The Jungle and the Beach

After hanging out in 3 cities, Singapore, Melaka, and KL, I headed to the Taman Negara National Park in the center of Malaysia, where conservation efforts have kept the rainforest intact against thoughtless urban development efforts. On the way to the jungle, I met Garlef, a German guy, and Andy, a British backpacker, at the bus stop. Along with 2 other girls, we stayed at this dingy, airless hostel, where we slept with lizards, huge spiders, and a praying mantis by our side throughout the night.



Garlef, Andy, and I signed up for a 2 day, 1 night overnight trek into the jungle with our guide, Imra. The walk wasn't all that bad because it wasn't that much of an up-down terrain, and the only thing that got to us was the humidity. At the end of the day, we spend the night in this giant cave in the middle of the jungle. So we collected firewood and river water to start cooking our dinner - chicken curry, rice, and vegetable soup - which was all delicious. Throughout dinner, we had noticed that our guide wasn't eating all that much, but we didn't really think twice about it. But about 2 hours after dinner, he digs into his backpack, and with a sly grin, he takes out a kilogram of some steak meat. He proceeds to split a logwood in half, place the meat between the wood, and cook it in the fire. The whole time, he's laughing out loud and pointing at us. But at the end, he shared it with everybody (although it wasn't all that good) though I'm still not convinced that it was beef.




After the trek, we came back to the hostel, where a bunch of us drank cheap whiskey and sang cheesy American songs while our guide played the guitar...

Garlef, Andy, and I decided to travel together to the Perhentian Islands on the East Coast of Malaysia, and we bid farewell to the girls, who were going in the other direction. For no apparent reason, we decided to take the Jungle Railway, which is notorious for its slow pace and loud children on board. And after much scenic meandering and 8 hours of shouting children, we arrived at the port city, where we took a 30 minute boat ride to the islands.



The Perhentian Islands consist of 2 islands, and many beaches, but we stayed at the most popular area, and we failed to leave our little comfort spot even with 4 days of doing nothing. We stayed in a chalet, which we had called our dungeon, our shithole, basically a home away from home where we would rather sleep on the beach if it weren't for the damn mosquitoes (although the chalet, mosquito net, and insect repellect didn't help us from being eaten alive). Basically, the days went like this: wake up, go to the beach, burn, eat, swim, burn, sleep on the beach, eat, eat, "party" (it wasn't that lively of an island). To say the least, we had a very relaxing time, but 4 days on the island was more than enough - we were itching to do things, something, anything at all.

Andy went his own way, but Garlef and I are still traveling together, and we are heading to Penang tonight in an overnight coach bus. We are planning to travel to Thailand in a couple of days.

- Ryoji