In theory it was a good idea!
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Kota Bharu,
Malaysia
Friday, December 5, 2003
Thursday December 4th
Hardly got a wink of sleep last night as it felt like a thousand ants wearing cricket spikes were having a rave on my glowing back. Stupid Tourist Man vowed not to get burnt again - at least until the next time. I finally managed to fall asleep as the mosque next door began dawn prayers, which was a pity as I had to be up at 6:30 to catch a taxi to the ferry.
So at 7am there was a pounding on my door and I was jolted out of my slumber by the searing pain in my crispy back. In a mad rush packed my bags and got ready to leave, not relishing the fact that I had to walk about 400m down steep steps from my bungalow to the taxi (i.e. a pick-up truck full of annoyed people looking at their watches). The descent is bad enough normally, but try doing it with a fully laden backpack bouncing up and down on scorched skin.
Two ferries, three buses and 10 hours later I was at the Thai border with Malaysia. I had decided to go to eastern Malaysia and take the Jungle Train south to Singapore rather than the more popular western route through Kuala Lumpur as I had no real desire to see another big city. If I had planned it better and had more time it would probably have been worth it, but as it turned out it was a total waste of time and immensely frustrating. I was the only ferang on the bus and was kicked off at the border into the rainy darkness (cue sad music). I walked across the border not really having a clue as to where I was going, but fortunately bumped into a couple of Danes at Immigration and, after much obligatory haggling with the driver, we shared a taxi into the town of Kota Bharu.
At this point I got confused with exchange rates between the pound, Thai baht, Cambodian riel, Vienamese dong, Malaysian ringgit and Singapore dollar. When I thought I was paying three pounds for a grotty, smelly dorm room I started haggling and getting belligerent. In reality it was just over one pound, but it was still over-priced.
Looking back, I would really like to have spent more time in Malaysia, especially in the Taman Negara National Park. Next time I'll plan it better, and hopefully it won't be in the rainy season!
Friday December 5th
The Jungle Train left at 6am without me on it, and there's only one a day. Bugger. Now I had to decide what to do, where to go and how to get there. The guy at the hostel was pretty unhelpful but I managed to find the info I needed on the web. There was an express train to Singapore leaving at 7:15pm and, although I wouldn't get to see any of the jungle, I'd try and get on it. Mr Unhelpful told me the train company computers were down so they couldn't issue tickets. I didn't want to waste another day in this hellhole (although it's probably quite nice really) so I went to find out about the bus. The Singapore express was full so I got on a bus to the border town of Johor Bahru where I would have to catch another bus to cross into Singapore. So that's what I did.
Once again I was the only whitey (with patches of bright red) on the bus, and seemingly the only person not enjoying the ridiculously loud 15 minute extended Fat Boy Singh remixes of terrible Bollywood songs on the TV. I asked if we could watch 'Python' instead, but even they knew how bad a film it is. Thank God for mp3s.
