Dear all,
apologies for the lack of updates in quite some time. I blame Lou of course, but that is beside the point. She is asleep, so it looks like you’re stuck with the photographer writing his piece.
Since the last update we’ve been through five sets of customs officials, had our fingerprints taken (it’s official we’re not the escaped Singaporean terrorist who managed to ‘trick’ his guards by asking to go to the toilet and slipping out through the back window), and taken our first flight since arriving in Asia. So, much has happened. Since this is my post I’ll start the way you’d probably expect and chuck some photographs up that probably should have been up as of a week or so ago.
The Jungle Railway (Khota Bahru to Jerantut)
It’s not fast, it’s not massively comfortable, but the jungle railway did exactly what it said on the tin. We passed plenty of great scenery and the sporadic and lengthy stops gave plenty of time to get off and take some photographs.
I think the train was stopped at this point, but it went so slowly it probably didn’t matter
I have no idea what this old lady was doing, but like everything else on the jungle railway she was doing it slowly.
THE Jungle Boat (well maybe not THE, but certainly one)
Calm as a cucumber, you wouldn’t know we were moving at all.
But we were (very fast see!!)
Into the Jungle itself for the first time [Tama Negara, Malaysia]
These pictures will mostly be animals, so I apologise to those of you couldn’t care less. Feel free to scroll down a bit if you are an animal hater.
I have no idea if he was poisonous. Thank God for zoom!
Creepy crawlies from another world.
A wild boar. It seemed a little tame to me, but it did have fire in its beady eyes.
Now for something a bit more interesting…
The Canopy Walkway, 45 meters off the jungle floor. Definitely one the highlights of the trip so far. Oh and the Evertonian in the foreground is called David [he's not actually a scouse].
10 meters is the minimum distance between walkers as a result of its ‘fragility’
The Trek
Oh dear, she is risen! And correcting my spelling and grammar from over my shoulder! It looks like you shall have to wait for the raw photographer’s point of view after all. Alas.
Oh, i almost forgot the borders – the first customs were on the Malaysian side of Singapore, the second on the Singapore side of Singapore (by train). A few days later, we passed through customs on the Singapore side of Singapore then Malaysian side of Singapore (by bus – they are only 1km of causeway apart leading to 3 buses being needed to get across). Finally we had to go through Malaysia customs again going into Sarawat in Borneo (apparently it’s semi-autonomous despite being part of Malaysia).
Since the last update we have been to Singapore for a few days. I’m sure Lou’ll update you on it soon and I’m sure I can’t say much that hasn’t been said. It’s clean (graffitti caries a 6 month sentence and 6 lashes of the cane!), very western and very expensive. But still, we both liked it… call it a home-away-from-home. After Singapore we headed back into Malaysia and flew over to Kuching into Borneo. I promise there’ll be monkey pictures soon. Needless to say, we’re having a wonderful time and this is the most beautiful part of Asia so far. I leave you ona sneak peak at the very rare proboscis monkeys.
for a closer look click here.
peace and cookies,
Sam
