Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
We left Penang confident we'd have our best nights sleep on a bus yet with huge reclining seats, pillows and loads of leg room! 5 minutes in and we'd lost enthusiasm as the bus driver clearly thought we were perishable goods that needed refrigerating! Instead we looked out at the views as we crossed the 9 km Penang bridge (apparently one of the longest bridges in the world) and saw the Patronas towers as we entered Kuala lumpur. We were dropped at the Crowne Plaza Hotel where we spent a humiliating 3 hours in the lobby being glared at by customers who were clearly shocked to see 3 smelly, dirty travellers sleeping on their backpacks at the bottom of the stairs as they came down from their luxury rooms. We politely declined the offer of breakfast at 10 pounds a head opting instead for the 7-11 where we ate cereal out of plastic cups on the streets of KL! We took advantage of the 4 star toilet facilities to clean up before boarding our next bus to Kuala Tembelling.
At Kuala Tembelling we got on a small boat and spent 3 hours riding down the river through the middle of the Taman Negara jungle. We arrived at our accomodation in the middle of nowhere, trying not to think too much about all the creatures we were likely to encounter. At 9pm our tour guide Zam announced we were going for a night jungle walk so armed with torches we headed out in to the unknown. Somehow Zam was able to spot every creepy crawly going and so kindly introduced us to glowworms, giant ants, a giant stick insect and the hugest spider we'd ever seen. At one point we were instructed to turn off all the torches and stand in the dark in silence while Zam poked sticks into a hole to entice a scorpion out. Thinking it would probably be pretty angry we were glad when it decided to stay in there! When we got back we spent 15 minutes pulling the leeches off our legs. We thought we'd be safe wearing long trousers but when we saw the blood through Leannas trousers we realised that they'd obviously had a bit of a feast on her!
The next day we went trekking up to the top of a mount to see the views over the whole of the jungle. Zak was still suffering with a bad leg from the Phangan motorbike accident so decided to stay behind. The 2 of us, 4 Malaysians and our guide had a pretty tough walk straight up to the top stopping for a well earned rest to admire the vast jungle below before sliding back down. We met up with Zak and went to do the canopy walk, the longest in the world at over 500m. This involved walking over ladders with wooden planks nailed to them suspended 45 metres above the jungle floor. Pretty scary but ok if you kept the suggested 10m behind the person in front to avoid it collapsing! We dropped zak back and went rapid shooting on the river, a great experience but probably better when you're not doing it in the middle of a monsoon. Spent the evening enjoying our complimentary dinner and giving tourism tips to 2 Malaysians who are leaving for England in 2 weeks to study for 2 years. Not sure how it will compare to here though!
The next day we retraced out route along the river back to Kuala Tembelling and onto our bus to Kuala Lumpur. After a lengthy chat the 3 of us decided that this would be our last travelling experience as a trio and the city would be a good place to part ways. Zak is heading out to experience his own travel adventures while Nikki and Leanna are continuing on together. We've had an amazing time so far and wouldnt change a thing but we feel all of us will get more from this trip by going our separate ways. We all still have the same flights so our paths will cross many more times and we'll definitely be meeting up for a few drinks along the way!
As for this blog Nikki and Leanna will be keeping this site going for the rest of their travels and Zak will start up a new one.
- comments