Part III: Peninsula Malaysia
To shortly conclude my travel diary (since I know, if I do not do it now, I will never to it).
Getting down from the mountain I took a bus to Sepilok the same afternoon. Taking a bus means standing at an unmarked crossroad, no bus stop in sight and waving at every approaching bus in the hope it will stop and take you in the right direction.
After an hour of waiting and some interesting bus stop conversations, I (finally) got a bus: old and covered with on the inside with huge fan posters of western boy bands from the 90s (the driver played 90s hip hop so I did not have to listen to too much kitschy music). Weird to be on my own! The journey took 4 hours, all through vast palm oil plantations (how can an originally beautiful rainforest-landscape be mutilated like that? And all because of the MONEY?), I was dropped off at another crossroad tired and with very stiff legs. 3km from the road to the Orang Utan centre and the sun was setting, so I just started walking but fortunately got a ride halfway on the road.
At the centre I bumped into Emily who had surprisingly stayed on for another day. The hostel was a bit run down- all dark wooden huts and rooms, wet and smelling of humidity. I got a dorm room for myself and just went to sleep. In the morning I got up early (6 am) and went to the Orang Utan centre, a government sponsored institute that tries to rehabilitate orphaned Orang Utans found on plantations or in the homes of locals, who keep them as pets, and make them fit for life in the jungle. Seeing these animals appearing from the forest along ropes to feeding platforms surrounded by tourists armed with cameras was very sad. Were we, the curious intruders, the audience or the attraction as such?
I decided not to stay at Sepilok but to take another bus to Sandakan, the next town further south, in the afternoon. It was a weird place: very provincial, religious, a bit dodgy. I met a French girl I had seen on the mountain and we had dinner together. The next morning I flew onwards through Kota Kinabalu (and caught a glimpse of the mountain from the plane) to Kuala Lumpur. Of course I was again far too early at the airport, and since people usually show up 10 minutes before departure (although 1 hour is the regular time), I was able to take an earlier plane than planned.
I arrived in KL in the early afternoon and took a (in retrospective far too expensive) hotel in Chinatown. The city is seen in half a day: I walked around for 5 hours, through Chinatown, Little India, saw the Petronas (Twin) Towers, the Golden Triangle (financial centre) and managed to buy a bus ticket and go shopping. The next morning I left early for the Cameron Highlands – the bus ride was again crazy (the drivers are crazy, overtaking all the time and driving through the curves as if they were not there, although half the bus seems to be hanging over the cliff). I took a tour through the tea plantations and saw some tea factories- the only reason for me coming there and the only worthwhile one! Other attractions of this area are low temperatures (how nice to be cold), butterfly, bee and strawberry farms/plantations, which impressed the Chinese tourists, but not really me (strawberries, so what? A rarity in some parts of Asia though…). Interestingly, there are a lot of ethnic Indians living in the area (maybe they came there as workers on the tea plantations originally) so the food is great! Otherwise, Tanah Rata, the main town in the area, was pretty dead (maybe cause it was low season) and so I spent the evening with one (Indian) guy from Singapore and one Dutch adventurer playing pool in the only pub (bar) in town.
The next morning I continued on to Taman Negara, a huge national park with diverse and old rainforests, north-east of KL. I took a minibus and met a girl from Vienna and a again another Dutch guy who were traveling together to the same place with me as well as a German guy who had grown up in the same village as I (???) but was headed north. We were dropped at Gua Masang, from where we took a train (better than the one on Borneo: the train carts had roofs and chairs) to Jerantut. I sat on the floor and tried to read and not fall asleep, which did not quite work. It was hot, I was tired of traveling, everything. I guess a month is the maximum I can do the traveling- around- thing: one never gets to use one’s brain except for trying to not get robbed, find some place to eat and to sleep. Think about where to go next. It is very simple but tiring. Always the same thing and as you see more, the expectations rise and nothing is easily great anymore- a shame and in a way un-just wit regards to the places visited (is it their fault that you decided not to go there first but somewhere else instead?). What is enough experiencing and (when) do you get immune to it? When is the right time to go home?
