Kuala Selangor - the very end of the trip

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After Taman Negara I headed back to Kuala Lumpur. I was planning on going right through to Melaka, partly because I like staying there better than stinky old Kuala Lumpur and partly so I could revisit the Melaka Zoo and see how it has progressed (or otherwise) in the last few years since I last saw it in a sad state. I had bought a flight out of Asia to Melbourne the other day, finally having come to the conclusion that I had no money left to continue the trip, and the airport is about halfway between Melaka and Kuala Lumpur so is just as easy to get to from either direction. It is simple enough to get to Melaka from Taman Negara. You just bus to Jerantut, and then on to the Pekililing bus station in Kuala Lumpur, and then take the train over to the TBS bus terminal from where the buses to Melaka leave.

However there was a certain issue which cancelled this plan. Unbeknownst to myself, or to any of the other tourists coming from Taman Negara, today was the last day of a public holiday long-weekend. There were a few of us on the bus to Jerantut and when we got there we discovered that the buses to KL were all booked. For the whole day. There were some mini-van guys there saying they could take people to KL for 40 Ringgits because there was no way anyone was getting a bus today. This was plainly your typical Asian-transport scam where the taxi or van drivers tell you that they are the only means of transport. Turns out it wasn't a scam. Sometimes that happens!

I asked around the ticket offices and discovered that we could catch a bus to Temberloh and from there multiple bus companies ran routes to KL. It wouldn't be a problem. The bus to Temberloh was only 6.60 Ringgits and took about an hour and a half. Everything in Temberloh was booked! It was incredible. I've never come across such a situation before. There were several bus companies at the station, all running buses every half an hour throughout the day. Every single office had "fully booked" signs stuck up on their windows. Literally the only way to get to KL was by taxi - and from here they were asking 200 Ringgits.

A taxi could only take four people and there were five of us. While I scouted around to see if there were any mini-vans around (there weren't!) two of the people left in a taxi, which brought us down to three. There wasn't really any other option. We found a lone local heading to KL to make a fourth person, I bargained the fare down to 160 Ringgits, and we set off.

The place I had booked was called the Matahari Lodge. Basically I just wanted to be sure of finding a cheap place without walking around for ages in the heat. It turned out to be in a good location, literally a couple of minutes walk from the Pasar Seni train station, with the KL Sentral station one stop away in one direction and the Masjid Jamek station one stop in the other direction. The hostel itself, perhaps not so good. I would describe it as "basic" - and if I call something basic it is really basic! I wouldn't recommend it.

The door to the street is on a magnetic lock but the code is stuck up on the door - why even have the door locked if the code is right there? Free breakfast comes with the room, starting at 7am. I went down at 7am and there was nothing in the kitchen except piles of rubbish, dirty dishes and old food. There were several presumably-drunk people passed out on couches, including the Australian reception guy. I managed to rouse him and asked if breakfast was indeed at 7am. "In a few hours" he mumbled. What? "In a few hours... at 7am in the morning" "It's 7am now." "Oh..." He stumbled away, came back with an armful of bread, jam and coffee, dumped it amongst the filth on the kitchen table, and staggered back to collapse on the couch. The bread was stale. Not even day-old stale, but stiff.

Because I was in KL instead of Melaka I had been going to go to Zoo Negara today. When I last went, in 2013, it was 50 Ringgits. Before heading off I thought I'd just check that on their website. The price is now 85 Ringgits - more than a 50% increase! No doubt this is due to the arrival of their giant pandas. I didn't want to spend that much money - 85 Ringgits is about NZ$30. I checked the price for the KL Bird Park - 67 Ringgits (about NZ$22). For comparison, the Taiping Zoo is 17 Ringgits and the Penang Bird Park is 38 Ringgits.

I decided I might just stay at the hostel and write the Taman Negara blog-post. That seemed like a good plan. Lum-te-tum. Mucking around on the internet. Wait - I could go to Kuala Selangor! The white-thighed langur I had seen at Taman Negara was the 29th primate of this trip. I could get silvered langur at Kuala Selangor to make an even 30.

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It was already 9am because I'd been wasting time, and it is almost two hours to Kuala Selangor but I went anyway. Even at midday I should get a few new year-birds along with the silvered langurs. It is very easy to get to from KL. You just take the train to Masjid Jamek station (one stop from where I was staying, handily enough) and then catch a bus from the Medan Pasar stop round the corner. Last time I went there it was a bus number 141 to Kuala Selangor. Now it is bus number 107. I don't know why I bother noting what the bus numbers are when I'm travelling around in Asia - every time you go back they've changed the numbering system.

It is Ramadan at the moment, so few eateries are open during the day. When I got to Kuala Selangor I popped into the Pizza Hut - the western places are always open - and they had pizzas for ten Ringgits (a little over NZ$3). I remembered it being a fair distance from the town to the reserve (Kuala Selangor Taman Alam means "Kuala Selangor Nature Park") so took a taxi there for another ten Ringgits. It was barely over a kilometre, so on the return I just walked it.

The reserve at Kuala Selangor is a mangrove habitat. Silvered langurs and crab-eating macaques are 100% reliable there - either in the reserve itself or at the temple above the reserve where people feed them. It is also a good spot for smooth-coated otters which I saw one of last time (my first wild otter) but none this time although I did see fresh prints.

Surprisingly there were few mosquitoes around, which was lucky as I'd forgotten to bring any repellent with me. It was really really hot though. It wasn't too long before I spotted a silvered langur, with a few more later in the day. Curiously, when you see the langurs in the reserve they act pretty shy, and yet those same langurs will go up to the temple and literally tug on your trousers in the hope of food.

Despite being close to midday there were still a lot of birds around, although the tide was out so the pools were just mud with no waders or herons present. I wanted to find a mangrove whistler which was easy enough on the mangrove walkway, but as always I failed to find a mangrove pitta. There was a nice bird-wave in the mangroves too, with species like Oriental white-eye, ashy tailorbird, great tit and brown-throated sunbird.

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The next morning I flew to Melbourne.

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