some pics

Some pics from cherating, pulau bibi besar, and singapore

1-2: swings everywhere on pulau bibi besar
3-5: lots of rickety docks stretching out into the stunning water of pbb
6: the last one with my torch still lit at the survivor tribal council set
7-9: gorgeous beach and water in pbb
10: green sea turtle nexting in cherating
11: Ashlin, Caitlin, and Cloey in front of the Carlisle's house, singapore
12: Mtn/jungle biking in bukit timah nature reserve
13: Throing the shakah with the girls near clark quay and the CBD singapore
14: with the girls in a temple in little india
15: The carlisles(Craig, Anne Marie, Ashlin, Caitlin, Cloey) munching on samosas in little india
16: The South African ex pats, Jan and his wife at the carlisle bbq.
17: Birthday party for Saiful's niece at pbb at the carpenter's camp
18: baby monitor lizard in my toilet
19: Introducing clare and kim to coke floats after surviving our trek

A vacation back to America

6/14



Took an early bus from Mersing to Johor Bahru and then over the causeway to the island/country/city of Singapore. After going through all the customs and immigration I had to find an atm so I could take a bus or train. I was in a neighborhood in the far north called woodlands park. It was crazy b/c the city was just so clean and modern looking, and the biggest surprise was how much grass and large sidewalks and large streets there were. The other asian cities I have been too are full of disorganized tiny streets and absolutely not open space or green grass or anything. If I had just been dropped off here, I would have thought I was in one of the technology suburbs of san diego with its wide streets, palm trees, and green areas. There are signs everywhere talking about fines for littering or telling you to keep the water clean. Asians litter like crazy, but this city had basically no trash anywhere. I found the ATM and then got some lunch at a hawker stall, which was much more expensive than malaysia, though still cheap by american standards. The hawker stall was about the only thing that would have given away that I wasn't in america.



Lucas's cool aunt JoAnne had given me a contact in Singapore that worked for Micron and I was going to be staying with them. Iused a picture I had taken of google maps and then the mrt train and a couple busses to find their place.



When I got to their neighborhood I was quite impressed with all the fancy and beautiful houses. When I got to the correct address I rang the bell and the electronic gate opened. The door to the house opened and two cute little girls stepped out. I quickly met Ashlin (age 6, same birthday as my brother as she quickly point out) and Caitlin (age 9) and the house helper Vivian (from the Philippines). Also met Prince Charming (the cat, no conrad, you weren't there) and Sleeping Beauty as well as their new puppy cloey. Craig and his wife Anne Marie were at work and then playing golf. They were all very welcoming and generous and I was given full access to a fridge...an American stocked fridge! So you can believe I had some cheese and milk! Vivian cooked me some porkchops for lunch and then we ate icecream the girls had made...and then cookies they had made as well. For dinner vivan made spaghetti! (and for those that know the fake sweet philippine spaghetts, no it was the real thing) I hadn't had proper italian noodles (or western food for that matter) in a long long time. The afternoon I played darts with the girls and watched cartoons with them. Just once I'd love to see Tom eat Jerry! I met Craig and Anne Marie that night, and they were fun and nice and just great! Some friends of theres (johan and yikes, can't remember her name) from S. Africa, but now live next door came over for some wine and darts and pool.







On Saturday Craig and Anne Marie, after a breakfast of wheat toast, eggs, and cereal (special k...who knew?), took me to a fancy foot reflexology place and we had our feet massaged for and hour and a half. They treated me to it, and it was a fancy place, not just the cheap thai places, so that was quite the incredible experience for me. The rest of the morning we did some shopping for a bbq we were going to have. Went to a grocery store that was not like any of the asian grocery stores, but could have been safeway or ablertsons. The prices were definitely higher and on some things like cheese and meats I think even higher than back home. We also went to a proper butchery run by a swiss guy.



In the afternoon I went with Anne Marie and the girls to Caitlin's golf lesson. Ashlin and I hacked away at balls at the driving range. That evening the Carlisles put on a big bbq with about 20 people there (a fellow drifter, alex on her way to australia, who just graduated from SMU and was staying with an expat family was there as well). We had fancy mushrooms that the S. African expats brought (mom, your magic mushrooms are still better), fresh salmon, pork, mashed potatoes (hadn't had those since idaho), some cheese salad, and an amazing array of deserts. Just a good old fashioned bbq. Craig also had a bar where he made margarhitas (didn't know anyone in asia knew how to make those) and other cocktails. Eventually th party moved downstairs for darts and pool. And the girls taught me how to play Wii videogames, which I'd never done.



I'm staying in a beautiful room with freezing cold aircon (yes!), a hot shower (with pressure), and I can drink from the tap when I get up at night. The bed has a proper mattress, is elevated from the floor and was the first time I hadn't had bedbugs in some time (malaysian dorms are just crawling with them). It's crazy, and quite nice at the moment to be staying in an american home. I'm having a good time here, and I'm not really doing any of the tourists things in singapore (there's not a whole lot), just kind of being western again and hanging out with a family, which I miss, and relaxing. Travelling can get a bit tiring. I do hope to make it down to the city center and see a few things like the quays and little india. But I am just having a wonderful time hanging out with the carlisles. The girls are a lot of fun and Craig and Anne Marie are fun and so incredibly nice. I really can't believe how nice they are. THey don't even know me, yet they are doing so much for me and treating me to so much. Ireally can't believe how lucky I am and I am so grateful!







6/15


Yesterday they took me to the American club. It's a club for americans and other expats from europe. It has 3 restaurants, a pool, gym, bowling alley, kids zone, tennis courts, etc. Very fancy and nice. They took me to the brunch buffet at one of the restaurants. It was seriously in my top 3 for buffets of all time. Incredible variety. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner foods; indian, chinese, thai, and other asian food, and of course lots of traditional american foods and other european food. Had lots of fancy cheeses with special breads, a steak, eggs benedict, turkey, etc etc. They had this juicer thing where you could pick out fresh fruit and they would juice it for you. After the extremely filling breakfast, they showed me around the club...they even had a bar complete with an UofI vandal and DU pioneers pennant. We went down to the kids zone to play some air hockey.

In the afternoon we did a bit of a city tour. They drove me in their car around to the sites which made things nice and easy. Walked around bustling little india and got some samosas. Drove through china town, the CBD (central business district), past the singapore flyer, and some of the government type buildings. Then we walked along the river from Clark Quay to Boat Quay to the start of the government buildings and the statue of Sir. Raffles, the guy who founded the city and which the famous Raffles hotel is named after and the Rafflesia flower is named after. They treated me to dinner at a restaurant along Clark Quay river. It was a place run by an American and was a microbrewery and burger place. So of course I had a big american sized burger (got the mexicano b/c I miss mexican food for sure) and a chocolate microbrew. That night I sat in their extremely comfortable couch and watched Seinfeld and parts of the last game of the stanley cup. Hadn't seen American tv in a long time.



