Taman Negara and Kuala Lumpur

Goodday.  I've been saying I was going to write about Taman Negara... so here it is:

First off Taman Negara is a national park here in the middle of the peninsular part of Malaysia (as opposed to the part on the Island of Borneo).  It is a 130 million year old rainforest, which they claim is the oldest in the world... To get there, we took a minibus from the Cameron Highlands and then a boat up the Tembeling River.  The boat ride was pretty cool as we were in these long thin boats and it was over 2 hours of cruising along the sides where I enjoyed looking at the jungle and seeing monkeys and some of the Orang Asli (natives).

Eventually we got to Kuala Tahan which is the little village that is probably only there because it is the main gateway into the park.  You actually had to take a river taxi to get across and into the park.  All the restaurants there are literally "in" the river - floating.  It was kinda cool to be eating in these floating restaurants, although the food was basically a bastardized version of Malay food that they think the westerners like.  But in fact every single one of the 10 restaurants or so had the same crappy food and there was no other options.  But check out the pic below - this is of the restaurants and of Kuala Tahan from the park headquarters.

Hiking in the jungle was cool.... and really hot at the same time.  The first morning we did the main touristy walks which was up this one little hill to get some views of the park and then this canopy walkway.  I really liked the walkway as you are up to about 150 feet above the ground.  This reminded me how much I want to live in a tree "when I grow up".  I'm gonna have to make that happen some day.

Overall, there were not so many main points of interest in the jungle to hike to, but what I really liked was seeing all the different plants and bugs and other animals there.  We came across vines with huge spikes, monkeys, pigs, leeches (got 2 bites!), huge ants, and ginormous termite colonies where you can hear them chewing on the sticks on the ground.  We even found an elephant footprint on the ground!  But after 2 days of wandering around in the jungle sweating our faces off, it seemed we kinda saw what there was to see there.  Of course there is always the tours where they boat you off to see a cave or a village, but that stuff is way overpriced and we've realized that it never works out to be a very good experience anyway.

So the next day we made our way back to Kuala Lumpur to get our Thai visas and head out of Malaysia.  Unfortunately there is not a whole lot to do here that is of much interest to me.... which is why we've been in the food court of the train station just hanging out until we can go pick up our passports.  Only one more hour to go!  We spent one night in Chinatown right after we got here, and then contacted a couchsurfer and stayed with him for the past couple nights.  This has been a bit of a different couchsurfing experience.  This guy is a doctor, and is out until 9pm every night, but his apartment is full of couchsurfers.  It is almost like a little hostel - he lets you in shows you around, and then leaves you to be and sleep on the floor until you get up and out in the morning.  We did at least get to chat a bit with the 3 russians, peruvian, german, taiwanese, and two polish people who were there at the same time as us.  It was much less family like and more do your own thing than other times we've couchsurfed so far.  He did live on the top floor of his apt building and had some great views of the city though:

Cameron Highlands

Hi from Malaysia!

We have so far spent our first night in Kuala Lumpur (the capital), and then the next day took a bus to the Cameron Highlands.  Here we are about 5000ft. above sea level, so even though we are so close to the equator,  it is nice and cool - a welcome relief from KL and Indonesia.  This is a nice place to chill out a bit and also do some hiking.

The scenery here kinda reminds me of the Catskills.  Rolling green hills with some decent views.  Nothing amazing and defo not worth travelling completely across the globe to go see, but since we are here it is great to do some hiking.  We've barely done any physical activity in a while, so getting out for 4 days in a row and doing some hiking has been great.

Something that is neat about hiking here though, is that the jungle sounds (birds and insects) are totally different from anything I have ever experienced and also there are loads of new plants.  Like this pitcher plant (picture below).  It is one of those carnivorous plants that lure bugs into the plant and trap it there to suck out the nutrients!  One day while hiking, I came across one dead one that was lying on the ground.  I brought it back and later started dissecting it.  Even though it was separated from the main part of the plant I think it was still alive.  On the inside, there were these little white tentacles that were actually moving and grabbed a nearby piece of fly when I opened it up!  It totally looked like some little alien thing.

Another exciting thing happened on the last hiking day.  We hiked up Gunung Brinchang (highest mountain in the area at 6666ft), which is also possible to drive up.  Then at the top it started to rain, so instead of hiking back down the trail we thought we'd go via the road and then stop at the tea plantation for a cup of tea.  But a little ways down we got lazy and hitchhiked.  A pickup truck came by with 3 kids in the back and they offered us a ride!  It was a Malaysian family who was getting a tour of this huge vegetable farm.  We joined in and got to ride through it all and chat with the kids in the bed of the pickup all the way down the mountain.  They were super nice and even offered to have us come out to lunch with them.  Too bad we had just eaten!  But anyway, here we are with them with some veggies behind us on the side of the mountain.

So thoughts on Malaysia so far:

-It is way more developed than Indonesia, but in a good way.  There is a such thing as public transportation and garbage pickup.  Also because people are a little better off, you may be offered a taxi but if you decline they don't follow you pestering.

-It is way more diverse.  There are of course Malaysians, but also lots of Indians and Chinese live here too.  We have had way more Indian food here so far than local food.  The guys in the Indian place even recognize us by now!

-Part of it being more diverse, and probably more developed, means that people are way better at English.  I know that I should not expect everyone else to speak English everywhere, but it is nice when they do.  We can actually have a conversation with people and talk about something more than the weather or the fact that we can speak only a tiny bit of Indonesian!

So it's good so far, and tomorrow we head off to Taman Negara.  This is going to be some hot steamy jungle, where maybe we'll get lucky and see wild elephants, monkeys, tigers, pumas or leeches.