The Wanderings of busman7

Caught the train out of Stesen Sentral in KL to spend a day in the small town of Gemas before heading north up the center of the Malaysian Peninsula to Gua Musang on the “Jungle Railway” which was as far as I could book on a day time train in Kuala Lumpur with out getting into a misunderstanding with the agent due to language difficulties. According to the schedule it looks like there is a morning train onward to Wakaf Bharu where it’s necessary to take a bus to the border & the first station in Thailand. Will leave that until arrival there as want to see what the town looks like & maybe spend a day there as have the time + small towns can be interesting just to hang out in & people watch.

As I have the Lonely Planet SE Asia guide only the major cities & towns are mentioned, also neither  BootsNall, LP or Hostel Worlds sites show accommodation in smaller places, while cheap hotels.com & other such sites are basically useless for anything but Capitol cities. However good ole Wikipedia did show a couple hotels in Gemas but none in Gua Musang.

Arrived in Gemas around 18:00 (train was an hour late) & took a short walk down the street as both hotels mentioned in Wiki were only a block from the station & would of done in a pinch but wondered if there was something better around. Being a hot day the owner of a restaurant at the end of the street asked if I wanted a break & a cool drink but when I said wanted to find a room first he directed me to The Tropicana Hotel which turned out to be a nice place complete with Sat TV, A/C, free Wi-Fi, free breakfast & Hot water shower for $15/night.

The staff on the train were nice & even though the station announcements were in Malaysian & English told you personally when your stop was coming up. Absolutely NO hassle at the station. When I returned, for supper, to the restaurant where I got the tip about the hotel, talked to the owner for a bit & was given info on where to eat today (Sunday) as he was going to be closed & before I left he took my picture to put on his wall with about 1/2 a dozen tourists from different countries (food was good), so if you happen to stop in Gemas Malaysia, coming from the station hang a right at the KFC go to the end of the block across the street you will see Restoran Anika, stop in  say David from Canada sent you!!

Then when I returned to The Tropicana after lunch & an afternoon of checking out the town I was informed the owner had comped me from my el cheapo single room to a double with a Queen bed which goes for an extra 15 RM (Ringgit)/night.

Not sure just what the reason is but having been on the road for 12 of the past 18 months a lot of things that seemed unusual at first are now completely normal such as palm trees, tut-tuks, pickups for transportation etc. However Malaysia has a familiar feeling that I haven’t experienced since Iceland hmmm a past life here recently??? Not sure but with the familiar alphabet, road signs similar to the west, similar shops. It just feels familiar & not exotic like it seems it should, oh well might as well forget the analysis & ENJOY!!! 😀

Be interesting to see what stage of my off the beaten path Malaysian adventure brings??

BTW have been in contact with my ladies from Bangkok & all is well with them.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 21st, 2010 at 06:12 and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.