6/16



Yesterday I got up early and went for a mountain bike right in Bukit Timah National Park. It's the only area of primary rainforest left in Singapore, and used to be home to tigers. Craig let me borrow his bike which was a treat b/c it was a full suspension, Rocky Mountain complete with XTR components, clip pedals, disc brakes, and was a frame that actually fit my size! Went from the too small, no brakes, loose handlebar, 1 speed asian bike to a raceworth bike. There was a nice jungle singletrack that went around Bukit Timah mountain. It was only 6km (8km if you did the extranneous loops), but fun and of course very sweaty. Surprisingly not too much mud to dodge, but lots of monitor lizards to avoid. Bukit Timah is the tallest mountain in the country of singapore and after my mountain bike ride I took the jungle climb to the top. It only took me 20 minutes to hike to the top, but the fact that I was able to ride my bike around the entire base of the mountain in less time than that should tell you just how "massive" this mountain is. I think it's something like 183m tall. The bike ride to and from the park from the Carlisles was actually much longer than the trails in the park.

After a lunch of mac and cheese I took the girls to the Singapore zoo, which is always a highlight on people's trips to singapore. Asian zoos are natorious for being terrible places for the animals they house, but the singapore zoo is more like a very good western zoo and is quite active in conservation and species survival plans and breeding. And it was indeed a very good zoo. Still can't compare with the san diego zoo, but pretty amazing nonetheless. They had lots of the free ranging type exhibits which are nice. They had some cool exhibits where you can walk into the enclosure and get really close to the animals, like one where you can even pet the lemurs and flying fox bats They also specialize in primates and have lots of primate "islands" where they are in more of a natural habitat. I especially liked the orangutans. I felt sorry for the polar bears. I think they belong in Denver or Seattle, or Moscow. It's so hot here. They also have several malay tigers and the now extinct from the wild white tigers, which are gorgeous.

At night they have the only night safari zoo in the world. It's pretty cool. There are several trails you can walk along and see the nocturnal animals do what they do at night under low lighting which is a cool idea. You then can take a tram that goes through another part of the park and drives through some of the enclosures to see the night animals as well. A highlight was having a giant flying squirrel fly right over our heads. They had a cool show we watched where they had taught an otter to recycle and then showed in real life some of how the animals scavenge (hyenas) or hunt (a fishing cat catching fish).



Today, I'm just hanging out doing some laundry and computer things before taking a bus back to malaysia to Johor Bahru to fly to Kota Kinabalu in Sabah in Bornean Malaysian.

Bali Ha'i...."happy, talky talky, happy talk"

On the 8th, I arrived in Mersing and then got a ferry boat over to Tioman Island. As you approach Tioman, it is quite stunning as it has these monstrous rock cliffs and mountains towering over the water. Tioman's claim to fame is that it was a filming location for the musical movie south pacific as well as being listed by Time Magazine as one of the top 10 prettiest islands in the world, which I think dad would find cool. I actually found out though that the filming of any scenes didn't occur on Tioman island, they just used the view from the ocean towards the stunning peaks as the distance view of Bali Hai in the movie. The actual scenes were filmed in Kauai, HI. I got off the ferry on Air Batang (ABC) beach and checked into my dorm that one of the technicians from survivor had arranged for me as his sister worked there. It was a good thing too b/c most places were full with the malay and singapore school holidays. Again, the islands was beautiful, and had the same polynesian air about it. Mangos, bananas, papaya hibiscus growing everywhere. Jungle creeping down to the villages. The beaches here weren't as nice as the last island I was on, but still nice. Met a gal, Irene, from the Sudan in my dorm, which was a first for me. Had never met a Sudanese.





The next day I hiked with Irene, Herman (from holland), and Burgit (germany) over to Juara on the other side. It was a 7km walk on a narrow trail through the rainforest over the island to the other side. Near the top there was a little waterful that I would have loved to swim in, but it was the town's water supply so we didn't. Juara beach was huge and nice, though we got attacked by sandflies. The village on this side was very isolated and quaint, b/c the only way to get there besides boat was from the trail or a 4WD road from tekek where the tiny airport is. After the walk back over, I walked to Tekek, the larger town just to check it out. Tioman is also one of two islands (langkawi the other) that is duty free for some reason, so alcohol is incredibly cheap. So, I did what everyone tells you to do on tioman and bought a beer, a japanese one, from the duty free store. That night was Irene and Herman's last night on the island, so we had a goodbye party for them on the beach with some vodka that they had bought at the duty free store several days before. There were 3 Iranian guys there (only one spoke english) that joined in as well.


The next day I did a sweet snorkelling trip to some other islands in the area. The snorkelling was very good and there was one area with lots of black tipped reef sharks which was cool. I met Rob (NZ) and his girlfriend Jess (Aussie) on the trip, and they were a lot of fun. Rob is the first person I have met who has done a proper tour of the US in my opinion. Everyone I have met has done a tour with (and based their stereotypes on) a similar itinerary as this: fly to new york, go to DC, go to miami, fly to LA, visit hollywood, visit San Fran, fly to the grand canyon, then to vegas, and then home perhaps throwing in chicago or new orleans or boston in. But Rob flew into NY and bought a car and travelled the length in a car stopping and camping at as many national parks as he could and even going to such remote ones as the badlands and carlsbad caverns. And he had a much different opionion of american people b/c of this. In fact he said lots of people in the midwest and west gave him free places to stay when he wasn't able to camp.


That evening I was watched the sunset. When I was waiting for rob and jess for dinner and french gal (Vanessa) introduced herself to me and said she wanted to practice her english. So the 4 of us had dinner. Now Rob and Jess love beer, so they just kept buying more and more rounds of tiger. Eventually the Iranians came by with their boatload of alcohol and soon we were having quite the party. The iranians cracked me up b/c the one guy that could speak english was going to school in melaka, but the other two were older and were his stepfather and uncle. They didn't understand anything that was going on but would laugh and clap their hands and sing, and they gave the most loving, sincere goodbyes at the end of the night.


The next day vanessa and I caught the ferry back to mersing. We had to wait forever and ever as it was very late, but it didn't matter b/c I didn't have to catch the bus until the next day. The ferry was oversold so we sat outside in the very stern, which was fine with me b/c then we got to enjoy the beautiful view much better as this particular ferry company usually made you sit inside in its aircon cabin. The ferries in malaysia with their stricter rules and such are like luxury limos compared to the philippines barely floating vessels. In mersing we waited out a violent thunderstorm with some mee goreng pattaya and then did a nice loop through the town and down along the beach. Vannessa left on the night bus for KL, so then I just spent the rest of the night on the internet in mersing as it has the cheapest internet I have seen yet in malaysia

Island Paradise...found

Took a rickety old bus from Cherating back to Kuantan in the morning so that I could catch a bus to Mersing, which is the jumping off point for Tioman Island. Got into Kuantan early, but when I got there all the busses were fully booked for the next two days (school holiday travel i was told). I was a bit frustrated by this b/c I had had to book my flight to borneo a few days before and so now I am on a time schedule and I didn't want to waste 2 days. I asked how I could have pre-booked, and you can't unless you are in that town. This made no sense to me b/c what to people making connections and transfers in cities do? I went into a store to ask directions to get to the hwy that goes to mersing so I could try hitchhiking. The women in the store were very nice and tried to help me, but really had no idea where the hwy was, but they went around asking lots of people and eventually realized I could take a different kind of more local bus to some other town and then get off and then catch another bus to mersing. So I tramped back from the long haul station to the local station. I saw the bus I wanted to take but there was no driver and no one really knew when it was leaving. One of the nice things about malaysia is that they're notalways hassling you to get on their bus and asking where are you going? like in thailand and the PI. But at this time I wished there was someone there, b/c it didn't really look like the bus was ready to go. But another nice gal told me she was taking a different bus to Endau and I could catch a bus there that would go to mersing. So since she was on the bus and I felt she would help me, I took that one. But the bus stops like every kilometer b/c it's a local bus and so by the time we got to Endau it was 6:45 and the last bus to mersing was 6pm. So I walked out to the hwy by a little kopi shop and wrote mersing on some cardboard and stuck out my thumb. Around 9pm I was getting ready to quit and see if there happened to be any sort of hotel in this tiny town, but then someone told me there was a truck stop a bit up ahead and I should ask there. On my way over though, and guy drove by and offered me a ride. He worked for the navy police and got me to Mersing. Once at mersing, the hostel I wanted to stay at was full, so I was just walking around looking for a place when a malaysian guy asked if he could help me. I told him I was looking for a cheap place and he said he was staying at a hotel and had an extra bed and I could crash with him if I wanted. His name was Siaful and he ended up being one of the nicest and most generous guys. He took me out for dinner and then bought us beers for the night. The first beers I'd had in malaysia b/c it's a highly muslim country and so you're not allowed to have beers most places, and it's also very expensive.



