We eventually crossed the border from Thailand and were greeted by really smiley border officials who joked that we were from Belgium. Its so much more pleasant when you cross a provincial border checkpoint. It was late now so there was no chance of a local bus. It was taxi or stay here. The guy quoted us 50 ringgit to go to Kota Bharu. It seemed a lot, but we had no real choice and it was a 40 minute journey. Went to the ATM in the petrol station to draw money but they charged and I didn't want to pay. I also thought they weren't dispensing much cash, but I had thought I had needed 9000 (not 900) for 6 days and this ATM only dispensed 1500 (which I failed to calculate as 375 euros). So we got in the taxi and said he would need to take us to an ATM in the city. First he took us to another petrol station, but they charge, then to an ATM that didn't dispense to foreign cards. I told him to just take us to the HSBC ATM. There I got some money and went into what I thought was our hotel. I thought it was odd that it was in the wrong place, but I assumed LP had made a customary mistake. Instead it turns out that this place was calling itself JB Backpackers as well and was a bit shitty with rooms for 26 ringgit, but when you cross the border, you don't always know what the price should be. We decided to stay for 2 nights, which is probably too long, especially in that bullshit bedroom.
In the morning we went out to the local wooden mosque, rebuilt without nails, which is nice but not worth a special effort. Then we decided to walk around town, which took about an hour to see all the sights. Oh well. It was also raining a lot. So much for this side not being in the rainy season. Jessica was having nothing but rain on the other side, but she had split from Amir now and was travelling with an Austrian couple. We got some really good local Indian food for lunch. There is not a lot to do here, so we just relaxed for the rest of the day. Jessica lost her bankcard so she was a little bit fucked. Cannelle told her to come and join us, so we could lend her money, but she borrowed some of the Austrian girl and decided that she would meet us in Singapore at the weekend. In the evening we went to the night market but it was shut. I am not sure if that was to do with the weather, but probably. I can't imagine loads of people want to hang around a market in the rain.
We had arranged to get a taxi with the father of the owner of our fake hotel and set off early to catch the 'jungle train' to Kuala Lipis. Cannelle wanted to go directly to Jerantut, but I thought it was a waste of a day, so we may as well visit somewhere. The train is slow, but passes through some quite pretty scenery. You don't initially feel like you are in the jungle, but it picks up as it goes along. We got to Kuala Lipis and after stepping off the train I regretted stopping there. My back was also beginning to break from whatever knackered me in Thailand. Cannelle wasn't bothered about seeing the town, so she decided to stay with the bags while I had a look around. After a little wander I was glad that I stopped there. Its not worth going out of your way for, but I would definitely stop there on the way between the two towns. Especially if you plan to stay the night in Jerantut. The train pulls in to Kuala Lipis between 1pm and 2pm, while there is a bus to Jerantut at 5.20pm and its really cheap. I walked round the driving range and went to visit all of the colonial houses up the hill behind them. I also went to the school, government building and a few more colonial places. To see these places cross over the railway line when you arrive. The first lot are up the hill in front of you and accessed from the left. The second lot are left and then take the right hand fork on the road. They are all within a 10 minute walk of the train station. Its a really pleasant town. Nice place to pass some time in and I would even stay the night if you like pretty little untouristy towns. When we got to the bus station we were accosted by a local taxi driver, who wanted us to take a tour. We ended up crossing the street to his friends cafe and I grabbed some Horlicks and played with the mental cats. Being a Muslim country we were now surrounded by cats rather than dogs. We arrived in Jerantut and its not a bad little town as well, though it lacks the colonial buildings of Kuala Lipis. We grabbed dinner in pizza hut. The hotel bed was super saggy but it was not bad to get a private room for 15 ringgits. Cannelle noted that noone stared at her for not wearing a headscarf, even though we were in the most devoutly Muslim part of the country and she figured that in France they were wrong to try and ban it.
