I’ve finally made it to Thailand! I enjoyed my trip up through Malaysia, but on the whole it took me a lot longer than I meant it to, and since Kuala Lumpur I have been fairly solidly caught in organised tours and well trodden traveller’s paths. In hindsight I might have been a little harsh on Melaka because in the sunshine it was actually fairly pretty. That said I did run out of things to do in the town after about two hours, and all the bars I went to were pretty dead. Malaysia is a largely Muslim country though, so I guess I should count myself lucky there were bars at all!
After Melaka I caught a coach up to Kuala Lumpur. My first glimpse of the city was the Petronas Towers looming up over the horizon. They’re incredibly impressive to see, but unfortunately shut on a Monday, the day I had for sightseeing around the city. It didn’t matter much though because the KL Communication Tower was just down the road and it’s actually taller than the skyscrapers. You can only go up to the 41st floor of the Petronas Towers anyway, and frankly I’ve been in bars higher than that!
Went to watch the Holland match in a Reggae Bar in Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown on the first night I was there, which made sense at the time. I even bumped into one of the girls from the hostel that I stayed in in Singapore! If that wasn’t coincidence enough then the Scottish guy from the hostel I was staying in had bought his contact lenses from the Scottish guy from the hostel she was staying in over a year before in Scotland! It is apparently a small world. The Scottish guy from my hostel, Stuart, was doing pretty much the same trip as me so we figured we might as well stick together till we made it to Thailand.
From Kuala Lumpur we headed up to Taman Negara, a vast rainforest national park. It was a bit of a long journey involving a four hour coach trip followed by a three hour long river journey on a very thin, low wooden boat on a very brown, muddy looking river. The first thirty minutes were quite pleasant, but the remaining two and a half hours did drag a bit. It was quite fun imagining that I was in Heart of Darkness though. The village we arrived at was a bit of a shanty town of floating restaurants, wooden shacks and people trying to sell tours into the park. The whole thing was a bit of a tourist conveyor belt really, which was a shame because the park itself was damned impressive, but everything seemed geared towards keeping you away from it until you were on a tour. Then again I didn’t get eaten by tigers at any point, so maybe I shouldn’t complain.
The jeep night safari I went on was probably the biggest con given that it didn’t go into the jungle at all, but instead took you around a palm plantation! We got to see a couple of owls, a sparrow, some civets, a leopard cat (basically a cat) and on the drive back a loris walking along some phone lines.
The next day we went for a canopy walk which was a lot more fun. The canopy walkway was ten rope bridges up to 50m up in the air slung between trees in the rainforest. I’m not scared of heights, but after the third of fourth bridge I was starting to pay very close attention to the state of the safety nets on the sides of the bridges, and not liking what I saw! The rope bridges were maybe 40-50m long in places and when you had a couple of people all on them at the same time they really started to sway from side to side. It was nerve wracking, and in the end I got through it by singing ”I’m the king of the swingers…” to myself until I’d made it safely out of the trees. After that excitement we just had the trivial task of a 1km walk up a hill in the rainforest to look at the view. I was a bit paranoid about catching malaria in the jungle so after a while I was covered in sweat and insect repellent, and yeah, repellent is exactly how I felt! The view was great though, just miles and miles of jungle and mountains covered in jungle. No elephants though, so honestly, what was the point?
All of the jungle adventure was just before lunch! Afterwards it was another trek into the jungle to go and see some bats in a cave. When I read the tour description I thought it would be a big cave, some stalactites and some bats flying around a bit. This wasn’t a big cave though, it was a long slimy tunnel that you had to crawl through with bats flying over, across and in front of you. Clambering over slippery rocks in your trainers wondering what happens if anyone breaks their leg in here was a bit of a new holiday experience for me. In the main cave we did get right up close to the bats clinging to walls around us, and we weren’t too far away from the white cave snake that lived on an alcove on the wall and ate the bats that got too close. After that I just had to slide down a guano covered rocky slope, inch through ankle deep water, pull myself through a gap not much wider than me and then clamber up a wet rock face and I was out in the open air again! Everyone on the tour seemed to be in shock as we walked back to the camp.
So Taman Negara was fun in mostly scary kind of ways, but after that we headed up to the perhentian islands, which are everything tropical islands should be - white sand, turquoise water, jungle all round and a couple of chameleons living in our beach hut. Considering this is rainy season the weather’s been pretty good, sunny most of the day, and torrential rain in the evening, by which point we could normally make it to the pub. Former computer programmer that I am I did manage to get sunburnt within about ten minutes of arriving on the island though, and my shoulders still haven’t quite recovered - a bit of a problem when you’re carrying all your possessions around in a rucksack! I’m on the mend now though anyway.
The one small gripe about the Perhentian Islands, well actually it’s a fairly major gripe, is that because everyone is doing diving courses all the time nobody goes out drinking in the evenings! There’d be loads of people lazing around on the beaches all day, but as soon as night fell it was a wasteland. It did make the place a little dull. With not much else to do we went snorkelling on the last day there, which I loved! I swam with black tipped sharks, an enormous turtle, huge yellow fish, huge blue fish, small pointy fish. Lots of fish anyway, and lots of coral.
So with all the fun on the Perhentians exhausted we hopped on a fast boat back to the mainland, jumped in a cab to a border town and walked across the border to Thailand! On the train journey up to Hat Yai we even saw an elephant working next to the railway line! Score one for Thailand over Malaysia! Spent the night in Hat Yai drinking ridiculously cheap beer (40 baht for a bottle of Singha, that’s about 60p?), and at dinner we even had lady-boy waitresses, so Thailand’s really been living up to its reputation so far! Yesterday was another coach and ferry combo to finally arrive here in Koh Phan Ngan. We’re staying in a beach bungalow in Hat Rin at the minute, and the village is a bit of a strange place. From the internet cafe that I’m currently in I can see two other internet cafes, a shop selling nothing but poi, and a bikini shop. Nothing but life’s essentials here!
Well, I think that’ll do for now. Hopefully I’ll have more stupid adventures to let you know about next time!