It turned out that he is a carpenter for Robinsons/Castaway (the european version of Survivor) and that they are filming scandinavian survivor on some little island near tioman. I had planned to spend another day in mersing to do an island hopping tour, but the tour needed at least 4 people and no one else was around, so it wouldn't be possible. Saiful invited me to go to Pulau Babi Besar, so I said of course. He again bought me breakfast in the morning and wouldn't let me pay. He hooked me up with a free boat ride on a junky fishing boat going over (saving 80RM). But I got better service then the fancy ferry b/c the women on board gave me fruit and mango juice. I arrived at the island and it was absolutely gorgeous. Just like how I imagine a south pacific island would look like. Long beautiful white sandy beach, gorgeous turquoise water. Palm trees everywhere, mountainous jungle in the back; hibiscus, pangiafrani, and many other colorful flowers everywhere; mango, cherry, starfruit, coconut, banana trees everywhere. The few buildings set far behind the beach an not stacked up on the beach like in thailand. The beach is so quiet and I nearly have it to myself. The locals on the island are incredibly friendly. Saiful hooked me up with a nice chalet for cheap, right near beach. If you wanted you could see the sunset over the ocean right from my widnow. There's just a single narrow path that runs along the length of the beach, and no cars or motorbikes. Saiful's brother leant me his bike so that I could travel around easier.
THe first day on the island (the 6th of June), Saiful toured me around the island and gave me a behind the scenes tour of the survivor stuff. He showed me the elaborate set where they film the tribal council for survivor, which is like an old temple set up. He also showed me the one they used last year which is a wrecked plane. They have a little dorm and camp set up for the malay survivor employees and their families. It was a rather fun place to hang out as there were lots of nice people there and there were 4 adorable little kids whole liked to play with me and attempt english, and I would try and learn bahasa malay. They had buffet dishes for breakfast lunch and dinner all for free and all tasty and they gave me an unlimited supply of bottled water which is great b/c on islands bottled water is so expensive. Saiful and his family (he has 16 brothers and sisters, but only 4 on the island, though this is not unusual as elmie the jungle trek guide had 15 brothers and sisters) and the rest of the carpenters and technicians for survivor were oh so nice. I liked the whole set up they had though b/c it was like a big family and group of friends hanging out after work and they had ping pong and volleyball and all that to play. And I still couldn't get over how gorgeous and nice and calm and quiet the place was. Reminded me of someplace dad would go for vacation. WHen you're backpacking you don't get to places like this much b/c usually isolation means expensive to get to and expensive once there. There were only a couple "resorts" if you could call them that, on the island. That night saiful took me out for beers by the beach and of course wouldn't let me pay. A funny thing that happened that day is when I went to the toilet, my place had the traditional asian squat toilets, there was a baby monitor lizard (babies are about 1 foot long) swimming around in the toilet, just ready to bite the next person's butt.

The next morning I just walked along the long beach enjoying its beauty and the beautiful water, and also going for a snorkel. In the afternoon I took a jungle track that went by a few deserted beaches (like the big one wasn't deserted enough). It also went buy a huge abandoned resort. Who knows how long it had been abandoned b/c the jungle grows quickly, but it had definitely been taken over by plants. It was definitely a bit creepy and perhaps the island is a bit haunted as they claim. There is a guy in the village who walks around talking to himself all the time about a thing in the sea. It's obviously not alcohol b/c he's muslim and the doctors say it's not a psychological disease (which I don't necessarily believe). After the resort, I came upon another beach with some malays camping and they were very happy to offer me juice and have me have my picture taken with everyone of them for their memory of meeting a crazy american walking in the jungle. I took and overland track to the otherside of the island, chasing monkeys and giant monitors as I went. That side had a huge beach that I started walking along, but was quickly stopped and turned around by a norwegian who jumped out of the bushes explaining to me that surivor owned the beach. But I did get a glimpse of the camp where the survivors were surviving. The locals liked to laugh at their attempts to survive b/c they mainly just eat coconuts and small fish they can catch. Saiful pointed out that the stingrays would be easy to get with a wood spear and he showed me lots of fruits and roots to eat. That evening I just watched the sunset from a nice beach swing they had set up. After dinner Saiful and some of his friends (yusuf, nasir, and omar) invited me into yusuf's room to drink some rum and whiskey they had bought. Muslims aren't supposed to drink alcohol, but of course, neither are 19 year old freshman in college, and so some of them do drink from time to time. When I had beers with saiful before he said that he believes it's ok to drink, just as long as you don't get too drunk that you do something bad. Anyways, drinking with them was funny b/c it was just like underage drinking in the dorms. In a locked room, in hushed voices, all sneaky like.

The next day I caught a survivor speed boat back to mersing. I talked with a couple of danish girls that worked for survivor. It seemed like a pretty sweet gig. You're out there on the island for a few months and they get lots of days off b/c they're not always filming and such. They stay at one of the really nice resorts with a pool and eat the fancy resort buffets. And it seemed like just a fun, tight group b/c when they weren't working they were out playing volleyball or soccer or something like that. Kind of reminded me of the SML internship that I had where we were stranded on an island in Maine with a really tight group, except that we worked much harder I think and the water was oh so much colder, and of course we weren't at a fancy resort. But even though we were always working so hard on our research projects, we had so much fun.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Got dropped off on the highway and walked to Cherating, a small little village on the beach with a river running by it. I really loved Cherating. It has a nice beach, but even nicer people. All the locals, whether in the tourist industry or not, are so very friendly, and just want to sit and talk to you. It's mainly a malaysian tourist destination, so there aren't many westerners, so that makes the place unique as well. It's sort of funny to see all the malays swimming in the ocean in full clothes and the women still wearing their headdresses. I spent a lot of time there hanging out and talking with local malays and also visiting malays.



The first night I took a firefly tour up the river. Even though it was nearly a full moon, it was very stunning. There were so many fireflies in the mangroves that the trees sparkled and looked just like Christmas trees glittering in the night. Very beautiful. I was with a large malay family from KL on the tour. The father mentioned that the best place used to be a river just north of KL in Selangor (which I had planned to go to) but the government built a dam there a couples years ago (so my guidebook wouldn't have been updated on that yet). The gov't said it wouldn't affect the tourism and fireflies there, but it killed all the mangroves and thus there are no fireflies, so I'm glad I did this tour.



