Taman Negara National Park

My journey to get to Taman Negara National Park was by no means straight forward. It involved a 2 1/2 hour bus journey to Kuala Lumpur, a transfer via the sky rail to a different bus station, a second bus journey which was meant to take 3 1/2 hours but took over 5hrs to a town called Jeratun (we had a breakdown which ended up with our bus skidding and finally stopping sideways on the motorway) and after that ANOTHER 2 hour bus journey to my final destination.! Needless to say I was glad to arrive and find a room (even if the walls were covered in lady bugs) with the help of a Dutch guy Harry I met on the bus - we were the only two westerners on the bus!

Tahan Rata was the name of the area that I stayed in and getting food at certain times proved rather difficult given that it is the month of Ramadan over here. Only one floating restaurant on the river was serving food in the mornings and it took a while to locate on the first day!

we sat outside at one of the tables and asked for a beer we were told they had no beer - can you imagine a bar with no beer?!

The weather during my two days at Taman Negara was a bit overcast and I wasn't up for any serious 3 day hikes into the forest which involved overnight camping! I did however do a half day trek which ended with us walking over the famous canopy - think it is the largest in the world. If not, it was pretty impressive all the same! I also done a night safari which involved us driving about on the back of a jeep, well I got the seat beside the driver :) - and a guide flashing a lamp looking for all the exciting animals. We are disappointed though when all we saw was owls, tree snakes & small tiger cats!

So after that hectic day all we could do was have a well earned beer - which turned into a lot more when a gang of Irish turned up with there arms full of Thai whiskey! Ordering a beer you would think should be straight forward but when we sat outside at one of the tables and asked for a beer we were told they had no beer - can you imagine a bar with no beer?! A guy then stood up and said "you want beer...I get you beer, how many?" So he proceeded to make a phone call and less than a minute later a lady appeared with two cans of beer in a plastic bag - we had to repeat this process a few times during the night!!

It was an early start leaving Tahan Rata with the bus departing at 8am....only two connections on the journey to Cameron Highlands though which was my next stop so not as bad as getting here........