Throw momma from the train,

Kota Bahru

june 7/8

After leaving the Perhentians you have to go to the mainland at a place called Kuala Besut, and then the main town is a place called Kota Bharu which is about 30 minutes north.

Transportation is not Malaysia's strongest point. I arrived at the bus station at Kuala Besut which resembled a Huddersfield taxi rank.

No one seemed to know when the next bus was, but purely by a coincidence, there were some dodgy looking taxi drivers with 20 yr old nissans and toyotas held together with chicken wire that could take you for a tenner.

There were 2 other lads waiting to go there as well so we agreed to share a cab and haggled a pound off the fare.

The car just about made it to Kota Bharu, and as always he was keen not to take us to where we wanted to but to his friends hotel.

The irish woman had reccommended a half decent hotel, so i politely told the taxi driver to shut up and take me there or we would all kill him.

Upon arrival at the hotel it was made clear that white faces were not welcome and amazingly it became just full as soon as we walked in the door.

Same story for 2 more hotels. I had a funny feeling i was going to hate this place.

It boiled down to paying way over the odds for a half decent hotel, or backpacker lodgings which were back to concentration camp standards.

So rip off hotel it is then. As usual, my tv had a picture worse than we got back home in the seventies on my Nana's black and white tv, not that it really mattered with the huge choice of 3 channels, most of which played muslim prayers.

Oh well it was only for a night i thought, i would be on a train out of here in the morning...........................

John, who i had met at the taxi rank wanted to catch the same train, so we asked where we could book it, as the actual station was about 3 miles away.

Usual shrug of shoulders was the reply. We were told to try the reception of the hotel that became instantly full when we walked in, and they just looked away and said they were closed.

That was it basically. Go away.

Not quite how lonely planet had described the town, i shall be suing them upon my return.

Where john was staying had free internet, so we had a look online, and luckily the rail website is very good. Only problem was the train was full for tomorrow and there were only 4 seats left for the following day.

So we booked as fast as we could . Good news we got the tickets, bad news i had to stay 2 nights in smiley, love the white man, central.

The town was dirty and smelly, there were rats everywhere, there were no bars, it was hot and sticky, I hated every minute of it.

I left some laundry with the hotel and never checked it when i collected it and only found out when i got to Kuala Lumpur that they never gave me back any of my tops, 7 in total.

Thanks.

I managed to kill time by booking the next part of my trip to Borneo in their modern up to date internet cafe that left me smelling each time i had finished on the pentium 1 computers.

So on the sunday morning i jumped on the jungle train and gave 2 fingers to the town as i left.

The jungle train goes partly through the famous highland park, so i was expecting to see amazing scenery and huge mountain bridges. This was the only reason i had done it, otherwise i could have caught a coach direct to Kuala Lumpur.

The highlight of the journey was going to the toilet and nearly falling out of the carriage door that was wide open, as you will see from my video clip.

No one cares. All the staff are basically teenagers who can not take their eyes off their mobile screens, or too busy having a smoke next to the wide open door. The bit that joined the carriages together had half the floor missing, and could easily chop your toes off.

Because it was jungle, that was more or less all you saw, a load of palm trees 4 foot from the window.

So my dramatic landscapes never made the light of day.

The final part of the train journey took a bit of a detour, so i hatched a cunning plan to get off at a town that had a main road link to Kuala Lumpur...............

yes it was near a main road, but was so small a town, it only had one bus a day, and that had gone hours ago. Also it only had 1 taxi driver who knew he had me by the balls.

It was either pay double the rate or sit at the station all night.

Luckily the next town was much larger, so another tear jerking taxi fare and i just managed to get a bus that was leaving.

So i made it in time to get to Kuala Lumpur, but had spent 10 times the amount, and taken exactly the same time if i had just stayed on the train.

Next installment..........
Kuala Lumpur and the transvestite date................