The next morning I was walking to go get breakfast, and I saw the family eating nearby. They waved me over and invited me to join them for breakfast. They were having quite a huge feast, so I gladly joined them. Nothing like having rice and sardines and noodles and fish for breakfast. And of course lots of tea terik. They said they saw me going for dinner too and would have invited me to join theirs, but they were afraid it would be too spicy for me. But I have been in s. thailand, so malay food is quite tame compared to that.



That morning I took a mangrove boat tour, through a narrow winding river. We saw three very poisonous mangrove snakes, 3 monitors, logs of mangrove crabs, and some macaques (monkeys). After the tour I walked the beach. The intertidal portion of the beach is just COVERED in the little sand balls that crabs make. The most I'd ever seen. When you're walking you don't see any of the crabs, but if you stop for just a second, all of a sudden it feels like the sand is alive b/c thousands of these little crabs come out of their holes and start making the sand balls. I found them quite fascinating, and I watched for quite some time. And then when the tide starts coming up, they quickly build these igloo type things out of the balls. Great fun to watch.



Later that afternoon I met a really, really nice malay man, hazif. He was incredibly informative about the mangroves, and b/c the tours are so cheap here, I decided to take another mangrove tour that afternoon. And it was definitely well worth it b/c he knew so much on the types of plants, the ecology, the fruits you could eat, etc, etc. He said he just had an interest in science and tried to read what scientists would write as much as he could. On this trip we saw the usual monitors, mangrove snakes, and even a python.



That afternoon when I got back to my chalet, the very, very nice family that ran it, invited me to join them for tea terik and fried banana fritters. Then the owner took me out to near my chalet with a ladder and let me climb up the coconut tree to get some coconuts and then he opened them for me with his machete. For the evening I went out to the beach and sipped on some incredibly cheap banana milkshakes and chatted with some of the locals about surfing (they have it here in the monsoon season) and windsurfing. The nice thing about this place compared to other resorts in thailand is that the beachfront restaurants are still cheap local places, so I can eat right by the beach unlike in thailand where I was usually more in the back alleys.



That night I joined up on the turtle nesting tour. They used to get lots of leatherback turtles here, but now just green turtles unfortunately. I took the tour with a dutch couple, who luckily had a car, so it saved on the transportation which was the major expense of the tour. That night 7 turtles came to shore, but we just watched 3 of them. It was quite amazing to watch them lay eggs. I've seen some of the nesting process on the australia tour, but there they are (rightfully) much more strict and you can't have lights, so it's difficult to watch them. You can just catch the late comers in the dawn. Here, they don't let you go up to the turtles until they start laying the eggs, b/c it is said, and I've heard this before, that once they start laying eggs, they won't stop for anything. So once they started laying, we went up to watch them. They put a little light in the hole where she's laying the eggs and so you can watch it. After she is done, and starts burying them, you can start taking pictures and even touch her. I'm not sure how good all that is, but in the end I think it's much better to have the tourists pay to do this with the park rangers than to have those park rangers selling those eggs to the chinese instead, and it does appear true that she is not too bothered by all the commotion once she has started laying eggs. They also dig up the eggs to place them in incubators and safekeep them, so we got to hold some of the eggs the rangers dug up. So it was definitely very cool for me since I love turtles and quite and up close encounter. Very national geographic like. They're such beautiful animals and it's amazing all the hardwork they go through to lay the eggs.

The next day I rented a kayak to explore the mangrove river by myself. It's much quieter, and although you don't have the eagle eye guide helping to spot wildlife, the ones you do run into are less shy without the boat motor. Plus, it's just fun to explore jungle rivers and to see where they lead. The motor boat could only got three km's up stream, and I knew there was a lot more to see up the river. I really liked paddling up the mangrove river b/c it was shady and so calm and the reflections on the river are almost more clear than the real thing. I did pretty good with the wildlife spotting though. I saw two different families of the very shy silver leaf monkeys, a mangrove snake, and best of all a group of two otters playing and then further upstream a single otter. I love otters. They're so playful and were of course the mascot for our swim team in elementary school. Also followed some king fishers and saw a large eagle. Several km's up the river there was a random rickety old dock. I docked there and walked barefoot for a km through some rural areas with scattered houses. Eventually I came to a little stand sellng coconuts and juices. I think the family selling them was quite surprised to see a white guy there. They were very curious as to how I got there. There aren't many tourists in cherating, and I doubt many rent kayaks and then go that far and then dock and walk that far. After drinking my coconut I continued my paddle journey up the river. The river eventually got pretty narrow and got some small rapids and a much stronger current. I passed under an old train bridge and then got into an area that had the rainforest cleared and there were big barbed wire fences and buildings there. don't know what it was about. Eventually I got to a point where it was too shallow to kayak. I got out to stretch before turning around and there was a random house and guy there. He didn't know any english, but he was happy to see me and happy to talk to me anyways. That evening I enjoyed the breeze by the beach and had some drinks (juice...it's malaysia) with a family there on school holiday. In malaysia they get a 2 week school holiday every year.

The Rainforest

The last night in Kota Bahru we went out to a shadow puppet show, which is very famous in the region. We took along a gal from the UK we met at the hostel and I think she was glad to go with us and learn the ropes a little of Malaysia. She had just flown into Kota Bahru from Singapore the day before and was on an insane 6 month around the world trip so she was only in Malaysia for a week, Thailand for 10 days. I thought that was a bit too fast. The puppet show was cool, though I wish it had been in English. I was able to follow it a bit better than the rest I think, b/c it was about the tale of the Ramayana which I studied heavily in English 101 with Simonton. I thought the puppetry would just be black and white, but it was actually color, which was pretty cool.

