Riding the Jungle Train almost all the way to melaka
After the islands I felt ready for the trip down south. While it wouldn’t have upset me if I had’ve gotten stranded on the islands I reckon 4 nights was just about right. So the plan is to get to indonesia asap where I get 1 months visa after which its time for big bad oz. I am kinda eager to get to the land down under at this stage, a wee bit of normality wouldn’t go astray. Though I am sure a couple of days of western high prices or a downright lack of hey mister, take a picture could have me scurrying for my poor excuse for a passport to get myself back on the road back to asia.
I made it to the town of kota baru close to the thai border which is the starting point of the jungle train, a track that cuts right through the heart of malaysia on its way down south to singapore. My intended destination is the town of Melaka which is malaysias historical capital and a handy departure point for the island of sumatra. Kota Baru is a small enough town – probably about the same size as galway. There isn’t a whole lot to do there other than wait for the train that leaves at 6 in the morning. There is a cool market in the town where I sat for a couple of hours eating and reading, the food in Malaysia kicks ass. I don’t know what alot of it is in the menu but I am brave enough to just pick one thing at random and hope for the best. The only think I don’t like are the fish balls which look like table tennis balls but just don’t taste as good. Once you avoid them you are laughing, though I have heard reports of skewered cats from fellow travelers, I cannot say that I have witnessed such cuisine myself, nor would I want to!!
There was an early rise required to make the train, I shared a taxi with two french people who were on their way to the national park in a place called taman negara, a place which I probably should’ve would’ve taken in were it not for my eagerness to push on further down the path.
The train ride itself was very nice and the time absolutely shot past. The scenery was amazing, thicker than thick rainforest’s broken up occasionally by massive chocolate coloured rivers and some unusually massive limestone rock formations that jut straight up out of the ground in an uluru like fashion.
The french dude i shared the taxi with had just come from sumatra so I was able to pick his brains on what to do there and what the place was like in general. He gave it a seriously good review, describing it as the most beautiful place he had ever visited. They got off the train after about 6 hours so I was on my own for another 6 till we reached the town of gemas, it was 6.10 on the button when I walked out of the station, down the road and into the bus station to find out that the last bus out of the town left 10 minutes beforehand. There was a fleet of taxis and their drivers begging me to hire them to take the 110 km to melaka for a pretty extortionate price – it would’ve cost feck all come to think of it, in irish terms. Probably about 30 euros, but thats 3 days budget over here and I couldn’t justify it. So I decided to check into the local hotel, park myself infront of a tv and catch up on what is going on in the world, that plan could’ve worked if I understood Malay – the fecker at the front desk lied to me when he told me there were english channels on the box. Oh well, an early night was had instead.
I finally made it out of gemas early enough the next morning, I arrived in melaka in the afternoon just in time to get the last bed in the travellers inn. The guy who landed before me was some character. He had just cycled up from singapore after flying from london where he had cycled to from Stolkholm via germany, holland, belgium and france. He was booked onto the sunday morning ferry to sumatra where he planned to cycle south through java, bali north to borneo (kalimantan) before cycling through sulawesi to the place of his birth. I couldn’t even begin to count how many miles that is, sumatra (the worlds 6th largest island) is 2000 miles long for starters, java isn’t exactly small and borneo is even bigger than sumatra. Add to this that he will be performing a neat little weave around the equator, it ain’t gonna be cool, when it rains it bloody well buckets down and the roads are woeful!!! The man is 68 years of age, I asked him if he was crazy? He nodded, smiled a little before saying kinda sadly ‘Thats what everyone says, but its just a challenge’!! Theres always someone raising the bar. I asked him what his secret was but its not fit for print, I just wish I am crazy enough at 68 to do something like it… You meet the strangest people on the road, this hostel seemed to have ordered them in especially. There was an american guy (there are very few people from america traveling, I’ve met just 2) who I reckon was about 50 who was the spit of terry gilliam, a bit of a hippy effort this thinning hair fell down his hairy bare back to his ass which was just about and no more covered by a pair of ripped up fisherman shorts – he looked like someone who was left on a desert island for years on end. He kept talking about how he has lost his american drawl in what I thought was a very strong american drawl. Then there was this old cantancerous aussie fella who was the most foul mooded individual I have ever come across, he spent his days chasing around the workers in the hostel complaining about absolutely everything – those were just the ones that I met, I fitted right in though. It did make me wonder what is it about melaka that attracts these crazies…
Its a cool town, sitting on the sea it is well developed with several shopping malls on one side of the river and on the other the standard malaysian issue that is china town and little india. Chinatown was cool, very small and compact if you wanted you could walk its entirity in a couple of minutes, I took time to take in the various chineses temples and mosques – the food inevitably was exquisite. I had my first beer in about 2 weeks over the hotest bloody thing to pass through my lips since god knows when. The euro finals had just started so I stayed up to watch the first game with a german guy who was working in malaysia, instead of watching it in his 5 star hotel he prefered to watch it in one of malaysias all night restaurants which is where i met him. They are excellent places, pretty basic to look at – you just ask the waiter for a plate of rice and then help yourself to the buffet style food. Stack it as high as possible, if you so choose and you still pay less than a euro for it. They are mad about their football so it wasn’t all that unlike going to get your carvery in dublin before watching the afternoon matches in the premiership.
I booked my ticket to dumai for the sunday morning, I woke up early and made my way down to the port. I met up with the crazy indonesian/swedish man there, him kitted out with helmet and bike ready for his big adventure, me there with my hurridly packed rucksack knackered after staying up way to late watching football my hopes of some sleep on the ferry were quickly dashed by the incessant conversation coming out of adolf.
So thats malaysia for now, so the affair ain’t fully over yet.
All the best,
Phil
Tags: jungle train, kota baru, Malaysia, melaka
Phil Gill
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