Railway to Rainforest

Well James organized a 'taxi' to the railway station at Wakaf Baharu about 8 km from the city, it turned up at 5: and was just some random guy who knew the hostel manager and had an old beaten car, but we made it to the station in time to catch the train at 6:15am the guys were not happy as they like to sleep in as they are on 'holiday'. The train was meant to take anywhere from 8 to 11 hours and ours took 10. The first 6 were fine but towards the end I just wanted off. No fans and no air con just open windows.

The locals on the train were classic, the train stopped at every little Kampung (village) on the way, we must have stopped 40 to 50 times. So we got to see loads of different people and many of the school kids use it to get home. James at one stage was sharing his double seat with 5 little kids, they said they were 8 to 10 but they were the size of 5 year olds. The views from the train were good to, travelled through quite a bit of jungle and over a few hills. Sometimes the jungle encroached so much that there was only a 20 cm gap on either side of the train.
Stayed the night in a Chinese hotel all the Lonely Planet places were packed or sucked, got an air con 3 person room for 33 RM (about $12 NZ). Had a feed at a open air place and in the spirit of things James and Hayden tried new dishes and James has been paying for his Nasi Goreng Lakna (Fried rice with seafood stuff) for the past 5 days (food poisoning). Got up in the morning and caught a bus to Taman Negara decided to skip the tourist way in mini bus then boat 4 hrs and 30 RM with local bus 1 hr 30 min and 6 RM. Got a chalet in the local village (Tahan) and hit the national park.

Had to cross the river in a boat 10 m for 1 RM bah. Paid our park fees and headed to the famed canopy walk. Which is a catwalk of ladders laid over with planks which are tied to cables with rope, all 45 m off the ground, was pretty crazy. You get a false sense of safety from the tree tops as you cant see the ground a lot of the time. After the canopy walk we trekked up a hill that had OK views over the forest. Then back down again, the heat in the jungle was not to bad, but the humidity was, I was sweating buckets.Once at the bottom James and Hayden headed back, the dodgy Lakna was just kicking in for poor old James and Hayden was buggered, I wanted to check out a hide so I carried on. At the hide I discovered a dude lying on the floor and had it explained that he had fallen out the hide door and down the steps and had hurt his neck the night before. His other friend had gone into town to seek advice on what to do. She returned with 5 Malaysian dudes with a stretcher so I gave them a hand to carry there gear out and get the guy onto a boat. Made a good story to tell James and Hayden. Hayden had a good one for me he had a leech on each foot and the wounds would not stop bleeding, was pretty funny. Made it back to town in time to Watch the All Blacks play the Spring Boks, was a good game. Had Dinner on a Restoran (Restaurant) on the river.


On the second day James stayed home (Lakna Poisoning) and Hayden and I went to a Bat cave, was a nice walk there, the jungle was very thick on the sides of the track and there was only a couple of hills to go over. The cave itself was wicked small caverns connected by even smaller crawl holes and the bats were only just above and quite often flying around you. Got covered in mud and bat shit but was worth it. After the cave Hayden headed back and I checked out another hide, did not see any animals there but saw some monkeys and a monitor lizard on the way back to the village.




Went to catch the 10 am local bus back to Jeruntut but missed it as it went early so James and Hayden managed to Tee up a ride with some locals and so got back to town in there van for 10 RM each. From there we had lunch then caught a bus to Kualar Lumpur Malaysia's capital city.