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Published: August 7th 2007
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On June 11th I found myself leaving Perth to fly up to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The flight up ended up being somewhat eventful when I found out that it was going to cost me about US$17/ kg for my 30kg surfboard bag to put it on the plane. I ended up having to opt for the slightly better option of spending US$450 to ship them to Bali where I would need them. Needless to say I’ve had a few choice words for my travel agent on that matter. Once in KL I took the ½ hour long train ride from the airport to the KL Sentral station in the downtown area and made it over to my guesthouse in the Chinatown area.
I was glad I treated myself to a room with A/C that night because when I walked out of my room in the morning I stepped straight into 90F heat and 95-100% humidity. After about 5 minutes of walking around town I was drenched with sweat. I wandered around the markets of Chinatown some and got my first taste of the local food which was great. I then walked over to the Masjid Negara (National Mosque) and then to
the Museum of Islamic Arts. The museum had some great exhibits of different textiles and pieces of metal work that are associated with Islam and a great collection of Korans. After spending an hour or so there I walked up to the Bird Park which was ok but nothing too special. I did see some Macaque monkeys on the street as I walked up and they did have some great Hornbills in the park. That evening I got some dinner in the Chinatown area and walked around the night market there.
I spent my next day walking around the Merdeka (Freedom) Square. This is where Malaysia’s Independence was declared 50 years ago. I was planning on going into the National Museum of History there but it was closed because they were cleaning and drying it out from the flooding that had happened there just a day or two before I had gotten to down. There were several areas that had been affected by the flooding and I saw several cars that had been completely destroyed by flood water. Luckily it only rained a little while I was there.
From the square I wandered over to Little India and walked around
there some. I had several people just walk up to me to talk to me or offer assistance in finding my way around. Some of them were trying to sell things but some were just genuinely interested in talking to a visitor to their city which was cool. With a little help I found the metro station and made the trip up to the famous Petronas Towers which, up until two years ago were the tallest building in the world.
The area around the towers was a drastic difference to the other areas of the city I had been in and was like entering an area of any modern US or European city. The towers have a 6 story mall that has every American and European major brand at US prices. It was interesting to see the drastic difference of the different areas of the city where some areas were very modern and nice and other areas were very third world-like.
I wandered around the towers and tried to get a ticket up to the bridge area half way up the towers but they only allot so many tickets a day and they had all been given out early in
the morning. I had to settle for walking around the mall area and the outside garden and fountain area which was very nice. The towers are really quite amazing to see compared to the surrounding buildings and the architecture is very interesting.
The next day I joined a tour and headed out of KL and up to the Taman Negara National Park. Getting to the park involved taking a 3 hour bus ride to a small town called Jerantut where we stopped for lunch and then taking another bus ride to Tembeling Jetty. Here we all got in sampans (longboats) and took a 3 hour boat ride up the Sungei Tembeling to Kuala Tahan on the outskirts of the park. This would be our base for the next couple of days. The little village is made up of several guesthouses and long chain of different floating restaurants. From here you could take a boat ride across the river to the park to hike around.
The night that I arrived I joined a group for a night hike with a guide through the jungle to see some of the local wildlife. On our walk we saw wild pigs, scorpions, several different
types of spiders, walking sticks (one was a foot long), and some cool flowers that only come out at night. We also went to one of the many animal hides which are raised huts where you can watch the wildlife. The animals usually come out at night so it is best to stay at the hides overnight to catch the animals in action. We saw some barking deer from a distance there but didn’t really stay long enough to see much.
The next day I set out to check out the park some. I got a boat across to the park and hiked into the park a little ways where they have set up a rope bridge that runs through the trees about 30-40m (90-120 ft) off the ground. Walking around the bridge from tree to tree really gives you a different perspective on the forest and gives you a chance to see parts of the forest you wouldn’t otherwise see.
After lunch I met up with a French guy I had met at my hostel and the two of us hiked into the park to the Bumbun Kumbang or Kumbang Hide. I underestimated how difficult this hike would be
a little and it really took it out on me. It was about 90F with about 100% humidity the whole time we were hiking and we ended up hiking for 5 ½ to 6 hours to complete the 11km (6.5mile) hike. I was completely drenched with sweat when we reached the hide. We made it just as it was getting dark and I ended up taking a nap for a while and getting up at 11pm to see if I could see any of the wildlife which is active at night. After an hour of not seeing much of anything it started to rain buckets and did so for the rest of the night so we didn’t see anything. It was really too bad because I had talked to a guide that had seen an elephant there just 4 days before and had seen other animals there quite often.
The next day I thanked my lucky stars that we had decided to line up a boat ride back to camp and didn’t have to hike much. We did have to hike about 2.5km (1.5 miles) to the dock which was long enough to introduce me to several of the leaches
of the area. I had about 6-8 leaches on me by the end of the hike and two of them were quite big. Needless to say that is a part of the jungle I could do with out. We headed back to camp on the boat and I spent the rest of the day doing some walking around the park and hanging out with some of the people I had met there at the floating restaurants.
On my last day in peninsular Malaysia I got the boat ride back down the river to Tembeling Jetty and then the bus rides back to KL. I spent the afternoon walking around the Chinatown markets some more and haggled for a couple of t-shirts which I got for about US$5 or so. On the 18th I got a bus to the airport and hopped a flight to my next destination, Bali. Stay tuned to tales from Bali soon.
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Jayne
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WOW
I loved reading the description of everything except the leeches!