Clare, Kim and I got up bright and early and took the jungle railway from Kota Bahru to Jerantut. It was a cool train ride through dense jungle and stopping at a few local villages along the way. It’s one of those infamous train rides I had always wanted to do. I’m doing quite well on my list of sweet train rides: Japanese death railroad (Thailand), Tsavo NP railroad over the man-eater bridge, the Gunnison fall colors steam train (I think dad took us on that one when we were little and living in Montrose, but I’d like to go on it again sometime. Still want to do the trans Canadian and trans Siberian railways sometime, and just any crazy train in India. When we got to the town of kuala lipis where you are supposed to change trains, we found out that the train from kuala lipis to jerantut had stopped running of 2 days ago! Only the night train was still going. So kim and I went out to search for a bus. We found one getting ready to leave and the driver was so nice that he picked us up, drove us back to the train station to get clare and our bags before going on. We stayed the night in jerantut, which is just a small little town and not much going on except for munching on our favorite foods (roti cani, mee gorang, nasi pattaya , and tea tarik (milk tea)). The hostel we stayed at had horrible bed bugs, so we were quite bitten and itchy all night.
The next day Clare and Kim took the bus to Kuala Tahan (the entrance for taman negara np), and I took a 3 hour boat journey to get there. The boat was a bit more expensive, but I love taking river trips in small local watercraft up muddy jungly rivers. We didn’t see much but a few monkeys, but it was cool to see the jungle over the water. I met a nice german girl, who lived in St. Gallen, Switzerland though (David’s hometown). She was quite fun. Got into Kuala Tahan, just a tiny little village right at the confluence of two muddy rivers. Met back up with Kim and Clare there who had been looking around for guides and such for the long trek we had been schemeing.
Taman Negara is the largest park and Peninsular Malaysia and is made up of all pristine rainforest. In fact, it’s the oldest intact rainforest in the world as it was not affected by any ice ages or geologic activity. It’s something like 140 million years old. It’s home to tigers, sunbears, malay bears, panthers, leapards, elephants, the highly endangered Sumatran rhino, and loads of other animals. Rainforest animals are extremely difficult to see b/c of how dense the jungle is and b/c most are nocturnal and incredibly shy. They have some hides (bunbun) set up so you can trek to and sleep overnight and watch down at a clearing or saltlick during dawn and dusk and at night with a flashlight. Before I met Kim and Clare I was going to come here and go check out lots of hides to search for wildlife, but they had suggested the really long trek, so I decided to join them on that b/c really, it is nearly impossible to find people to go on the extended treks in the jungle and I really really wanted to do one at some point, but if you go buy yourself you have no one to share the guide fee with, so it’s quite expensive. But I still wanted to check out a hide. Clare and Kim weren’t so interested, but Jenny was going that night, and b/c it’s more fun to do stuff like that with someone, I quickly packed up and we headed off into the jungle. It was quite hilarious b/c people seem so scared of the jungle b/c of leeches and bugs and such. That stuff doesn’t really bother me, maybe b/c I’ve been in rainforests and even did some research in them before…but it was just quite funny to here people talk about it…always the leeches, always asking about the leeches. The leeches don’t really bother me for some reason. I think it’s b/c they don’t sting or itch or carry disease. In fact half the time you get a leach, you never see it b/c it just takes your blood and drops off. The only reason you know you had one is your sock or leg will be bloody. That’s the only reason I don’t like them is they use an anticoagulant that makes you bleed like crazy which quite stains your clothes. We only had time to make it to a hide about 4km away (in jungle terrain that takes about 1.5 hours instead of 45 minutes), so we went there. We stayed up pretty late and got up early, but we didn’t see anything except a few bats, lots of bugs, and some rats in the hide (a big wooden structure with some wood bunks inside). I think you have to be lucky to see some things and it didn’t help that it had been raining a lot here lately, so the salt lick was underwater and the animals didn’t really need to come to this stream to drink. It’s supposedly the dry season here, but it has just been raining so much people had been telling us. Usually in the dry season I guess it rains a few times at night per week, just for a few minutes, but it had been raining hard here everyday and sometimes all night. The locals, with not much real idea of the huge climate change debate going on in the western world said that things are changing and they don’t know why. It’s funny, but this was the 3rd country I’ve been too (Thailand and the Philippines as well) where I had lots of people tell me they weren’t sure what was going on with the weather, unusual things were happening. These countries have incredibly distinct and constant weather patters with their monsoon. Like in Thailand during the dry season, it is never rains a drop the entire time, but the last two years it has been raining. And on the coasts locals would tell me they used to always be able to predict the weather, but no anymore and they are quite confused. And hear, during the wet season this year where it usually rains 6 or more hours everyday, they had 2 straight months without a drop, and now it’s raining hard in the dry season. With all this in mind it’s kind of comical to me that us western nations have had to look at receding glaciers and melting polar icecaps to hypothesize global climate change. All they had to do was ask the local farmers and such around here that depend heavily on an easily predictable weather pattern.
But even though we didn’t see anything we still had fun, sitting there looking for wildlife and eating our dinner of crackers. Reading the log book of comments and wildlife seen was quite funny. Some aussie’s claimed that the hide was the closest thing to hell that they knew of. I had to laugh at that. The hide was definitely no ritz carlton, but it wasn’t the worse thing in the world…but lots of bugs and rats and other uknown things running around. The worst thing for me was I was soaked in sweat when we got there, which turned pretty cold at night. All I had was a small sheet, but I used that to put on the wooden bunk to sleep on. So at night just in my underwear I was pretty cold. I tried to use my mosquito net as a blanket, but not like a mesh material will do much. Some Americans had written that they had been in the jungle too long and were going crazy and hadn’t seen any wildlife b/c these 2 finnish ogres sharing the hide with them wouldn’t shut up.
The next day we hiked back to the entrance and took the little ferry crossing to get back to kuala tahan. Met back up with kim and clare and we then went back to the park to hike to this really awesome canopy walk. It was the coolest canopy walk I had been on as it was really high, the longest one in the world, and unlike the others I had been on, was not built out of wide stable wooden walkway but was a rather creeky, shaky, and swingy suspension structure strung between the huge trees. We also did the short hike up to a little summit in the area for a view and then down to the river. The rainforest here is definitely quite nice with just some monstrous trees and all the rivers flowing around adds a nice contrast to the dense jungle.

Deep deep into the heart of the Rainforest: 7 day sweat trek

So when we got back from our jungle walking we went to the park office to enquire about a guide for a big rainforest expedition. We had talked to one woman at a tourist agency who had turned us off a bit about the trek. She said it was extremely difficult and that many really good climbers, climbers who had climbed heavily in the rockies and the Himalayas had been turned back. And now the conditions were really poor b/c it had been raining so much and we’d surely get lots more rain. And the rivers were all swelling and at flood stage b/c of all the rains, so the river crossings could be neck deep. It was definitely true that the rivers were really high. They have all these floating restaurants on the river at kuala tahan and the planks they usually had to walk from the restaurant to the shore were now too short as the water was so high up the bank. And she said with her guides you have to bring or rent your own equipment and go get your own food for the trek. This combined with the fact that the rainforest is definitely not a comfortable place had turned us off a bit.

But we enquired at the park office all the same. They brought out a guide to meet us, named Elmizan. He was quite enthusiastic about it and said he’d help with getting us equipment and figuring out the food. This made us much happier and we decided to go for it. Jenny and a couple of the other gals from our hostel that had gone on the canopy walk with us couldn’t believe we were seriously going to do it.

That night we hopped into a little truck with Elmi to go to the nearest little town to buy food. All they had was a little mini mart that we used. Quite hilarious really. I was glad he was there to help us b/c back home I know how to pack and get food for a backpacking trip, but with asian food…at a mini mart, I had no idea. How many kilos of rice to bring, how much curry sauce, etc, etc. We bought lots of ramen noodles, rice, and canned curry meat dishes. And I of course bought some chocolate for victory chocolates at the end of every day.

Jungle Trek: 100km total (62miles). 55km to the top of Gunung Tahan (mt. tahan) at 2187m (about 7000ft), the highest peak in peninsular malaysia then 45km to the headquarters on the other side
Day 1: (5hrs walking) A fairly easy day physically, but just lots and lots of slogging through mud (usually this whole part is dry in the dry season elmie told us). In fact the whole trip was never too physically demanding for me…definitely tough indeed, but b/c the other two were a bit slower I never really had to push too hard. But the trip was much more mentally challenging for me having to deal with the wetness. In the jungle you sweat so much and then everything is soaked and nothing dries. Even if you have a completely dry shirt and you take it out of a plastic bag, it will get damp, and if you leave that same shirt out overnight during the extreme humidity of the night, it will be soaking and you will be able to wring it out, all that with a dry shirt, now imagine a sweaty shirt. So you basically just take two pairs of clothes. One that is always wet to use in the day, and one for at night to sleep in. So dealing with everything constantly being soaked or damp was difficult for me and also a bit worrying b/c mold starts to grow and can ruin nice equipment like backpacks and such. But after a while, I got used to it and it was near so bad.
The first camp was very nice. Right next to a rushing clear creek. We set up camp, built a fire, and then all went for swims and baths in the river. Apparently as elmie said, it was bee season. So there were thousands of bees everywhere and they particularly loved the sweat on our bodies and clothes. But if you remain calm they won’t sting you. So no stings the first day even though after our swim we walked around and did everything in our camp just in our underwear. It’s so hot and sweaty that it’s easiest to just be in your underwear. No rain that day or night! We had vegetables (weggies to elmie) that night and the next as we had two days before they would spoil. Every night we had rice and a canned thing and every meal we always had milo for hydration. That night we boiled water on the fire, but b/c we just had small pots, it took forever to boil enough water for the 3 of us (we drink lots and hydration is key). After that Kim and Clare decided to drink from the stream which elmie said was ok b/c the water was clear, but I didn’t trust it and I had purifying tablets, so I switched to them. 8 leeches this day…no big deal.

