Week Two, more palm trees.

11 September 2012

Aug 30th – Sept 03rd

We said goodbye to Wendy, for good this time, well, never say never… She’s off to Brazil for a few months anyways. And we made our way North East towards the Taman Negara National Park. It’s a bit of a nonsense to be called that, since Taman Negara means “National Park” in Bahasa Malaysia so it’s in fact called “National Park National Park”…
Anyways, the TMNP is the largest park in Malaysia, home to many protected species of elephants, tapirs, tigers, snakes, monkeys etc and a huge variety of flora as well. Exciting and promising.

On the way, we passed Fraser Hill, a very British village, with cottages just like Brighton or southern Sussex. We even got the light rain and the fog. Sadly, teatime was at three o’clock and we got there too early, so we pushed on.

Just outside the national park, the little town of Jerantut had a very cheap but rather clean(ish) guesthouse for just 30rm per room (approximately ten dollars, for a room with a fan, and clean(ish) sheet. This gave us the chance the next day to refuel and fill the fridge for the next four to five days, as we were hoping to spend as much time in the park as possible.

Unfortunately, and this information is nowhere to be found online, the park can ONLY be accessed by boat… No way then to get Troopy inside and spend time in the jungle. We asked and asked again, impossible. So, the 4×4 clubs I contacted last week are either idiots or liars, but getting into the park with a 4wd CANNOT be done.
And, there is no camping facilities either, well that’s if you exclude the two muddy river banks outside the park, or the small patch of grass behind the resort. They obviously have no clue about camping, but put a tent on a 5degrees angle with no shade whatsoever, no kitchen facilities and a strict no fire possibility does not quite count as a “campsite”.

So, let’s think: we have to pay to park, pay to get across the river, pay to get into the park, can’t sleep anywhere, can’t cook either, and can’t get our gear across anyway. What the hell do we do now? I suppose we could have prepared this trip a bit more, I hear you say? Well, that would have been an option if there actually WERE information to be found online or anywhere for that matter. Malaysia has a funny sense of tourism.

Bottom line, we spent the night 15km outside the park in a palm tree plantation (well, what else is there beside palm tree plantation anyways), and came back the next day to do a jungle trek.

They did tell us to get there early as the “canopy walk” can get quite busy, especially on a Saturday morning, and we might have to queue. Indeed. But while we queued, we slowly realized what was advertised as a very dramatic canopy walk, a once in a lifetime experience to spend time some 20m up in the air, right up with monkeys and birds; turned out to be a pretty lame tourist attraction. So, there we were, up in the treetop, looking desperately to see at least ONE animal, but beside the odd ant and mosquito, nothing to be seen.

Disappointed, we climbed down and walked the rest of the trek, thinking we’d be at least in a somewhat remote, or remoter, area. But no. The jungle trek is in fact a boardwalk for most of the way, with hordes of Japanese tourists, one louder than the next, pushing you to get a better view at the butterfly, with their Crocs or gumboots, and a camera clicking and flashing away at the first flower or insect.

NOT a very nice experience. So, after a quick slash in the river, we got out and raced towards Thailand.

Well okay, we were probably a bit too optimistic in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of a wild and inextricable place which actually protects its wildlife, making sure there are no poaching and no timber logging of any kind. That’s all great. At least there is one place in Malaysia that is not entirely covered by palm trees, but maybe it should not be advertised as a tourist attraction at all. If you can’t get to the park unless you go to the only resort (expensive) and hire a guide to take you for a three days jungle trek (also expensive), why bother ? Seriously. Or maybe I’m just a spoiled child who wants to be alone in my jungle, I don’t know.

The Malaysia Lonely Planet pointed us to a quiet spot further north, on a riverbank, with a large variety of waterlilies to admire. Cool, let’s get there. Problem number one, the river can’t be crossed where the sign says we can, and problem number two, the campsite is once again, a patch of grass on an angle, next to the parking lot.
F** this, f** the waterlilies, f** the resort, let’s find a campspot in the forest, and get the f** to Thailand as soon as possible. I’ve had it with Malaysia sense of tourism. There is nothing beside expensive resorts to accommodate you, and there is nothing to see anyways beside palm trees.

We got to Kota Barhu that night after a long drive, booked in a very friendly guesthouse held by an old Chinese man and his son, filled up the fridge the next day, and got to the border town as soon as we could.

Bottom line: we were really disappointed with Malaysia. We both expected probably too much after such a great experience in Timor Leste and Indonesia. Unfortunately, it seems that Malaysia’s gem is on Borneo, but the Malay Peninsula is just one big palm tree plantation, with three worthwhile attractions: Penang, Malacca and Kuala Lumpur. It’s probably untrue, and there probably is another side to the story, there probably are some remote villages with untouched forests, and welcoming smiley people, but we haven’t found them. What we saw is basically nothing, since the palm trees grow to about 4m high, and block any view you might have over or through the forest, and the deforestation of the “primary forest” has resulted in the killing of any endemic species of flora or fauna.

Goodbye Malaysia, I don’t think I’ll come back, or if I do, I’ll go to Borneo.

So we got to the small village of Pengkalau Kubor, on the North East corner of the country, got our Carnet de Passage stamped, our passports stamped and paid the barge across the river with Thai Baths as we spent all our Malaysian Ringgits earlier on.

Distance to-day: 1133km, total: 31597km.