Journey to Malaysia Part 2 (Taman Negara)

Our next stop was in Taman Negara. The oldest rain forest in the world. In order to get there, we had to take a bus for about 3 hours and then a small wooden boat for another 2 hours. The boat ride was great. I kept my eyes open hoping to see some animals, but I never saw a thing.

When we finally arrived, it had to be about 35 degrees and 100% humidity. I don't typically sweat too much, but in this jungle the sweat was pouring off of me. We booked a room in advance at a small guesthouse, but upon seeing it, we decided to keep looking around at other guesthouses. After about 20 minutes of looking we said the hell with it and stayed at the next one we looked at because the heat was too much to handle while carrying our big backpacks. The area was incredible to see, as many guesthouses were set up in the jungle, and all along the river there were small floating restaurants.

Floating restaurants

The rooms at our guesthouse were decent, but we ran into a few problems. The first room's screen doors would not lock so we moved to another room. The new room appeared to be perfect at first, but once it got dark out, we realized that the light in our room didn't work for more than 5 minutes at a time.

The first night, we decided we should go on a night safari. After getting all dressed up and coated in bug spray, we were ready to go. However, we forgot our park passes, which were required for any trips. I went back to the room to get them, searched for 5 minutes in light, then the light went out. I tried again for another bit in the dark, no surprise, I couldn't find the passes. Kristin came strolling in and found them in an instant. After all of 10 minutes looking for these passes, I was soaked in sweat. On top of that, we ended up being late and never got to go on the night safari. At this point, I told the front desk about our crappy light and they managed to fix it.

The following day, we went on a jungle trek and canopy walk. The canopy walk was pretty fun, as you were up over a 100 feet from the forest floor. We ended up in a group with about 15 other people so it felt rather touristy; something we were hoping to escape by visiting the jungle. The jungle trek, although very informative about the plant and animals of the rain forest, was slow because we were part of the large group. One highlight of the trek though, was our guides story about how he had seen two tigers a couple years back. He had taken two men on a 5 night trek through the jungle. During this, you hike all day, make camp in the evening and sleep in the jungle every night. Probably pretty cool, but also probably pretty scary at night. Anyways, he encountered two tigers ahead of him, and said he nearly shit his pants but had to remain calm to keep the two men he had with him calm. The tigers continue to follow the three men everywhere. An overweight woman in our group asked if anyone had ever been eaten by a tiger in the area, and apparently it had happened a few times. If you think the tour guide was going to continue with his story at this point, your wrong. Instead, he pointed out that if the tiger were to attack our group, he would eat this woman because she was the biggest meal. Everyone in the group was caught off guard by this comment and just stood in awe. The guide wasn't finished with his insults yet. To top it off, he pointed out that if the tiger ate her, it would be such a big meal that he wouldn't have to eat again for a week! I didn't know how to react, because you don't generally see people insult others so bluntly. I'm not even sure how the tiger story ended, but I'm certain that our guide never got eaten.

Kristin on the canopy walk

The jungle trek

Looking fly

That evening, we went on the night safari. I didn't have high hopes, because the 4x4 that we took went off the park and into a palm plantation. Our guide told Kristin and I that we wouldn't be seeing any elephants or tigers, so I figured this safari was going to be pretty lame. I was wrong though. We ended up seeing a leopard cat, a crazy tree frog, wild boars and even a flying squirrel. We thought at first the flying squirrel was a monkey, because you could only see its eyes. Then, all of sudden the animal jumped from a tree about 200 feet high and flew through the air about 300ft into another tree. Pretty impressive, especially since I thought it was a monkey at first, and he was offing himself.

Feeling that we had seen enough of the jungle, we decided to head out the following day to Pulau Perhentian. Getting there proved to be possibly the worst drive I've been on in my life. Nearly the entire drive was up and down small hills, with a road that was more windy that any back road I've been on in Canada. The drive wasn't really that scenic either, as most of the country's rainforest's have been converted into palm plantations. Kristin and I were both nearly sick, but took some Gravol and made it.