Day 2: (7hrs walking) Woke up to complete dampness and put on our wet and muddy and already smelly clothes. Today the trail was much drier which was nice and we climbed up and then down a small mountain. It was steep, but not too bad. The top of the mountain had no trees and the drier air and sun was great. The next campsite was beautiful as well, next to a clear stream and a big river. Bathed in the clear stream and went for a swim in the big one. Again, the same routine as the day before doing everything in camp in our underwear. We began to liken ourselves to Moglie and the jungle book, singing jungle book songs, pretending to be moglie (which in our underwear seemed to make sense) and looking for baloo floating down the river. Elmie of course was the true jungle man. He had once spent a month and a half in the rainforest without leaving with 2 japanese researchers who were doing tiger research. They had to live off the jungle and also not bathe b/c they had to smell like the jungle and not like humans to study the tigers. They actually saw quite a lot of tigers and had a population estimate of 200 in the park. It rained a bit that night, but must have rained a lot higher up b/c the river swelled greatly. 3 leeches today. Stung twice by bees, one on the arm and once perilously close to the crotch. We didn’t sleep too well, b/c our tent was full of itchy sandflies that can get in through the holes in the tents mesh.

Day 3 (6hrs walking, 4 big rivers crossed). Normally you have 8 rivers to cross on this day, but b/c of the rain some of the crossings were dangerous, so we took a harder and less improved trail to avoid some of the crossings. Sometimes it rains so much the night before you can’t do any crossings and then you just have to wait a day, which might mean you run out of food, but then as elmie says, you just survive. I rather enjoyed the river crossings b/c they cooled you off and were a challenge. I never fell in and the highest crossing was just above my belly button, so my stuff stayed pretty dry. Another sweet campsite by a bit clear river. We arrived to the campsite about 10 minutes before it started dumping rain. We got the tent set up and then had the bright idea that it would be fun to go for a swim while it was raining as we figured it’d rain for about an hour like last time. We played in the river for an hour until we were cold. We got out and then it just kept raining and raining and pouring so hard. We sat in the rain for over an hour freezing, hoping it would stop, b/c we had no way to dry off before getting in the tent and the tent was the only dry thing we had (or so we thought). There was this plant with huge leaves that I grabbed to use as an umbrella. Unfortunately elmie later informed me after the fact that it was an itchy plant and geeze, did it burn and sting and itch so bad, and I couldn’t get it off in the river. We eventually were so cold we just decided to get in the tent. We used our soaking towels to attempt to get some of the moisture off us. Once inside the tent we saw that the whole floor was flooded and soaking. The tent was obviously waterproofed asian style. So we wrung out the towels and tried the best we could to mop up the water. The rain finally stopped around 8 or 9 so that we could eat. We didn’t get much sleep that night b/c of more sandflies and b/c of sleeping in a small puddle. Only 4 leeches today and 1 bee sting. We were now in the middle of the rainforest, 3 days walk from any civilization

Day 4 (10 hours walking) (May 27th in Asia…my birthday). Today was a big elevation gain day and by far the hardest. Straight up, and yes literally straight up. They don’t believe in switchbacks here. Just climbing straight up pulling yourself up with roots and rope laid out. It would have been quite exhausting if I was going fast, but we weren’t going too fast. In the first half of the day we were so, so sweaty as it was hot and we were working hard and with the heavy rains the humidity was just insane. But eventually we started getting up higher to shorter trees and the humidity lessened a bit, and then eventually we hit treeline. The air felt AMAZING! It would have been humid still to anyone else, but to me it felt like a burst of dry estes park air. And it was much cooler. And oh, the breeze was so nice as the rainforest is impossibly still. We still had much to climb and first we had to descent along some ridges back into the jungle again before going back up. We finally started on the final ascent which was definitely straight up. There were ropes we used to pull ourselves up and also several ladders. But when we made it to the campsite and it was great. The air felt so dry, we had great views, and the air was chilly. You could see down across the valley to some huge cliffs on the otherside with gigantic waterfalls cascading down. I just felt so good. My birthday chocolate was especially good that day. Kim was feeling quite sick and had a fever, probably from exhaustion and maybe dehydration, so he just stayed in the tent, but I had carried up a chocolate cake for my birthday and enjoyed that by the fire. I really enjoyed this day, especially getting up to the dry. It rained that night, and we got a bit wet, but not too terrible. Only 1 bee sting on my birthday.

Day 5 (6 hours walking): We climbed up the first peak which was about 2000m and then descended back into the really mucky and tiresome upper jungle before making the final ascent for gunung tahan. Both Kim and Clare were feeling quite sick and were going quite slow so elmie stayed with them and he said I should just go for the summit b/c he could tell it was quite difficult for me to go so slow. I made it up to the summit about 1pm malay time which is 11pm May 27th, still my birthday in mountain standard time, so that was pretty cool! Waited a for a while and eventually the whole crew made it up. We had lunch on the summit and poor clare just curled up in a sleeping bag b/c she was so cold. The views were nice when we saw them, but fog and clouds often enshrouded us.. It was only an hour down to the next campsite, which was another awesome campsite. Dry and cool air and great views of the two big mountains. There were also some other Malayan tourists there that were climbing the mountain from the other side (we saw a few other groups during our 7 days, but never any other westerners). It rained that night, but just a long drizzle, so we stayed dry, and we had managed to dry out a bit of stuff before that.

Day 6: (7 hours walking): Long steep descent back into the jungle. A lot of just scrambling down roots and sliding down mud. Saw a pit viper today which was pretty cool. Frustratingly slow pace, but I was impressed clare was able to make it down, she did a good job. The campsite was at a crystal clear stream perfect for a swim. The afternoon and night was gorgeous with clear skies. We had a big fire and a big feast b/c we could eat all the food we had left. We stayed for a long time by the fire just enjoying the night and our last night in the jungle. But about 5am it started pouring and of course we got wet. It didn’t stop until we had been walking for a little bit the next day.