In the morning we grabbed the public bus to Taman Negara National Park. I was looking forward to it, but Cannelle was not really happy with any of the itinerary on the way to Singapore. She thought the park would be wet and full of leeches. I thought that there wouldn't be many tourists and we would have a better chance of seeing big animals in the rainy season. In the end we were both very wrong. Its touristy. I mean really touristy. You have to take a boat across and I misread the entrance fee as 7 ringgits, when it was actually 1 ringgit. Bargain. Damn European way of writing ones with a mark on the top confuses me. They had a nice sign saying 'take only photos, leave only footprints.' They do have some pithy phrases in Malaysia. At the entrance there is a resort and then the initial trail paths are all boardwalks. Interesting. It means you can hike in the jungle without actually touching the jungle. I assume its set up like that to avoid the mud and leeches, but it does lead to a homogenised feeling. If you add to that the huge number of useless tourists wandering around who make so much noise, then you can be certain you won't see anything big. Coming to this park is all about managing expectation. If you expect to see big animals then you will be disappointed. If you come to see some pretty jungle then you will get what you want. If you come in a large group or on a tour then you won't see anything as the noise is too great. If you come on your own then you will see some stuff. it seems all the animals that you are likely to see hang around the resort and you have a greater chance of seeing them there than you do in the actual jungle. I can give you a lowdown of what we saw, but first I'll say that we did a lot of research and it seems that noone sees anything of any note in the park. The only chance is really to do the long 7 day trek for 55km to the mountain summit. Then you may get something. Everywhere else you can forget it. We saw a troupe of monkeys immediately hanging around the roofs of the resort, then we went to the near hide and saw a rat. The hide is really pretty. We saw some blue pheasants on the boardwalk to the canopy walkway, which is a total waste of 5 ringgits as you have fuck all chance of seeing anything. Just go if you like walking across rope walkways up in the trees. Walking back I saw something weird on the walkway railing. It looked like a stick. I thought it must be a stick insect and even though it clearly was, I still wasn't sure. So we walked away a bit and then came back and sure enough it was walking along and really big. Cool. Its funny how the most boring animals in a zoo are really cool when you see them in the wild. Our damn monkey eyes mean that something has to move for you to see it. There is no chance that we would have seen it without it being on the main walkway. We then saw a giant millipede before grabbing lunch back on the bus side of the river. We then crossed again and struck out for a further hide. We saw a mouse deer (which was cool), then more monkeys and finally my first wild boar, as well as a praying mantis. All of these were in the resort again at various points. We got accosted by some annoying school kids and made our escape. We saw a snake and a little rodent creature on the way to the swimming area, where a local family was fucking about and making loads of noise. We saw some giant ants and small white spiders. We decided to leave the boardwalk and there were still no leeches. We were lucky with the lack of rain. It really wasn't supposed to be the time to go. We got freaked out by the jungle though and the cacophony of cool sounds around us. I regret turning back, but I still don't think we would have seen anything else cool. We saw the monkeys and some babies again on the way back before having to stop for a wild boar and her two babies. Again they were all in the resort. By this point we had seen a lot of cool things and we knew we weren't going to see anything else except a tapir maybe. Shame we didn't stay but we decided not to bother staying at a hide as noone seems to see anything. Too many tourists and the animals would have scattered long before. We went to the hide for a bit and met some cool Americans, so we ended up chatting away with them until the last bus back to Jerantut. The bus back was a minivan and took ages. The driver was also auditioning for a road safety video of how not to operate in a petrol station. Not content with leaving the engine on while we filled up, he proceeded to spark up a cigarette as well. Interesting. I hadn't planned on dying by being blown up in a petrol station amongst plantation trees. We grabbed some food and found out the Bradford and Swansea had both made it to the final of the League Cup. What an awesome result for football. Win - win. Either Tim's team makes it to Europe or a team from the fourth division does. I hope they have the budget for European travel. The hotels all advertise the Singapore train being at 1.45pm, but there is a cheaper local train at 9am and as we didn't want to wait around all day we decided to take that one. We had enjoyed the park a lot more than we were expecting. Go in with measured expectations and you will too.
In the morning we got the train to Johor Bharu. Its a really long train ride. We got in around 5pm, but still had enough light to have a look around the city. Its much better than we expected. Like a mini Singapore, sort of. I was most excited by the prospect of eating Nandos. There was a tower with lights which is really pretty. Its pretty modern as well, but has a nice colonial area that's not as tacky as some places. We got lost looking for the mosque as LP's map is shit (I imagine they didn't even really visit) and a crazy christian guy got hold of us. He kept wanting to take us to deserted places, but I shook him off. I figured the only way someone wants to take you to deserted parts of town in the dark is not for good intentions. It hadn't even occurred to Cannelle that he might want to mug us. We got a Nandos. Its nice, but its not the same as home. They don't use mayonnaise, they use cooked vegetables instead of salad and waiters come to your table rather than self ordering. An anti climax, but at least it meant that I was not longer craving having one. Hopefully in Oz it will be like home. The city is really expensive to stay in, but still cheaper than Singapore and certainly what you get for the price. We had had to get dorms in Singapore, so we enjoyed our hotel here and were off to Singapore the next day.
It took ages to cross the border the next day. We walked to immigration, got a stamp, took a bus over the causeway (its fractionally faster than walking) and waited ages (though not as long as at the Cambodia/Thailand border) to get our stamp and finally we were in Singapore. The first part of Malaysia had been a mix of better than expected, but still nothing special.
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