Leeches and Beaches

30 September 2009

As beach holiday #3 ends, we're off from the Perhentians to...a beach. I imagine I've about used up any good feelings you people had toward me, earned in the various tragedies I've suffered recently. In case you've forgotten, these include missing beauty products, altitude sickness, and the complete lack of canned Diet Coke in Uzbekistan. My friend Anna has just let me know that she personally is hoping for a painful re-entry into real life for us...love you too, honey! We know we're lucky kids, and we're enjoying all of this in honor of all of you. I swear. Really.

Anyway, after another speedboat transfer from the Perhentians to the small town of Khota Baru (this time with two crabby and very pale British girls onboard), and leaving Amy and Debbie behind to do some more diving, the 11 remaining occupants of the truck drove down to Kuantan, on the coast, to camp in a real, honest-to-goodness campground, with, like, toilets and stuff. This is the first one we've come to since Turkey, so this is news. Tee and Le, who are from this area, arranged the place, and we parked ourselves for two nights in a grove of tall pine trees on the sea. Tee and Le themselves went off to stay with Tee's mom, who is tiny and adorable. This beach was more to look at, a bit shallow for swimming. But we got some bags sorted and had a fire and chillaxed. A little wind and crazy rain, but nothing we aren't used to after all this time in Southeast Asia.

We said goodbye to the Gin Twins, Elaine and Abby, in the parking lot of the campground. Abby's been under the weather for a while, and they had always planned to leave in Kuala Lumpur anyhow; fevers are worrying things in this part of the world, so she wanted to get back to Oz and her own doctor. Waiting to hear from them, but we miss them already and hope (trust) that she'll be fine. I will never forget their unique way of dealing with the mud in Beynau.

Down to Taman Negara yesterday, where we were pencilled in for 3 nights. This is a rainforest, the oldest in the world according to the signage (and signage is never wrong). Loads of activities, including hiking, and trekking, and walking, and probably jogging and...various other stuff which fall into the category of 'things Monica does not do'. This is never going to be my favourite part. However, I soldier on (see, Anna? see?) because David wanted to come down here.

We appear to be camping in the back yard of Cletus the Slackjawed Malay, there are wasps the size of cats, thousands of tiny black bugs that live on the toilet (good water pressure, though), and chickens who have got their timing slightly off. They screamed from 3am until 6:30. Corrie and I spent some quality time debating how many times we'd have to cut ourselves on the rusty corrugated iron in the yard to get tetanus and be medevacced out. The upside is, we're staying only two nights and off to KL early. Praise Jesus.

That said, today was actually really good. Walked about 2km in the rainforest (there are two pages of text about the sorts of leeches that live here in the guidebook: ankle ones so tiny they can get through the weave in your socks, and waist/neck ones that jump off trees onto your bare flesh), then came to a Canopy Walk. This is not "canopy" as in pink-frilly-bed-canopy, but a rope walk along the tops of the rainforest  trees. About 3000 feet in the air, by my estimation. A precarious collection of aluminum ladders with planks laid across and lots of knotted ropes, and away we go. The best bits are that David did not jump on the ropewalk to freak me out more than the bare minimum, and we opted for a boat back to the campsite instead of hiking. Awesome. I am Nature Girl.