on to Jerantut and then...

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18 August, my last day in Taman Negara. I could have stayed there forever. Its just so easy and cheap: get up, go into the jungle and look for critters all day, go to sleep. Repeat the next day. It was awesome. But I thought I'd better be moving on. I was feeling kind of seedy when I woke up. I stumbled around for a while, then thought maybe food would set me right. I went to 'Family Restaurant' which wouldn't normally be my first choice, but it was the closest. The plain omelette seemed like a safe option for my stomach. Wrong. Omelettes are supposed to be light and fluffy. This one was fried. It was not good. For anyone going to Taman Negara and wanting good food I recommend 'Chess Corner' between the Tembeling and Liana hostels and 'Wan's Floating Restaurant' down at the river's edge (funny that).

Then it was on the bus to Jerantut. It was arriving at 10 so I got there at 9.15. Some more people turned up at 9.30. While we were waiting at least three locals (taxi drivers I believe) came by to tell us that the bus had either just left or that there was no bus at all. We knew better. As it turned out the bus left at 9.50, so too bad for anyone who turned up in the last ten minutes! The trip was one and a half hours with an insane driver who obviously had aspirations to be an off-road racer. I was surprised at the amount of secondary forest still covering the hills along the way, but there were also acres of oil palm plantations as well. (Apparently the Malaysian government deviously includes the plantations in the percentages of natural forest cover remaining in the country).

In Jerantut I moved into a place called Greenleaf Guesthouse, which is probably the nicest place I've stayed yet. And it has its own resident baby gecko. I can't really find a lot good to say about Jerantut. Its a little shanty-town kind of place, and it really smells. I don't know what it is but it definitely smells. Could have something to do with the piles of rubbish lining most of the streets. Normally to call a town a dump is a manner of speech; in this case it would be literally accurate.

I had been planning on going to Rantau Abang, famous for its nesting sea turtles, proclaimed by every guide book and promotional tourist pamphlet as a must on every traveller's itinerary. It turns out that the turtles are gone, all killed or harrassed or just disappeared, and the town has basically collapsed in on itself. I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do, so I decided to just catch a train straight up to Pasir Mas then catch a bus to the Thailand border town of Sungai Golok (all the stuff I've read spells it Sungai Kolok, but in the town its Sungai Golok and they should probably know). Of course things wouldn't be interesting if all went smoothly. The train left Jerantut at 2.54 am. Thats right, 2.54 am. Except it didn't. A train did eventually arrive, at 4.10 am. That was the train to Singapore that was supposed to have been there at 2.24 am. After the people boarded it sat there for at least another forty minutes. The train to Pasir Mas came in at 4.50. It was only two hours late. Somehow it then arrived at Pasir Mas THREE hours behind schedule.

I found the bus to the border and crossed into Thailand with no problems. When you step across the border you lose an hour (or gain one, I suppose it depends on how you look at things). Anyway, 3 o'clock becomes 2 o'clock...

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