First night of real backpacking at Taman Negara

Tuesday, 24 July 2012

The alarm woke us up to another early morning. NKS told us to be at our hotel lobby starting at 7:30am to wait for our pick up. We did just that after having our last breakfast at the Pacific Regency. We waited and waited...the clock ticked to 8:30...still no pick up. Eventually we got impatient and a bit nervous that they took our money and ran, so we called. The lady responded, she said the pick up is 7:30 and later. Okay...

The pick up was shortly after our call. We got picked up in a van, which I thought, not so bad. Much more comfortable than the other buses we've been on. That's when Anders broke it to me that we were only on the pick up transport, and we will probably be getting on a bus. He was right. We got transferred to another bus that headed to Taman Negara.

The bus ride was really long. We drove from 8:30am to 2:00pm, with a potty stop and lunch stop. The lunch was at an extremely crappy place. Anders ordered a chicken burger, which was the worst thing he has ever eaten. He quickly learned not to ever order western food in a small place like that ever again. Alan and I stuck with fried rice, which they anyhow managed to burn a bit. During the lunch break we were debating if we should preorder some guided trips to save 10%. We concluded the savings wasn't huge since each trip was about 30rmb ($10).

The bus ride led to a 3 hour boat ride to the national park. Upon arrival at the jetty, there were guys saying luggage service for 2rmb. It was very natural for Anders to go there and pay, but then Alan stopped him to ask why can't we walk our luggage down ourselves. Good question. Anders asked, and the guy said there were many steps down. We were backpackers, minus Alan with a roller that transforms into a backpack, so we decided to carry our things to the boat ourselves. Alan had to break out the backpack straps. No more rolling for him.

The boat ride was extremely peaceful. We were basically at the water level cruising along slowly to our destination. Along the way we all snoozed a bit, admired the scenery and just relaxed. Anders and I busted out the chips at some point and a little cute German kid wanted some. He thought it was very funny that we offered him some of our yummies. We had some to spare anyways, we've been consistently eating at least two bags of chips each day! Anders and Alan have also been drinking at least a beer or two...or three each day too!!!

The three hour boat ride was a bit long. Along the way we saw some water buffaloes, cows and fishermen. Nothing too crazy. 30mins prior to our arrival, we caught glimpses of a "resort" called Persona Hotel Resort. I recalled the budget accommodation we signed up for was also called Persona. However, how could it be that far from the jetty? Hmmm...sketchy.

Around 6pm, we've arrived safely to the NKS floating restaurant. Basically these restaurants were stationed on floating docks. We checked in and signed up for the night safari trip that started at 8:30pm. We had very little time to go to our "hotel" to change, etc. The hotel was a quick 5min drive from the floating restaurants.

From the outside, Persona looks ok. Actually pretty good for a budget stay (around 10rmb / $3) a night. A young boy brought us to our dorm, that's when the horror set in on us. It was an absolutely crappy place. The beds looked disgustingly dirty, there were spider webs hanging in the ceiling, and the switch for the fan was not mounted properly. Anders was electrocuted a few times turning it on. The shared bathroom was pretty gross also. The toilet didn't flush, so you had to use a hose to spray water in the toilet to wash out what ever you did in it. That same hose is the shower hose, in the same room as the toilet. The only positive thing about this place is that we had the room all to ourselves.

Anders and I quickly set up our top bunk to make it mosquito free. The two of us have been bitten numerous times with huge swells on our arms and legs. Lucky Alan had one tiny one this whole trip. His blood must not be as sweet as ours. We were thankful to have a mosquito net gifted to us by Anders' dad. Also, Anders was glad I told him to take the sheets from the hotel at KL. We used that to cover our mattress and pillow. At least we will feel sheltered in our bed. Alan had a cocoon and borrowed the pillow case I brought with me on the trip. Too bad he didn't have a net :-(

We took the pick up truck back to the floating restaurants to grab a bite before heading to our safari trip. Apparently everyone had the same idea and the restaurants were crazy packed. We eventually sat down in one and tried to order a bunch of food, but we didn't have enough time for them to cook it. We ended up ordering 30 skewers of chicken satay and plain rice. It was pretty good, especially for $5 per person.

The night safari was a drive through of the secondary forest in a pick up jeep loaded on with people on the roof and open trunk. The trip was for 2.5 hours. It kind of reminded me of my safari trip in Africa at first, but then I realized it was nothing in comparison. The guide was not very informative. He used a strong spot light trying to spot animals. We did manage to see a flying squirrel that refused to fly, a small wild cat, some birds, a cobra...and some cows and water buffaloes (if they count). The guide was desperately trying to find things to show us, but unfortunately we were not so lucky. It got really boring towards the tail end. A dark quiet ride in the back of the pick up made both Alan and I very sleepy. We did snooze a bit, but that was dangerous as we could of easily fell out. I was lucky to have Anders holding me.

The jeep took us back to crappy persona, where we got ready and crawled into our mosquito net. Anders and I really feel like we are roughing it now.