Category: Simon

Another day, another crazy form of transport, which today was a Songathew – a pickup truck with seats down the sides and fortunately a cover over the top, as it started to rain on the way to the bus stop.
We moved on to Khao Sok, a national park to the north, in a similar vein to Taman Negara (well something has to break up the beaches and islands…). Our tree top hut (concrete looking trees mind you) was devoid of aircon, but did have mozzie nets over somewhat tired beds, and views over the river. Taking a night safari, we walked through the jungle stopping to see sticky frogs, fireflies flashing their bright bums as they fly, spiders, centipedes, frogs that play dead, and elephant tracks (scary, until we were told it was a domestic elephant). Alas, the walk was long and humid, and we saw most of the interesting stuff near our hut, but at least we got some exercise.

The Thais certainly know how to make interesting modes of transport, zooming up and down the main street are mopeds with attached sidecars for carrying two or three passengers – it’s impressive they move at all. Longboats are another wonder, an old wooden boat with a car engine literally strapped to the back, the drive shaft extended and a propellor attached to the end. It looks like something out of Mad Max, but it works, and got us to Raileys Beach.
We landed at the west beach which was nicely framed by huge limestone cliffs indicative of Thailand, and the sea gently lapping at the shore. There were also a couple of other beaches a short walk away, the east beach, which seemed to have no sand and was closer to a mangrove swamp. The other beach was much nicer; monkeys playing in the trees, caves at one end, islands at the other. We even ventured up a hill/cliff (i.e. near vertical) to a view point, and a lagoon that was just a bit too slimy to get to with sandals on. Gibbons were hooting in the trees as we descended the few hundred metres back to the beach, making it feel like we were in a jungle in the middle of nowhere, not within sight of ten resorts.

I made a slight booboo a few days back and didn’t notice the onward flight to Thailand was actually two days away, in other words we had one more day to kill in KL. Fortunately, the hostel had loads of information about tours, so we signed up for a trip to the Elephant sanctuary, not realising we were getting the hostel owner to personally take us.
The first stop was Deerworld, where we hand fed ravenous deer tiny bits of carrot that had us fearing for our fingers. A couple of deer had learned if you chew t-shirt the annoying biped holding the basket of food gets distracted so you can jump up and get all the food. I’m sure I’ll have nightmares about being attacked by deer at some point. The zoo was very much of the interactive type, I had a kiss from a parrot, held a hedgehog (it was white, I thought it was some form of jungle hedgehog, but just the plain old UK type), had our hands pecked by quail, and had one very scared sugar glider (chipmunk-esque critter) use our hands as a toilet. The final animal was a rather large bear, fortunately vegetarian, who ate chocolate and Nestles milk from our hands, and was distracted long enough for a bear hug from us.
The government run Elephant sanctuary’s prime role is to move elephants from ever encroaching palm tree plantations to national parks, in the hope they stay there – the only rescue mentioned had elephants that wandered out of the park. The sanctuary is also home to elephants that can’t be returned to the wild, like the couple of baby orphans, and spend their days as part of the show. Firstly the encrusted mud is hosed off, the elephants laying down so their backs get cleaned, and enjoy every minute. We got to pass them their dinner of fruit, most of them taking it off our hands with huge slimy trunks, but a couple held their mouths open for fruit on what must be the biggest tongue I’ve ever seen. Finally, we got a quick ride on the stubbly back of an elephant, nicely cleaned only minutes earlier, so I’m pretty sure it was the keeper that smelled so bad.
We had time on the way back to drive up to the Genting Highlands, Las Vegas in the mists (sic) of KL – the air was cold and at 6118 ft our heads were in the clouds, that’s probably why half the theme park was inside. Poking out through the mist was the bizarrely multicoloured largest hotel in the world with 6118 rooms, and the inevitable airport style check-in desks. Altogether a packed day, maybe it wasn’t so bad I can’t read flight times properly..

Our stay at the Redang Holiday villas included snorkelling trips, so we joined the vast swathes of Japanese/Malaysian tourists and boarded the boat to the marine park. It was slightly concerning that everyone else had bright lifejackets on, but knowing that it’s hard to sink when swimming in the sea, it was just put down to a quirk. There were certainly more fish at the marine park’s small cordened off snorkelling area (to protect us from the boats…), alas that’s probably due to them being fed by the tourists. We had a couple of hours to float around, trying to avoid the flailing arms of people trying to swim with lifejackets on, and momentarily losing each other in the thick school of fish (see picture!) Leaving the park, there was the definite feeling that the “park” bit of marine park is as in theme park, not ecological park – half of the area has dead coral, and there was loads of plastic bread bags left floating on the surface, they could do with some Kiwis or Aussies to come and sort it out!
The boat back was on a not so converted fishing boat that couldn’t even get close enough to the beach, so we had to jump and swim for the shore. Already missing the beach, we skipped the afternoon trip and read our books on the beach before seeing what else we could find at the local beach, turns out there was a bigger shark, about a metre long, but it disappeared before I could photo it. (or frighten Caroline…)

Time waits for no man, and our holiday rolls on. We boarded the packed fast “ferry” early in the morning, and wondered what the driver was thinking as he loaded more and more passengers on before turning for the main land. The boat had a definite list to one side, which normally wouldn’t have bothered me apart from the fact my bag was perched at the back, ripe for dropping into the blue abyss. Half an hour of thoughts about life with out the contents of that bag followed (it’d actually be not so bad travelling light!) before we docked at Kuala Besut, and literally had no firm plans beyond the next minute. The rough plan was to get to another island, and an hour in a share taxi with the surliest taxi driver ever got us to the next big town so that we could book our passage to Redang Island. By that afternoon we were back at the beach, very similar to the Perentian Islands, just a tad more developed (but that does mean nicer rooms…) We got back to snorkelling around again, except this time through the misty water came the definite outline of a shark! Good job it was only about 18 inches long…