Journey to Malaysia

Well, its nearly August, and I'm about to write about what happened back in April. I have no excuses for not writing sooner. I haven't been working, or really doing anything. However, I started working yesterday, and sure enough, I have decided to write about our month long trip to Malaysia.

Things didn't start out so well for us. Before we could leave, we had to hand in our apartment keys to the on-duty security officer. Due to the ever present language barrier, this didn't happen quickly. As a result, we missed the first bus to the airport. Once we arrived at the airport, we didn't have much time to spare. We got to the counter, only to find out that we needed to hand in our expired Alien Registration Cards, and get a stamp in our passports for it. Kristin and I run to immigration, get hassled about how we should have done this two days before (when the cards expired). Luckily, they just give us a warning and we're able to check in and get on the flight. We are going back to Korea in September, and I'm wondering if we were to do the same thing again, what would happen. Not that I plan on it, but she said it was a warning, so what's the next thing?

While on the flight, we notice a bit of a commotion happening about ten rows ahead of us. I couldn't see exactly what was happening, but some of the flight attendants were continually going to the bathroom holding bloody towels. After a little while, they request the assistance of any medical professionals on the PA. Kristin and I are both pretty curious about what the hell is going on, and she decides to investigate. Turns out, a young Korean boy had a bloody nose. Not a typical medical emergency, but this turned out to be quite the bleeder. After a short while, they get things under control and the crisis is averted. The boy nearly had a second episode when his mother caught him picking his nose. Lucky, there was no blood this time.

Our flight took us from Seoul to Kuala Lumpur. The city is known to have a wonderful variety of food and we certainly got our fill of it while we were there. Our first night, we had Chinese food, and sweat our balls off because of the incredible heat and humidity in the city. Although the food was cheap, the beer was not. It was comparable to Western countries, which seems atrocious compared to most others in Southeast Asia. The high price is due to the country being mainly Muslim. However, it was like heaven whenever you had a cold one, since it so delightful to drink in the incredible heat. Plus, it was Tiger beer, which is now a personal favorite.

The following day, we were keen on having some of the Indian cuisine in "Little India". We found a curry house just down the road from our guesthouse. It was a simple establishment, you got your plate of rice, and then chose the curry that you wanted to top it with. It seemed you could pile as much of it on as you wanted. This presented us with our first big cultural difference. Kristin and I ate our curry with a spoon and fork, while the Indian's ate theirs with their hand, but only their right hand. The left is reserved for other matter's which don't go well with eating. All in all, it was a great meal, and I think it only cost us a couple dollars.

We didn't really have much of a plan of things to do in Kuala Lumpur (KL as the locals call it), so we just got a tourist map and decided to walk around the city. Our first stop was a huge mosque, and we were lucky enough to see it during prayer time. Since it was prayer time, thousands of worshipers piled into the mosque, and around it to do what they had to do. The architecture of many of the mosques is quite remarkable.

We continued our trek around the city and ended up at the National Mosque. Oddly enough, we arrived there at prayer time. Quite a coincidence really. We got stuck in a downpour and had to seek shelter in some sort of religious building for about an hour or so. Following this, we visited a Bird Park and a Butterfly Park. Not really sure why we visited the bird park, Kristin doesn't really like birds, and I'm sure I could have lived the remainder of my life quite well without going, but we did. We just bought a new camera before the trip, so this proved to be a good opportunity to test it out. After all the walking, we decided it was time to head back to our hotel in Chinatown and get some supper.

Later on that evening, we visited the Chinese Market. It was filled with knockoff everything. There was watches, purses, luggage, movies, clothes and even shoes. I ended up getting a Rolex. The guy tried to make me pay nearly $200 for it, but I managed to get it down to about $15 and felt somewhat proud. I've never been good at bargaining because I'm just to lazy to be bothered with it. It's sad though, that some people are actually willing to pay such high prices for fake merchandise. Afterwards, we walked downtown to check out the Petronas Towers and test out our new Tripod. It was given to us when we bought the camera, and actually proved to be pretty useful for the trip. The towers were a marvel to see, and were actually one of the highlights of our trip.