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Part 1 by Jan – Leaving Perhentian
Internet access was a bit scarce over the last week or so and we were not able to update you as regularly as we hoped. Luckily we have our netbook with us and we can write our adventures down as they happen and upload them with a bit of a delay.
Polona wrote the last entry just before we left the islands and we managed to upload it once arriving at Taman Negara National park. But before the park we still had a night out on the Perhentian Islands.
Chris and I did end up dressing up as girls. Between Kay (owners of Chris’s bikini top and hair band), Sandra (kind enough to lend me a top and Chris her skirt) and Polona (lending me her skirt and a nice pink hair bend) we were well covered. We went to dinner dressed like that and felt fab! I think all the girls were very jealous at all the attention we were receiving. The locals are well aware of the ladies’ night, happening every Friday and welcomed our new look, especially the lady boy at the beach restaurant. He / she made it clear that
we definitely know how to enjoy life and gave us special treatment that evening (before anybody gets any crazy ideas, that just means that we got the menus and food before the rest of the girls). The tourists on the other hand, not aware of ladies’ night, were a bit surprised at our awesome new look. A lot of stares and some weird looks, but hey, at least we enjoy life.
After the dinner it was time for the party to start. The bar we visited was not really a bar. It’s just a wooden stand, and during the day it’s empty, but at night speakers are brought out along with a few ice boxes and booze. Every Tuesday and Friday ladies get a few free cocktails, along with the boys dressed up as girls. On this particular Friday there were three of us. Chris, a Kiwi guy and I.
Armed with our free drinks we started playing drinking games. It seems my 3 years in London didn’t go to waste. Neither did the cocktails, so we soon had to switch to Monkey juice. I will let your imagination fill in the blanks, but it was a very fun and
Photo 6
Canopy walklong night.
The next morning we had to be up at 7 am to catch the early speed boat back to the mainland (not the best experience after a night out) and say goodbye to the Perenthian.
I absolutely loved the islands, and this is only the second place where we stayed for 5 nights (first one is Lamu, Kenya). Everybody is so easy going, there is no pressure and it’s up to you how active or non-active you will be. Our only activity was the snorkelling trip and we learned later we were very lucky to see what we have seen – apparently it’s not common to see more than one turtle and shark, if even that. It’s true that everything is a bit more expensive on the islands (about 2, 3 times the price from the mainland) but it’s well worth it. Bintang hostel where we stayed at was really calm and clean, the only down side of it was the Irish owner. She was nice and warming but very business orientated. It’s the first hostel in which they charged for storing the luggage; food at the restaurant was also a bit pricier – especially when you can
Photo 7
The view from the canopy walk three minutes to the beach and eat there. But all in all, it’s well worth staying in.
Once we got to the mainland we still needed to sort out our ride to Taman Negara. On the islands the price was 85 RM, but dealing directly with the driver we managed to negotiate it down to 60 RM.
On this particular trip we saw the danger of Malaysian drivers. A motorcyclist got killed in an accident. We didn’t see the accident, but there was loads of blood and people standing around a covered body. Roads are full of people, kids and seniors, on small motorcycles, some even driving bare footed, but nobody wears a helmet. The roads in Malaysia are in good condition and wide and the drivers take full advantage of it, driving like maniacs. Turning a two lane road in to a three or even four lane road to pass other cars is normal (Pete, this people are crazy even by your standards). Combine this with mountain road. It is practically impossible to sleep on the shuttle buses as you get thrown around all the time.
After seven hours of this rally driving we finally arrived in Kuala
Tahan, a gateway village to Taman Negara, a National park, a massive jungle forest, a paradise for the leaches.
We checked in at Rippi Hostel, got welcomed by their charming owners and ended up in a dorm room, costing £2 per person. We are definitely no longer on the islands. Sandro: we met a Spanish version of you, no kidding; the guy looked and moved just like you. He left the next morning so I didn’t get a chance to take a picture.
On the first night we both ended up in bed really early, tired from the night before and the long ride, we decided to have a look around the next day.
During dinner we did get the chance to see Man U get their 19th title and overcome Liverpool. Since Liverpool haven’t won the title in 20+ I don’t really understand how anybody even had an idea that they were the number one English club. I know, history counts for something, but still.