Anyways, from Jerantut, we continued to Kuala Tahan, the biggest village in the national park. Getting there, I was completely broke, and no ATM would accept my debit card (Visa card was maxed out ages ago). Hmmm… found one finally and was sooo happy to have MONEY! I had forgotten what a feeling of security money gives you…
We found a nice, very colorful guesthouse on the outskirts of the village – only downside: it was next to the town mosque and not only are people quite religious in the countryside and there are much more Moslems living on the peninsula than on Borneo (over 15% Christians and 30% tribal (nature) religions) but also a former president had just died so we woke up every couple of hours during the night for the prayer call. The national park was a mud hole- it had been raining for days- with plenty of mosquitoes and leaches, long black small creatures looking like small branches without a head or any other shape of arm or leg, waiting on the ground, in the water, everywhere (!) to jump onto you, bite into your skin and suck your blood! I got 4 in my shoes and a couple more on my pants but fortunately someone had toothpaste which I rubbed on it, so it let go and I could get it off without incurring an open wound. Other methods include burning it with a cigarette or lighter… The only highlight was decent food on floating restaurants on the river, but the locals (tribal people) seemed more like alcohol-dependant slaves of the heavily sponsored tourist industry. Huge expectations and unfulfilled hopes, but no real results. What a disappointment this must have been. We managed to walk through the forest for a couple of hours (but Bako was better!) and go through a canopy walk, high up in the tree tops, but after that the feeling of unpleasantness took over! No more rainforest!!!! We spent the rest of the day reading and talking: I met 3 (!!!) Finns and we had dinner together- sometimes I am amazed of how blindly people can walk through other countries, how naïve, how ignorant they are. Or maybe it has to do with experience… anyways, we had some interesting conversations.
The next day, I left for KL by riverboat; once there walked around Merdeka square and the central market and then took a bus to the airport. I got to Macau that night at 2:30 am and managed to get the 3 am ferry to HK – even though I shared a cab with 3 Chinese grandmothers who were a bit slow…. Driving through the deserted city I felt like… coming home…
Getting down from the mountain I took a bus to Sepilok the same afternoon. Taking a bus means standing at an unmarked crossroad, no bus stop in sight and waving at every approaching bus in the hope it will stop and take you in the right direction.
After an hour of waiting and some interesting bus stop conversations, I (finally) got a bus: old and covered with on the inside with huge fan posters of western boy bands from the 90s (the driver played 90s hip hop so I did not have to listen to too much kitschy music). Weird to be on my own! The journey took 4 hours, all through vast palm oil plantations (how can an originally beautiful rainforest-landscape be mutilated like that? And all because of the MONEY?), I was dropped off at another crossroad tired and with very stiff legs. 3km from the road to the Orang Utan centre and the sun was setting, so I just started walking but fortunately got a ride halfway on the road.
At the centre I bumped into Emily who had surprisingly stayed on for another day. The hostel was a bit run down- all dark wooden huts and rooms, wet and smelling of humidity. I got a dorm room for myself and just went to sleep. In the morning I got up early (6 am) and went to the Orang Utan centre, a government sponsored institute that tries to rehabilitate orphaned Orang Utans found on plantations or in the homes of locals, who keep them as pets, and make them fit for life in the jungle. Seeing these animals appearing from the forest along ropes to feeding platforms surrounded by tourists armed with cameras was very sad. Were we, the curious intruders, the audience or the attraction as such?
I decided not to stay at Sepilok but to take another bus to Sandakan, the next town further south, in the afternoon. It was a weird place: very provincial, religious, a bit dodgy. I met a French girl I had seen on the mountain and we had dinner together. The next morning I flew onwards through Kota Kinabalu (and caught a glimpse of the mountain from the plane) to Kuala Lumpur. Of course I was again far too early at the airport, and since people usually show up 10 minutes before departure (although 1 hour is the regular time), I was able to take an earlier plane than planned.
