Saturday 15th August 2009

We left the Cameron Highlands this morning at 8.30am by mini van destination Taman Negara which is the jungle in Malaysia. It took us five hours to get to the port we then had to get on a long tail boat the one's Suzie loves! This then took us to Tamara Negara. This boat ride was suppose to take us an hour and a half but due to the the boat breaking down in the middle of the river, which luckily they managed to fix, then we had a thunder storm therefore it took us over 3 hours to get there. Suzie and I looked a right picture sat on this boat with our rain jackets on and then hiding under our umbrella's trying to stay dry as the rain was so heavy.

Once we had docked we tried to find the resort we had booked but nobody seemed to know where we needed to get the coutesy bus from so Suzie left me with the bags and went to try and find out. But unbe known to me she decided to have a little walk and found the other places we had been trying to book who had said they where fully booked and she found us a cheaper room. So there was I looking forward to a bit of luxury in a resort but what I got was a wooden hut with 2 beds and a mosquito net with a squat toilet and a cold shower! I was less than impressed to say the least it was however 5 times cheaper than the resort but that's beside the point! Suzie also didn't tell me we had to walk up a supper steep hill to get there with our heavy bags on which nearly killed us!!

After we had checked in (It actually wasn't as bad as Suzie had describe it as being - but it still wasn't the resort I'd been looking forward to) (Can you tell I'm a bit bitter about it! ha ha ) we discovered that alot of our clothes were wet due to the heavy down pour we had had on the boat so the bedroom then looked like a laundry room.

We then wondered back into the town and brought some mosquito repelent pronto it was a bit stupid of us going to the jungle without it really but it was soon sorted. We then went to one of the floating restaurants for dinner. Taman Negara is a dry part of Malaysia so no beer with dinner tonight but watermelon juice hit the spot just as well tonight.

The walk back to the Durain chalets where we were staying was very spooky as there was no lights and it was on a very deserted road with lots of sounds coming out of the jungle, it was lucky Suzie had remember her head torch else we would have been really scared.

Sunday 16th August

This morning after getting up and sorted we headed out to get the boat across to the otherside to the national park. We had brunch first at one of the floating resturants and then caught a boat over.

We went to the tourist information office first to find out how to get to the canopy walk way the gentleman in there then told us about a circular walk we could do after the canopy walkway. It was a 1.5km walk to get to the canopy walk way which is a wooden plank walkway above the jungle, it is the longest one in the world but unfortunately some of it was closed for repair so we could only do some of it, it was still good fun though. I especially enjoyed bouncing Suzie up and down from the other end which I don't think she enjoyed as much as me.

From the Canopy walkway we followed another foot path which took us to a viewpoint which was a tough old climb up but the view was well worth it and it was alot easier coming down than going. From here we then followed the footpath to the swimming point in the jungle but unfortunately we hadn't got our bikinis on so we just had a paddle in the the river instead which was still nice and after this we followed the footpath to where we had started.

We walked for about 4 hours and we think we walked about 7km but alot of that was up hill. After we had walked we had a drink at the resort in the national park where we saw some monkeys which was nice as we had hardly seen any animals while we were walking in the jungle which was a bit disapointing. After we had finished our drinks we got the boat back across to the village and enquired about some trips for tomorrow. We decided to think about it and go and get showered and then come back to book them before dinner.

We decided to book rapid shooting and a night safari for the next day, we then went for dinner on another one of the floating resturants (These are the only places to eat and they all do roughly the same food) before getting a earlyish night.

Monday 17th August 2009

This morning we got up with the intention of going over to the national park for a few hours before rapid shooting at 3pm. First of all we went to book our bus for tomorrow to take us to the Perthian islands and then we went for bunch. Over bunch we decided that we should try and book some accomadtion for the Perthian islands as we had heard it was quite difficult to get accomadtion and they weren't lying. It took us alot longer than we expected and we still didn't get any as every place we rang said they were full, they didn't know yet ring back later or they didn't speak english- It was very frustrating. This then put us in a dilemma of whether to still go straight to the island and risk not having any where to stay or to stay one night at the port then go over first thing in the morning, we decided to wait till tomorrow and decide then when we got to the port. By the time we had come off the internet it was a bit late to go over to the national park so we decided to go back to where we were staying and read our books in the garden until it was time for rapid shooting.

Rapid shooting is basically going through the rapids on a long tail boat rather than the usual inflatable boat used for white water rafting you get very wet but it was great fun there were four other girls in our boat and we all had a good laugh. After we had gone up the river we had a swimming stop for an hour there was a rope swing there that required alot of upper body stength I did have a go but it was quite difficult to hold on, Suzie decided to give it a miss as did most of the other girls. After the swimming stop we went back down the river through the rapids again but we couldn't get much wetter after swimming.

When we had finished rapid shooting we went back to our chalet to have a shower and get ready for our night safari. We went for dinner first as we weren't leaving until until 8.30pm. Again we went to one of the floating restaurants it was one we hadn't tried before and it was probably the best one we had been to. We both had the set menu which included a red coconut curry served with boiled rice, vegetable salad, potatoes fried with anchovies and fresh watermelon to follow it was delicious, we were both a bit stuffed after all that though!!!

We actually left on time for our 4x4 jeep night safari which is amazing as you usually 30 minutes after you are suppose to it's called Asian time. We were on the safari for about two hours it was amazing we got to see a wild boar, a quick glimpse of a flying squirral, a moth and lots of MOSQUITOES!!! We were dropped back at our chalet at 10.30pm they did apologise for us not seeing very many animals but as we said to them it's not there fault it's luck of the draw. Back at the chalet we then had to pack before going to bed as we had to leave early in the morning to catch our bus to the Perthian islands.