Wednesday 14 October 2015

Day 363: A hole by a river

I was up with the alarm this morning and packed the bags while the others slept. I then got them all up and we hit the streets, walking the relatively short distance to the sky train station, where we bought our tokens from a vending machine and then passed through the barriers and up onto the platform. It was only five stops to our destination and we soon found our way to the helpfully signposted bus station. It was slightly trickier to then figure out where to buy our tickets from, but we eventually found that too and joined the small queue of people waiting for the counter to open. While we waited, Zoe and I set off to see if we could find something for breakfast. We ended up at a little Indian place where they made our old standby – roti canai – and got two with egg and two without, and a little bag of some sort of curry sauce. These we took back to the queue and scarfed down on the pavement while Kate got our tickets. We were just licking our fingers when the bus pulled up and we all piled on board the 8am bus to Jeruntut. 


About three hours later, the bus dropped us in the bus station, where we again set about trying to figure out how to get to Kuala Tahan, the little village located adjacent to Taman Negara. Kate's enquiries elicited the information that the next local bus didn't leave until 1pm. As we debated what to do we were approached by two local guys bearing information sheets who wanted to tell us all about their minibuses and tours to Taman Negara. We fobbed them off, but after chatting to a young Belgian girl who was on her way back from Kuala Tahan (and, incidentally, on her honeymoon) and who vouched for the credentials of the tour guys, we agreed to get in their van. We thought we were then on our way to Kuala Tahan, but the driver started asking us about getting some lunch and/or groceries. At first we agreed to his suggestion that we went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch, but then we decided that we were still full enough from breakfast, so suggested that we got going instead. At this, the driver turned around and started to take us back where we had come from. Our hearts dropped, but it turned out that he was taking us to the tour company office to transfer us to another van. We were then concerned that we were going to have to wait until 1pm for the new van, but we barely had time to finish the ice creams we had bought when the van pulled up beside us. We climbed aboard and discovered that we were to be the only passengers, so we sat back and enjoyed the chauffeur service.

The (ridiculously, recklessly rapid) drive took us through endless oil palm plantations and a sawmill surrounded by some enormous logs of beautiful dark rainforest timber. So depressing. We reached Kuala Tanah in about an hour and the driver would have dropped us at our hotel but as we hadn't booked anything, he dropped us in the car park instead. Then, while Zoe and I stayed with the bags, Kate and Sarah set off to see if they could find us somewhere to stay. It was very hot and humid and the accommodation on offer proved to be both basic and expensive, but after some time, they returned with the news that they had found somewhere within fairly easy walking distance. The somewhere they had found was a couple of rooms in a single-storey bungalow – bed, bathroom and, crucially, air-con.


We were hungry by now so we headed out to see what we could find for (a very late) lunch. The majority of the restaurants in Kuala Tanah are located on floating platforms on the river that separates the town from the national park. We went to the first of these - Mama Chop – and had a decent meal while the staff sat and watched a war movie. We then went for a bit of a walk around the town, which was basic to say the least – obviously set up to service the tourist traffic that the national park generates with as little thought and effort as possible. 





We went back to the rooms to regenerate in the air-con and then headed out again to look for somewhere to have dinner. We ended up at another of the floating restaurants, choosing the one that appeared to be the most popular. This wasn't a particularly successful strategy. When Kate went up to the little window next to the kitchen to order, the first three things she ordered weren't available and when my noodles arrived, they were so awful that I couldn't eat more than a few mouthfuls. In the meantime, we chatted to a couple of hard-core birders at an adjacent table - a softly spoken guy from the Midlands who has apparently seen more than 6,000 bird species, and Andrew, his very well-qualified local guide. After dinner we stopped off at a mini-mart to get some beer (this is essentially a dry town, with alcohol only available from a very limited number of places) and tom yam peanuts.

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