I arrived in KL in the early afternoon and took a (in retrospective far too expensive) hotel in Chinatown. The city is seen in half a day: I walked around for 5 hours, through Chinatown, Little India, saw the Petronas (Twin) Towers, the Golden Triangle (financial centre) and managed to buy a bus ticket and go shopping. The next morning I left early for the Cameron Highlands – the bus ride was again crazy (the drivers are crazy, overtaking all the time and driving through the curves as if they were not there, although half the bus seems to be hanging over the cliff). I took a tour through the tea plantations and saw some tea factories- the only reason for me coming there and the only worthwhile one! Other attractions of this area are low temperatures (how nice to be cold), butterfly, bee and strawberry farms/plantations, which impressed the Chinese tourists, but not really me (strawberries, so what? A rarity in some parts of Asia though…). Interestingly, there are a lot of ethnic Indians living in the area (maybe they came there as workers on the tea plantations originally) so the food is great! Otherwise, Tanah Rata, the main town in the area, was pretty dead (maybe cause it was low season) and so I spent the evening with one (Indian) guy from Singapore and one Dutch adventurer playing pool in the only pub (bar) in town.
The next morning I continued on to Taman Negara, a huge national park with diverse and old rainforests, north-east of KL. I took a minibus and met a girl from Vienna and a again another Dutch guy who were traveling together to the same place with me as well as a German guy who had grown up in the same village as I (???) but was headed north. We were dropped at Gua Masang, from where we took a train (better than the one on Borneo: the train carts had roofs and chairs) to Jerantut. I sat on the floor and tried to read and not fall asleep, which did not quite work. It was hot, I was tired of traveling, everything. I guess a month is the maximum I can do the traveling- around- thing: one never gets to use one’s brain except for trying to not get robbed, find some place to eat and to sleep. Think about where to go next. It is very simple but tiring. Always the same thing and as you see more, the expectations rise and nothing is easily great anymore- a shame and in a way un-just wit regards to the places visited (is it their fault that you decided not to go there first but somewhere else instead?). What is enough experiencing and (when) do you get immune to it? When is the right time to go home?
Anyways, from Jerantut, we continued to Kuala Tahan, the biggest village in the national park. Getting there, I was completely broke, and no ATM would accept my debit card (Visa card was maxed out ages ago). Hmmm… found one finally and was sooo happy to have MONEY! I had forgotten what a feeling of security money gives you…
We found a nice, very colorful guesthouse on the outskirts of the village – only downside: it was next to the town mosque and not only are people quite religious in the countryside and there are much more Moslems living on the peninsula than on Borneo (over 15% Christians and 30% tribal (nature) religions) but also a former president had just died so we woke up every couple of hours during the night for the prayer call. The national park was a mud hole- it had been raining for days- with plenty of mosquitoes and leaches, long black small creatures looking like small branches without a head or any other shape of arm or leg, waiting on the ground, in the water, everywhere (!) to jump onto you, bite into your skin and suck your blood! I got 4 in my shoes and a couple more on my pants but fortunately someone had toothpaste which I rubbed on it, so it let go and I could get it off without incurring an open wound. Other methods include burning it with a cigarette or lighter… The only highlight was decent food on floating restaurants on the river, but the locals (tribal people) seemed more like alcohol-dependant slaves of the heavily sponsored tourist industry. Huge expectations and unfulfilled hopes, but no real results. What a disappointment this must have been. We managed to walk through the forest for a couple of hours (but Bako was better!) and go through a canopy walk, high up in the tree tops, but after that the feeling of unpleasantness took over! No more rainforest!!!! We spent the rest of the day reading and talking: I met 3 (!!!) Finns and we had dinner together- sometimes I am amazed of how blindly people can walk through other countries, how naïve, how ignorant they are. Or maybe it has to do with experience… anyways, we had some interesting conversations.
The next day, I left for KL by riverboat; once there walked around Merdeka square and the central market and then took a bus to the airport. I got to Macau that night at 2:30 am and managed to get the 3 am ferry to HK – even though I shared a cab with 3 Chinese grandmothers who were a bit slow…. Driving through the deserted city I felt like… coming home…
posted by Crazy Night Rider at 9:44 AM
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