And into Malaysia

Hello again!

So I made it safely and uneventfully into Malaysia. I spent the first day and a half in Kuala Lumpur (which means "muddy confluence"- random tidbit). I quite liked KL. I mean its a city but I thought a nice one. None of the other travelers I've met since seemed to like it much, but then again, they weren't coming from Jakarta :). The first day I wadered around a bit and had terrific Ma Po tofu (loads of Indian and Chinese people in Malaysia so there are many restaurants from both). I had (and am still not over) this terrible cold so I crashed early. The next day I did the hop on hop off bus tour of KL which I found very interesting. I went to the National Museum and learned about Malaysian history (it was conquered by the Portugeuese, then the Dutch, and then the English before gaining independence in the 1950's). And then I made plans to head to Taman Negara the following day.
I went back and forth about going to Taman Negara because it is the rainy season and I'd read that leeches are rampant at this time of year. But in the end I couldn't resist a visit to the 130 million year old rainforest. It really is "the" National Park in Malaysia (in fact, Taman Negara means "National Park"). On the bus ride there (4 hour bus and then 3 hours on a wooden longboat to reach the park) I met Tess and Lauren from England and Felix from New Zealand and Dustin from the US. This became the TN crew. We arrived late so we just had dinner in a floating restaurant on the river and grabbed a few beers (expensive beers- Muslim country). The next day we headed into the park to do the Canopy tour which is a series of swinging bridges hanging up to 50 meters off the ground. Pretty neat. We followed that with a hike through the jungle and then Felix, Dustin and I got ready to spend the night in the jungle. They have these structures called hides that are near natural salt licks in the jungle. For 5 ringets (about $1.50) you can sleep in one. So we hiked 4 km to one of them for the night. We had the place to ourselves with the exception of a giant lizard (quite loud) and a spider the size of my head which resided in the bathroom. Dustin and I were spared leeches (although we saw loads! They sit on leaves and wait and latch onto your shoes as you walk past) but Felix had one in his shoe. We took photos of the bloodsucker before getting it off of him. He took it quite well (and they were his favorite socks...). Sleep was hard to come by since there are no mattresses- just wooden beds, but it was really neat to spend the night in the jungle. In the morning an animal (I think it was a tapir) fed just beneath the hide and we sat and listened to it. That night we went on a 4WD night safari and saw 6 slow loris, a leopard, a frog and a bunch of birds. Awesome!

Lauren, Tess and I took the shuttle to the Cameron Highlands the next day and Felix and Dustin headed back to KL. Cameron Highlands is higher in elevation so cooler which is nice. Today I did a jungle hike and tomorrow I think we are going to hit up a tea plantation, butterfly farm, strawberry farm, and some other local sights. Plus I need to sort out getting to Thailand. The Thai government decided to change the visa structure so you only get 15 days coming overland. So now I need to fly to get 30 days. I'm not happy about it. And they did it very quietly (thank you Lauren and Tess!). It isn't even noted on the US State Dept website. Ah well. I'll sort it out.

No pics just now but I'll try to add one later. Over n out!