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Steph's Asia Trip
I can't remember what I wrote last and the internet is so slow here that it'll take me forever to load the web page, so if I repeat myself - sorry.
Got the jungle railway to Jerantut a few days ago. It was 10 hrs and left at 6:25 am from Kota Bharu. it was an interesting journey - went through the jungle (obvious in the name really!) and I arrived on time in Jerantut. Spent the night there- not particulrly interesting, but nice accommodation and lots of nice people. Got a 3 hour boat trip up the Temebling River the next day to the centre of the jungle town where I'm staying in Taman Negara (means national park in malaysian) The river trip was incredible - the scenery was just amazing - huge trees lined the banks of the immense river with nothing but rainforest and monkeys and wild buffalo etc all around.
Arrived at the village which consist of a few floating restaurants and houses and a couple of "shops". i'm staying in a dorm with lots of interesting travellers. went on a walk and had a minor distaster - actually, i think i'd class it as a major disaster. I came across a huge nest of leaf cutter ants, so decided to take a photo and managed to drop my camera - it landed on the lens, which won't go back in anymore, so my camera is broken. I was so mad with myself - not sure if it can be fixed. so i have no photos of the jungle and i can't even access the ones i've already taken because my camera won't even turn on. Was really crap. Some of the travellers i met said they'd e-mail me their photos, but i don't know if they will.
Anyway, i sulked about the camera for the rest of that day and then the next day I went on the longest, highest canopy walk in the world - was really incredible - went through the canopy of the rainforest and saw snakes and monkeys!! Then i went on a walk up a hill and saw a spectacualr view of the park (its the oldest rainforest in the world - forgot to say that) - didn't get any photos because of the gay camera! and then I did a long trek to some rapids - mainly to assess my fitness, because i wanted to do a 4 day trek, but since i've been lying on beaches for the past 2 weeks, i wasn't sure if i'd manage it.
I walked 18km in 6 hours (which is quite a long way i think although it doesn't sound much) I think that's probably my limit for 1 day. I removed numerous leeches from my body throughout the day!! They're sick! Really disgusting - I can't justify their existence - think I'd make them extinct if I could. They can stretch really long (about 5cm) and they stand on end searching for things to climb on to - then they get on your shoes and climb up your body - horrible. The first one I found on my back as I was scratching and I had a split second of panic before i realised that there was no-one to help me, so panicing was a really useless reaction! Think it had been there quite a while because it was really stuck on so i couldn't flick it off (most of the time you can flick them) and also, since it was on my back, it was hard to get to. Managed to saturate it in DEET (insect repellent) and it fell off. Not sure where it went - spent the rest of the day paranoid it had fallen down my trousers! They inject a poison into you which stops your blood clotting, so the bite bled lots for about 30mins before it stopped. It's amazing how much blood can come out of such a small cut when it doesn't clot!
The treks are good - they're not really easy - there's lots of trees you have to climb over and streams, hills and rivers to negotiate, so it makes it interesting, but there's not too much climbing (i find climbing really tiring).
Got back and had some food and tried to book a long trek but no-one was interested in doing a long one, so i had to settle for a 2 day 1 night trek. I got back from that yesterday. It as really cool! i was in a group of 18 people - which i think was too many, but it was really good. The people were great. we got a river boat up the river - went through 7 sets of rapids! got soaked! and then did a 14km trek spread over 2 days. we stayed in a cave!! It was amazing and they put candles all round it - very pretty - and we cooked our food over a fire (everything smelt like bonfires in the morning!). Saw elephant tracks and tiger tracks!! And we were just behind the elephants - all the poo was fresh! Got very excited that we might see them - but we never managed to catch up with them sdaly! Was still very exciting though!
I think I can classify myself as a hardened traveller now! As well as the leeches I also had a wash in a stream in the dark in my underwear!! We were so sweaty - i was gross! It's very humid here. We cooked our food in the stream water and ate jungle leaves etc - was all very amusing!
Last night some of our guides invited us out to a karaoke night - so we went. Was possibly one of the most bizarre things i've done! I was expecting a bar/pub with karaoke - like you get in Englnad. We arrived at this place but when we got inside it was like being in someone's living room! It was full of about 20 Malaysians all singing to a huge TV in the centre of the room! Over here they hire out a karaoke room with all their friends and just sing for about 4 hours!! It was very wierd - made me laugh a lot! Got back at bout 1am this morning.
Had a terrible night's sleep - have experienced my first time being ill over here - it's horrible when there's no one to give you any sympathy or bring you toast and juice in bed! Think it would be really miserable to be ill for very long whilst travelling on your own. Especially since you'd have to get out of bed to buy food - No matter how rough you felt - or you'd starve! i think i must have eaten something bad, but I felt so sick and had a fever for most of the night. My joints were aching so much - it was almost unbearable. Just as well I brought a lifetime's supply of ibuprofen!! Drugged myself up on that this morning - got up late. Feeling better now. Having an easy day today - been on the internet for a while. Have to leave here soon becasue the food is so terrible - all they eat is fried rice and noodles and very few fresh things and only white bread. Nothing tastes very wholesome - would really like some good food - even just a baked potato or salad or something. NO MORE FRIED STUFF. Had to go to KFC to get salad when I stayed in Jerantut - can you believe that!?! It was the healthiest, freshest thing I've had in ages!!
Will do another long trek tomorrow and then head to Kuala Lipis the day after (I don't even know what day it is - it's strange how quickly you lose track of the days - it's not like at home, where a friday feels like a friday!) Will hopefully do some more trekking on Kuala Lipis - there's another park there.
Will be in Kuala Lumpur by the 20th August to meet Tom on 22nd - very excited!!
Will update the journal soon. May also buy a new camera in KL if I have the money! Hoping for a cheap deal!
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