Day 7 (4 hours walking): Started the morning walking in the rain. Today was the easiest day as it was mostly downhill, but not too streep and then flat on good trail. Went by a couple of cool waterfalls. We had 4 big river crossings today that were pretty high because of the rain. One was a bit nerve wracking b/c you had to put your bag on your shoulder as it was chest deep, and hold onto a rope b/c just a few feet down was a big rapid. But I made it across safely carrying my bag and then realized that elmie would have carried my stuff for me b/c he did it for clare and kim, but I guess that made me feel tougher. After the last river crossing elmie said it was only 10 more minutes to the end, and I was actually kind of sad as I had been enjoying my time in the jungle. We made it to one final river crossing, but it had a bridge and then we were back to civilization and buildings. We sat around a bit trying to dry out and finishing up paperwork before taking a truck to gua musang. We got there around 4 and we had to wait until 10pm to catch the jungle night train. We all had a big meal and I bought some icecream and chocolate milk! The other two were very exhausted, but I decided to go for a walk around the town. It is an extremely conservative muslim town, so everyone is wearing the proper gowns and headgear, but everyone was so incredibly friendly. My favorite town here so far. Everyone on the street was talk to me and even the people on scooters driving by would yell out a hello. The town was also in a gorgeous location with the jungle on its fringes and big karst mountains all around. We caught the night train to jerantut and arrived a bit after 1am

Day 8 (10 mins walking): Elmie put us up for free at a friends hotel that was nice (had ac and a tv). I wasn’t feeling too tired so I watched will smith’s i-robot on tv. We all slept in until 9 and then after getting some more good food, caught the 1pm bus back to kuala tehan. I immediately took all my stuff out at the hostel to dry out and just sat around and read.

Kim and Clare wanted to go back to the city so they took the next bus back to Jerantut. I still wanted to do the night safari, so I stayed another night in Kuala Tahan. The night safari was definitely worth it as we saw 4 leopard cats (a beautiful little cat not much bigger than a house cat and with nice spots like a leopard), a Malayan civet cat, and 3 paradise tree snakes of various sizes.


Favorite quotes by Elmie. “If we have to stay an extra day or get stuck in the jungle we will run out of food, and then we just have to survive”
“If you come across a tiger, either you die, or the tiger dies” hmm…in my case I knew who would die as I don’t think I could kill a tiger…but in the end that was a joke b/c he said he had seen lots of tigers and never killed a one.

June 1: took the early morning bus back to Jerantut where I met back up with Kim and Clare. We decided to pay a few extra ringitt for a shared aircon room to help dry out. And we just spent the day in jerantut getting our washing done as our clothes were so smelly and doing some internet and such. We had a rootbeer float party to celebrate my birthday, their 2 year anniversary (same day as my birthday) and climbing the mountain. In kota bahru we had gone by an A&W, and I had looked at it with a watery mouth as it was so hot out, but american fast foods here are more expensive than they are back home. They saw me look at it, and they didn't know what it was nor what a rootbeer float is. I guess that's a very american thing, summer day going to the park to play some baseball then going to the A&W drive up and ordering chili cheese fries, coney dogs, hamburgers, and rootbeer floats, and your food gets brought to you by people on roller skates (or at least back home in montrose they used to). Anyways, Kim and Clare had never had any, so I decided I'd introduce them to the tasty cool treat.

The rainforest trek was one of the most mentally challenging things I’ve done (and fairly physically challenging as well), but it was definitely worth it. I mean, what a great experience to be in the middle of a huge pristine rainforest, climbing a mountain, just us. Not many people can say they’ve truly been in the rainforest like we have. And it is definitely an experience I will never forget. And minus worrying about a few things like my backpack becoming really moldy, I became quite used to the jungle dampness and it didn’t bother me much. And the jungle is for sure a beautiful and mysterious place. The funny thing is we all noted how much trouble we had sleeping as soon as we got back to civilization even though we had beds instead of 1cm thick pads. Something about the jungle noises to put you to sleep. But yea, a great experience to never forget! And it definitely makes me appreciate the cold, dry, wonderful air of Colorado even more. How often during the trek I dreamed I was camping there where everything dries out instantly.

June 2: Bussed from Jerantut to Temerloh. Then from there to Kuantan. I had some time there and it's a large city so I checked out a couple of the shopping centers there to see if I could pick up some things that I had lost/broke in the rainforest. And hit the huge food market as well. The city was actually quite nice with a colonial mixed with asian feel. There was a cool riverwalk along a gigantic river that I strolled around waiting for the bus. Kuantan also had a huge beautiful mosque with a large green grassy field in front of it, with a nice breeze. I hadn't been in the city for a while, and usually I don't like cities, but I liked this one. I think partly because out here in asia you can be so long in places where you can't get any modern conveniences that it's nice to get to a place where you can. And I think sometimes the modernity reminds me of home, which I often like. In the US you're never really far from a place where you can easily pick up items you may need (sunscreen, shampoo, a backpack, shoes, etc), so I particularly like to avoid cities there. Like if I were to devise a tour for a visitor, it would hardly include any cities, just the wilds, but the difference is even in small places like Estes Park, McCall, Moab, Jackson hole, there are always big supermarkets and hardware stores and such. So far malaysian cities (and we're not talking about the monstrosity cities like kuala lumpur, bangkok, manila, singapore as those are on a whole other level, but the smaller cities) are my favorite of the countries I've been to. Most the Philippine cities are just really dirty, smelly, full of homeless and beggars. I didn't go to many thai cities b/c the islands are kind of far from them and you avoid them through transit, but the ones I did go to are difficult to navigate b/c the streets are confusing and nothing is written in arabic, but all in thai symbols, so you don't even know what a certain store or place is. The malaysian cities are easy to walk, very clean, very friendly people, quite modern, everyone speaks good english, and even somewhat planned out (this could be due to old british colonialism) so there are parks and playgrounds and green space. I really liked Kuantan though and almost thought about staying, partly b/c of the huge beautiful grass field with the breeze in front of the stunning mosque. I just wanted to go out there and toss the frisbee or football around, but alas I had none of those, nor a partner, so I moved on to cherating and cherating beach.

From Bratpackers to Backpackers

Just got to Kota Bahru yesterday from Pulau Perhentian Kecil. Had a good time yesterday in Kota Bahru with Kim and Clare my new found friends. As we had been chilling on the little island far from civilization (no cars, and only a few hours of electricity) which means expensive food, we walked around kota bahru today and gorged on icecream, slushies at 7-11, and lots and lots of fruit. Had a tasty fruit that looks like a nut, but almost tastes like a strawberry today. Then we hit up the delicious night fruit market.

So Pulau Perhentian was great. Had only planned to stay there for 2 days, but ended up staying for 6 days. I really liked it. It wasn't as pretty as the Thai islands I had come from (but still very gorgeous with white sands, jungle interior, and really nice aqua water, and no cars which is always a bonus), but I liked the vibe much more. The people there I feel were much more of the true backpacker type rather than the jetsetters. Thailand does have plenty of backpackers, but they're harder to find b/c they are more in the minority. Here I met so many cool people I actually had to say no to people for dinner dates and snorkel trips. The people here were all interesting, and everyone I met was on some huge trip of at least 6 months. Clare and Kim told me they call the fake backpackers in thailand bratpackers. I found that quite funny. I stayed at an awesome place that was the cheapest on the island but had an absolutely amazing view down to the water right off of my deck and from my bed. Sure it had no fan (but there was a breeze in the afternoon), little power, bed bugs, termites, lizards and frogs everywhere in my room, no sinks, and crummy bathrooms, but it was one of my favorite places I've stayed b/c the staff was so friendly, the view so incredible, and from my bed you could hear the ocean, see the ocean, and feel its breeze.