Part 2 by Polona – Taman Negara
Day two in Taman Negara was quite active for us. I started the day with a weird encounter – I collected all of our sweaty and
Photo 9
The top of a 334m high hill smelly clothes and took them up the hill to the nearest laundry service. As I was there a couple of minutes ago and the man told me to just walk in to the house I did. And was in for a bit of a shock – there was no one there and after a minute or so this person comes out, naked as the day she was born, so overweight it was horrific and just stood there and starred at me. I didn’t know whether to smile at her or just turn around or whatever. She sat on the couch and continued staring at me. Luckily the man came out of the back and I gave him our clothes and almost ran back to the hostel. Jan thought it was hilarious.
OK, after a nice breakfast on one of the floating restaurants, Jan and I went back to Rippi’s to get our shoes on, get the map and some more instructions on which walks to do. We took one of the boats to take us across the river, we got to the park, got our licence confirmed first (you need to have an official licence to enter the park, or
you risk a fine of 30,000RMs or £6,000 and/or 3 years in prison) and were soon entering the jungle. Oh, and here are some facts for you to forget quickly: the Taman Negara park is 2 times the size of Luxemburg (1/5 of Slovenia) and is more than 130 million years old.
It was amazing, the paths were really nicely marked, but that doesn’t mean that it was an easy walk, it was full of roots, up and downs...and I loved it. The only thing was : we were both wet with sweat after only a couple of minutes in the jungle – the heat and the humidity did the trick. So we were sweating along and came to our first destination – Canopy walk. It’s basically narrow “bridges” connecting the tree tops, secured by safety net and set quite up high above the jungle. It was really cool, although I will admit, it did make me nervous, but I did it anyway and I do not regret it. The shame was that only half of the walk was open, as they were renovating and proofing the reminder of the path.
Then we continued to climb the hill in the
Photo 11
Our room-mate. Poor guy! middle of the forest, well, it says it’s 344m above sea level, but trust me, walking up on that steep path, climbing in parts with the help of the rope in what I can describe sauna conditions, was no piece of cake . We met 2 German girls who we shared our dorms with in the middle, and they were almost dead as well. There were some local Malaysian boys there as well and they insisted we take some snacks from them to gain strength. We chatted with them for a while and continued onwards. We were so happy when we got to the top. The guys at the hostel told us we can actually dismount using another path, but we needed to make sure we do not take the wrong path and walk deep in the jungle. We took our chances and held to our left at every crossing (they told us to go left at one of the crossings, but there were so many, we just thought, why brake the rule, if it’s left it’s left). The path was even more difficult and demanded a lot of effort but we made it back to the central station of
Photo 12
Another member of the hostel. The weird tail is genetic (and not cut). the park, 10 or 15 minutes after it started pouring down with rain. We ended our day with dining on one of the floating restaurants again, and Jan thought he will stay up to watch the Arsenal match, but decided he was too tired – now he is happy he didn’t see it, would be just too stressful. Ah, boys.
The next day we decided to take it easy. We managed to book our flight tickets from Singapore to Borneo – got a fair deal thanks to Tiger airlines. We went back to the hostel to find our German roommates barging into the room, panicky as one of the girls got bitten by the leaches – there are suppose to be loads in the park. They did go back in about an hour though, decided to complete their planned walk for the day – gotta love the Germans. Jan and I also decided that we can’t be lazy, so we went back to the park looking for a spot near the river, where the Rippi’s boys told us we could also swim. As soon as we got there, it started pouring down again, so we turned to walk back to
the entrance of the park. By the time we got there we were soaking wet, we took the first boat back to the other side of the river and as soon as our boat touched the other bank, the rain stopped - Murphy’s law.
On both days we were in the jungle we kept coming across these Japanese tourists with all the imaginable photography equipment scattered through the jungle. As it started raining, they pulled out small umbrellas, collected their stuff and walked back to the entrance of the park with the slowest pace possible – how they got back is another question, as there were so many hurdles on the way, and with their equipment and umbrellas...Ah well, what people won’t do to see some birds.
Oh, and we also did a 2 hour Night Jeep Safari – they take you to a palm plantation with 4x4 jeeps, with 6 people seating at the back of the jeep and 2 extra people on the roof, and you drive through the jungle for about 2 hours looking for small and big jungle animals. We weren’t really that lucky as we didn’t spot that many animals, but it was
full moon and it made the ride amazing.
Next day we were on our way again, taking 3 buses to Melaka. We started our journey at 9am, stopped in Termeloh for 4 hours, waiting for the final bus, and arrived to Melaka at 21h in the evening. We were happy that we were clever enough to book a hostel in advance and ended up in a really cool and charming old colonial hostel in the middle of China town – Sama Sama.
More to follow.
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