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Across the border to Malaysia
Entry 14 of 129 | show all | print this entry |
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The last chapter left off with us (me, Martin and Jane our mate from the UK) having made our way by overnight sleeper train to Kota Bharu in the north east of Malaysia. First impressions were not good. It was soon very apparent to us that the standard of accommodation and cleanliness compared to Thailand was going to be very poor. Jane and I left Martin to backpack sit while we traipsed the streets looking for anything that didn't resemble a dump. We enquired at one hotel and were suspicious of the woman's reply, after she had muttered something to the man next to her she said she had no room. Later (after we had been successful in our quest for anything not resembling a dump) we sent Martin in to check and she offered him a selection of rooms!! And there was more....... We went to a pizza restaurant for lunch and sat down at the table. A waiter appeared and proudly handed ONE menu to Martin. And what about me and Jane? Oh yes that's right Malaysian custom is such that the man is in charge of reading out the menu and HE decides what his ladies will eat. Not for these 2 ladies! And so 2 more menus were demanded whilst we muttered under our breaths "welcome to Malaysia, hope you have a MALE dominated day."
The next morning we made a quick exit from the town and made our way by white knuckle boat ride to The Perhentian Islands, approx 40 mins away. This is a divers paradise with a beach bungalow, fine golden sand, daily temp of 35+ degrees and a water temp of 31 degrees. We dived everyday, twice a day on beautiful sites with coral gardens and marine life that's out of this world.
Martin and I embarked on our advanced scuba certificate that involved a deep dive, wreck dive (fantastic), and our first ever night dive which was incredible despite my torch going out!! With fresh baked cakes and tea and coffee waiting for us after each dive it was no wonder we were there just under 3 weeks!
Having exhausted ourselves diving it was now time for something completely different. We took the 'jungle train' from Kuala Krai to Jerantut. The journey lasted 8 hours. The scenery was dense trees, trees and more trees in a sticky hot humid heat. A taste of things to come we thought. Our destination was Taman Negara National Park. One of the oldest and still untouched jungles in the world. Which basically means it has never been logged.
This experience was so totally different from anything experienced in the last 8 months. The jungle was very hot, humid and noisy. We met up with Laura and Chris from NZ and Kevin and Barbara from Holland and the gang of us embarked on our first night time jungle walk. Our guide called 'Crazy like Monkey' found us a Green Leaf Spider, huge Huntsman spiders, stick insects, a green tree snake, deer and monkeys well, their eyes were reflected in our torches anyway. A couple of people got a leech or 2 on their feet but we managed to steer clear of them. Little did we know our experience with the beasts was yet to come!!
The next day was spent walking the Jungle Canopy Walk.
This consisted of several lengths of ladder and wooden boards suspended along ropes some 30 meters up in the air, tied to huge trees! Great fun. It is meant to be the longest canopy walkway in the world. We all felt a sense of achievement some 2 hours or so later when it was all over! It was definitely not a walk for someone scared of heights or swinging walkways. Well done Kevin!!
Walking the rest of the trail proved very testing indeed. It had thunder stormed and rained heavily the previous night (after our night walk) which meant that the leeches had come out to 'party.' If we picked one off you picked a million off your boots, socks, trousers. The jungle floor was literally moving with them all sticking their noses in the air waiting for a whiff of a backpackers boot. Needless to say Jane and I, remembering the MALE dominated country that we were in, and elected Martin as "jungle team leader" in the hope that they would attach themselves to him first thus leaving our path clear. NOT! Leech checks every 5 minutes rapidly went down to every 2 mins or before if you felt a bite. These creatures are clever buggers who are able to make their heads narrow enough to poke through the smallest weave in your socks or boot lace hole and then they just suck away until they are the size of one of your toes. They were a nightmare. Talk about "I'm a celebrity......" When the trail was finished we returned back to our rooms for a shower. We counted up our bites-Jane won on 2 counts. One was that she had the most bites and 2 was that 2 of them were in the most in-hospitable place you could imagine, give you one guess??? Jungle trekking is certainly an adventure and definitely not for the faint-hearted.
Our next stop was Kuala Lumpur. The 3 of us decided to live it up and check into a luxury hotel. This meant breakfast, tea and coffee in the room, fridge, thick white fluffy towels, bathroom goodies, t.v with remote,A/C and best of all, not only a shower but a bath too!!
Our days were spent shopping, having haircuts, drinking coffee, eating cakes and more shopping.
Evenings were spent soaking in the bath full of bubbles and eating proper cheddar cheese and french bread whilst reading the latest Hello magazine. Oh to be back to civilization!!!
We had 5 days of luxury before taking a flight across to Borneo. Kutching, on the north west tip was our destination. Orang-Utan Land, but that's another chapter. Stayed tuned 'till next time folks........
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