It all started off being dropped off at kuala besut. 4 other people (2 different british couples) got dropped off around the same time. They were all really young, having just graduated from high school and travelling the world on their gap year. A woman there wanted us all to sign up right then and there (it was 5 in the morning as we had been on overnight busses) for the boats. It was very expensive, but they were all ready to sign up begrudingly. But I told them to wait. The woman was so urgent for us to sign up, that I knew there would be other options. I told them all to wait until the jetty opened at 7, and of course, we all got tickets for half the price once it opened. One couple I was particularly fond of was Ian and Rosy and we hung out that afternoon and walked over to coral bay for dinner. I was staying on long beach, but I liked coral bay for eating and hanging out b/c it was even quieter than long beach and the food was cheaper with better portions. It was easy enough to get to, just a 10-15 minute walk through the jungle to the other side of the island.

I hadn't really planned on doing any diving in the Perhentians, but walking around I found a dive shop that offered a really good deal for a five dive package, so I ended up signing up for that. The next day I did two dives. The first dive to T3 was with some other irish guy. Unfortunately the visibility had gone pretty bad due to a change in current, so it wasn't the best. The next dive I went with Kim and Clare and the visibility was a little better, but it didn't matter so much b/c we were diving a vietnamese wreck and the lower visibility just makes the wreck a bit more spooky. We also fought some current to get to an area that had sea horses, and we got lucky and found a cute little guy. That afternoon I took a walk through the jungle to get to the fisherman's village which was about 2 hours away. The hike was really nice through the jungle and along the coast. There were several little white sand beaches along the way and plenty of giant monitor lizards running everywhere. That afternoon I joined up with Ian and Rosy for dinner at coral bay.
The next day I did another two dives. The first dive was to the Sugar wreck, which was pretty cool. The 2nd dive, temple of the sea, was absolutely amazing. The visibility was great and we saw everything: bamboo sharks, lots of stingrays, nudibranchs, scorpion fish, humphead parrotfish, a hawksbill turtle, lionfish, and of course all the other kinds of fish. And the coral was very colorful as well. My plan was to dive one more dive that day to complete my package, do a snorkel trip the next day, and then leave the following day, but Kim and Clare who I really liked-- Kim is from Sweden and Clare from England and they met in New Zealand a few years ago and have been dating since then--were doing there last dive the next day, so I decided to join them. So that afternoon we just hung out and then went out to dinner and shared some whiskey that clare and kim had brought from duty free langkawi

My last dive to Sea Bell with Kim and Clare was great as well. Saw lots of fish and 2 different types of stingrays. That afternoon we just hung out along with Sara and Chris who are british but work at the dive shop now as they are quite cool. Also that afternoon Kim and Clare shaved my head, so now I'm quite hairless. That night we went out to eat and then watched a movie at the dive shop. The next day Kim and Clare were supposed to be leaving for Taman Negara and the jungle. I wanted to stay one more day to do a snorkel trip before leaving the Perhentians. My plan after leaving was to go to Pulau redang, another supposedly beautiful island, but I really liked Kim and Clare so I decided to meet them in Kota Bahru on the way to taman negara. They ended up deciding to stay one day later anyways. So that last day I did the snorkel trip, which is one of the best ones I have ever done. We went to six snorkelling spots and saw all kinds of amazing things, lots of fish, and beautiful corals. I actually saw as much snorkelling as I did diving. And the guide was great, super friendly and nice, and jumped in the water with us to show us where things were. A couple spots we saw lots and lots of black tipped reef sharks up close, and another had lots of stingrays, and another we got to dive down real close to several green sea turtles. That day was one of my favorites for sure. We had lunch at the fishing village, which was much cheaper than the tourist areas. That night the dive gang at our dive shop, clare, kim, and I all went out to eat and then did another movie night.

So Kim, Clare, and I all left the perhentians for Khota Bahru yesterday. I quite like travelling with them b/c they are very nice, very fun, and are on a similar budget as me. Very, very cheap when it comes to transport, food, lodging, but they have a budget to do dives, jungle treks, etc. So they always ate at the same place as me and always would rather wait for the crappy bus than take the taxi. It was funny b/c on the boat over to pulau perhentian, the boat dropped off at several spots including coral bay (the one that is a 10 minute walk from long beach) before dropping off at long beach. After stopping off at all those places, the boat went into longbeach bay and then the captain said that we would all have to pay 3 ringitt to take a taxi boat to the beach. There was a dock nearby and I told him to go there, but he wouldn't. Now this really frustrated me b/c I'd just paid a lot for the boat ride and to just spring this fee on at the end when I could have gotten off at one of the other beaches just kind of upset me. The boat ride over cost 30 ringit. It would be like paying 300 bucks to fly from denver to boise and then having the plane stop at the runway and the pilot saying you'd have to shell out another 30 to take a taxi to the terminal even though they had the little bridge things to connect there. The rest of my boat didn't seem to care about this sudden fee and 3 ringitt isn't too much, so we all just ended up paying, but clare and kim who had come a few days earlier refused to pay and said they would either stay on the boat or get dropped off, so the captain decided to take them to the jetty and they didn't have to pay the fee. I had wished I had been on their boat. But anyways, needless to say, we all walked the day we left over to the other side of the island where you don't have to pay the taxi fee to get on the boat instead of being lazy and taking the taxi from our beach (clare and kim were staying at my same guesthouse). Here in kota bahru we're all sharing a triple room, which saves me considerably from having to pay for a single room.

Today we just kind of enjoyed being back in civilization. Doing some interneting, went to tesco's to buy some cheap food for our upcoming train ride and sit in the air con and just have eaten a lot of cheap food. They're like me, they don't like the cities too much, but they are nice to come back to for a few days to eat icecream, cheap food, go to tesco and get some more western things, and just kind of hang out and recoup. So needless to say, they are quite awesome and we really mesh great together as travellers. Unfortunately I won't be able to travel with them much longer b/c both of their parents are coming down to meet them in indonesia for a bit, but we might get to meet up later down the line b/c they have a similar schedule as me of borneo, indonesia, cambodia, laos, vietnam, etc (only difference is they are throwing in the philippines somewhere in there). They have been travelling for 5 months now and came down from sweeden through russia and china on the trans-siberia railroad (the trip I've been hoping will be my next) and then through thailand of course. THey also both worked and travelled in Australia and NZ for over a year, so they have some good experiences and good ideas for travelling cheap such as moving cars for people and couch surfing. Had my sandals break today, but got them fixed at some guy on the street, so hopefully that will last a bit longer b/c the tesco didn't have my size sandal of course.
Tonight we're going to some cultural show here and also to watch the shadow puppet plays, which is something I had wanted to do. Tomorrow, we are off early in the AM to catch the jungle train through the jungle for 12 hours to a town near taman negara national park. From there we will travel to the park and we are hoping to do a fairly long trek into the jungle as taman negara is one of the most pristine and oldest rainforests in SE asia. The town at the park border may have some internet connection, but we definitely won't have any on the trek, so it is hard to know when the next time I will be online.

Some shots from Penang and the Perhentian Islands.
Penang: feeling sick from Dengue fever and trying to find rabies shots

Perhentians: Black tip reef sharks and green and hawksbill sea turtles while snorkelling. Me swimming next to one of my favorite of the turtles we found. Stingrays and Sea Horses and bambook sharks while diving. My new found good friends Kim (swedish) and Clare (english) cutting my hair...before, during (mohawk), and after shots