The snorkelling gear purchased, and pretty much unused since the east coast of Australia is finally coming into it’s own off the beaches of the Perentian Islands. Combine that with the underwater casing for my camera means you’re going to have to put up with a few days of snorkelling photos.
The day started exploring Long Beach where our hostel is, we contemplated walking through to the next bay, but seeing as we couldn’t actually find the path, we hired a water taxi (for £3!) to take us. D’Lagoon has only one small beach and a small hostel nestled on it, and the occupants stared at us as we arrived, as though we’d interrupted their private beach. Our stay didn’t last long though, as we arrived a storm brewed up, the wind making snorkelling difficult. I did have enough time to find Nemo though, hiding away in the anemone. Fortunately as the storm settled down, a boat passed and gave us a lift back to Long Beach, just before the rain settled in for the rest of the day, there is a reason we’ve been carrying heavy reading books around after all!

It’s been a non-stop day of moving; at the crack of dawn we were in a bus out of the jungle (turns out that 2 hour boat ride wasn’t completely necessary), then into mini buses weaving in and out of traffic to the ferry terminal. At times like these it’s easy to miss the freedom of a campervan or car, but looking at the way the Malaysians drive, I think I’ll pass.
After the mini buses came the high speed “ferry” to the islands, which was really a oversized dingy, and we bounced/jolted over the waves to the tropical paradise island that is Perentian. The whole setup was very similar to Fiji, including the boat transfer to the beach and me worrying about bags going overboard. Leaving Caroline to bagsit, I wandered looking for a nice little chalet, skipped on the Guantanamo Bay-esque one (it was less than a tenner though…) and settled for the one with aircon, balcony and 70’s pink sheets. Sitting on the beach eating our dinner and having a beer, you realise all those hours on the move are worth it!

Our full day in the jungle started with a trip back in one of those little narrow shanty boats up river to a canopy walkway, one of the longest in the world. The short walk up the hill to the start had us rather warm, even with regular stops. The canopy walk, or more accurately the rope bridge strapped to nearby trees didn’t look particularily safe, although there was some reassurance by the fact some of it was closed for it’s regular replacement. So off we set, swinging from side to side on Caroline’s favourite type of bridge, looking down from heights of up to 40 metres. After that was the 40 minute hike up to the top of the hill, for views over some other hills. Suffice it to say we were warm, and I haven’t sweated that much, ever.
The boat trip up the rapids had told us to prepare for getting wet, but for some reason it didn’t quite twig that I shouldn’t wear shorts and a t-shirt. At least I had my camera in it’s fancy new underwater housing to get this shot. Three rapids, and several complete soakings later, and just as the little man at the back with the bucket for bailing the water out got tired, we made it to the natives village. To be fair they seemed to look like they lived in the straw huts, but the guy demonstrating fire starting and blowing darts was wearing a Quiksilver baseball cap and t-shirt… That soaking had washed off our mozzie repellant, so after a few minutes in that village we were literally itching to get back in the boat and down those rapids.

A 4 hour bus ride from Kuala Lumpur dropped us off at Kuala Tembeling, a couple of shops and a jetty from where we caught a boat up the river to Taman Negara, Malaysia’s National Park and the oldest rainforrest in the world. The wooden boats that took us up tje river were long and narrow, just enough to fit two people across, and with a whole load of luggage weighing down the front. The river itself was a murky chocolate milkshake colour, and flowed quite rapidly, which made the boat trip that little bit more hair-raising. We didn’t see much for the two and a half hour journey, a few kingfisher type birds and some water buffalo wallowing in the river as we passed. Rounding the final corner, the floating restaurants of Kuala Tahan came into view, and after a walk through the village on a mud track, we made it to the aircon comfort of our “chalet”. It sounds fancy, and it wasn’t too bad, but the big gaps around the doors had me a bit concerned about how easily the mozzies could get in. The village isn’t actually as remote as the boat journey suggests, there is a shop, main road, electricity, and even phone reception!
That night after dinner, we ventured into the jungle where our guide Zani pointed out the creatures, such as hunting spiders, black scorpions, moths, sloe monkeys, stick insects and deer at a watering hole. The jungle is one place I’m not sure about being in when it’s pitch black, so much noise and wildlife, they have tigers in there too!

Today we left Singapore again, this time by train and in the direction of Kuala Lumpur. Just before we crossed the causeway to Malaysia, and only minutes after leaving, everyone had to get off the train, go through Singaporian Immigration then get back on, I’m sure there’s an easier way. We didn’t get a stamp in our passports for Malaysia, the train just carried on, hopefully we don’t need one…
The train had left half an hour late, and the driver seemed intent on making up the time, but the train did not agree. Rocking furiously from side to side, it made me wonder what it would take for a carriage to come off the rails. To get between carriages required a leap across a wobbly bit of metal, with the tracks whizzing past underneath. Even after safely navigating that, there was the small matter of open carriage doors. Not so bad until you add the movement of the carriages. After several attempts I concluded that it was safest to just stay in our seats!
All fun and games though, seeing as we made it to KL in one piece. The taxi system here is the best, you pay at a counter in advance before even finding the taxi – no bartering, unexpected charges etc, just pay and go. Our British pounds stretch a bit further here (the taxi ride cost £2:10, how far could you go for that in the UK?) and so we have splashed out on a rather plush hotel, our room is great, and so long as you push your nose up to the glass of the window and squint a little, it boasts views of the top of the Petronas Towers, sweet!