeah right!
Walked down to the river boat crossing near the floating restaurants (after a substantial trekking breakfast of Tiger biccies). It cost just 1RM to get over the river to the National Park which is the world's oldest rainforest (it is a very small crossing). We paid 1RM each for a park permit and 5RM each for camera (though we need n't have bothered as no-one checked). It was about a 40min trek though the jungle (more like forest really) to the walkway. It was a flat path at first but the last part was all uphill stairs/ a path covered in tree roots. There were ropes in parts to haul yourself
up. We were so glad it hadn't rained and also that we'd gone early as even at 10am it was so hot and humid. We kept stopping to have a drink as it was making us feel (especially Rob) a bit light headed.
The canopy walkway costs 5RM. It's about 250mtrs long and at its highest point is 45mtrs off the ground! Only so many people are allowed on each stretch at a time and there are platforms after each section. You would never guess Rob had a height/bridge phobia but he said he felt more confident because the bridge had netting on its sides so he couldn't just slip off! It was pretty cool, though wobbley and bouncey in places that just added to the fun 😊 Near the end you have to climb down a ladder connecting two of the bridge sections which was probably the hairiest bit.
We walked up Bukit Teresek next where you could get pics over the jungle. Rob was not amused as the canopy walk had taken us back down to the bottom of the steep uphill stairs so we had to climb them all again. It was uphill all the
way (pretty obviously as it was a hill). The view from the top was alright, nothing too exciting. And then we made our way down, a bit of a strain on the legs especially as the steps were quite big and the two of us kept tripping over tree roots! By the time we reached the bottom we were very sweaty and stinky. We didn't really see much wildlife just squirrels which led to Rob's Charnock woods comment!
Back at our dorm room we walked in to find the Dutch girl packing. She showed us a rash on her arm and said that a Malaysian guy had told her they were bed bug bites so she was shipping out. The two UK guys had seemingly left too even though they were supposed to be staying for a couple of days (maybe their departure was related to the poo that was STILL on the bathroom floor!?). Dutch girls then said she'd had bed bugs in her last hostel too and showed us the remnants of earlier bite marks....this made us very suspicious that she was more then likely the carrier rather than the innocent victim. However, as now the seed
of paranoia and itching had been planted we decided to move to a different hostel along the road. The owner was nice enough when we said we wanted to leave and she didn't try and charge us for a late departure.
So we moved into Riffi's which is run by a bloke called Raffi Shariff who seemed a bit stoned and played mucho Bob Marley. We're in a 4 person dorm (next door to Dutch girl and her two male friends but too far for the bugs to crawl 😊) that we're sharing with two girls. The room is very small and hot and the toilets smell of wee badly but hopefully there are no bed bugs. We sat on the balcony at Riffi's watching the world go by. Spoke to a girl from the US and read for a while. We decided to have a big fatty tea of veg curry and 2 big plates of rice each as we reckoned we'd earned it then had a lovely cool shower which was much appreciated after the days activities.
Went to read in our room but we soon realised that the light was attracting 5 million bugs and
the light was right above Rob's bed so we sat on the settee in the hall instead. Rob is majorly paranoid about bed bugs and keeps pouncing on every black speck he sees. Got to sleep OK but was woke up by the two girls coming in then the Dutchies next door made loads of noise talking really loud and laughing until a girl from our room went and knocked on their door. Slept like a baby the rest of the night though till stoopid alarm went off at 7am 😞
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