Kuala Lumpar and Tamen Negra National Park, Malaysia.

Canopy Walkway, Tamen NEGRA nATIONAL pARK
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After about 3.5 months traveling in Australia and Tasmania It was time to start heading home and to S.E Asia. A small culture shock awaited me in Kuala Lumpar. I arrived at about 11pm from Sydney, by the time I had cleared immigration and collected my pack and got a cab it was getting on for midnight, so arrival in town some 70 klm away was in the small hours, and a local hotel close to where my hostel is was the only option at this hour. The following morning I transferred to Red Palm, reputedly a very good hostel, this certainly proved to be the case. Sophie made me feel very at home in this small hostel.

Next morning I managed to find a taxi (not difficult here really !!), and Steve my driver took me round to several major places on interest on my first day, including the national Mosk and Hindu Cave, and national Butterfly gardens which where very beautiful. I had also been to the Petronas towers with the aim of getting up to the bridge between the towers on the 41st and 42nd floors, but I arrived a little late to get a ticket, so I would have to return the following morning.

Having met a Kiwi girl in the hostel we decided to make our way early the next morning to get a ticket to up the towers, you have to be their around 8.30am to get a free ticket before they run out. These towers where the tallest in the world, I have since been informed that this is no longer the case. So at 10am we duly got into the lift to be whisked effortlessly in about 15 seconds to the 41st floor, quite a view, especially of the park to the rear of the towers, Petronas had purchased a large area of prime land in central KL around the towers location which has been thoughtfully develop  with a well designed pocket park to compliment the twin towers which is reflected in the design.

From here we visited several other major points of interest including the railway station which is famous for its unusual style of Architecture, as well as other well know landmarks and fountains. This tuned into a very hot and tiring day and we where both ready for a few cold beers by the evening. We had decided to head to Tamen Negra National Park some 200klm or so north of KL.

This then meant another early start as we made our way to  a hotel where the coach would leave at 8.30am, its about 4 hours on the bus followed by a 3 hour boat trip up river to Tamen Negra, arriving late afternoon with a large group of about 20 we found hostels, Angela wanted to do slightly different things from me so it made sense for us to have a little independence at this point, although we met up over the next couple of days.

Tamen Negra is mainland Malaysia's premier national park and is all about jungle treks and some wildlife, although its rather a victim of its own popularity, consequently I did not see huge amounts of wildlife, I did walk the longest tree top walkway in the world though (500m long), it gives good views and the chance to see wildlife depending on a little luck, I went early in the hope of seeing things, unfortunately I did not see much. I did however see things the following day including a flying lizard. I spent the send day doing a 9klm marked jungle trek which was really good, very hot. sweaty and full of leaches, I had to keep stopping to pick them off. I had arranged a boat trip back down the river with some Americans, We drifted back with the current and managed to see Kingfisher, Fish Eagle, and some monkeys so that was a really good end to the day. The following day I headed back to KL before departing for Borneo the following morning.