Night train, Beaches, Jungle, River

So it's been a while. I was on holiday and forgot about you completely back there in the mother country, although we've been over in the former colony of Malaysia.

We went up to the viewing platform of the KL Menara to see the city from a 276m perspective. We went just before dusk so we saw it by day and then stayed to watch the capital light up.

Luckily, on our last day, we had both a whole lot of time to kill and a whole lot of stuff to see in KL before our train, so we headed up to Lake Titiwangsa to the north of the city (which smelt bad and was full of dead fish), and to the National Art Gallery. On the way back we visited Chow Kit Market which was really cool. Tom bought some clothes of natural fibres to wear in his battle against the humidity, We ate some really good samosas from a hawker and then ventured into the centre to the food market where literally every vendor was shouting his wares and there were rivers of blood and guts from the butchers and fishmongers stalls. The smell was bad - It made me long for Lake Titiwangsa. We managed eventually to find a Chinese medicine store selling spirit alcohol in the form of some disgusting whiskey which we purchased. Then we spent some time in the biggest mall in South East Asia, Time Square, did a bit of shopping, a bit of eating and just some general hanging out.

We caught a v luxurious night train up to the north from KL. It was like being in James Bond. We got a first class cabin and some cold coca cola and got drunk on the revolting whiskey. It was brilliant.

We arrived refreshed and well slept in Wakaf Bharu at a civilised 10 in the morning where we got a taxi to the port where we could cross to the Perenthian Islands. Sitting waiting for the boat was possibly the hottest I have ever been bar none - and not in a good way.

We stayed on a remote beach on the edge of the Jungle on Kelis Island. Tom kept himself busy battling both the humidity and mosquitoes, I lay about and read books. We were there for four days before we began a rather long, but surprisingly easy journey, south on the Jungle train. It left at 4am and by the time the sun was up we were going through the mountains and jungle. Well worth the early morning. We stopped about halfway down the country and caught a boat up the river to Tamen Negara National Park. It is the oldest Jungle on Earth at 130 million years old. It has escaped all natural disasters for this long and it was incredible. Tom by this time had given up all hope of being dry ever again.

This morning I did the most terrifying thing I have ever done. I traversed the canopy walkway which is the world’s longest such walk at over 500m. The swinging rope and board bridges are over 25 meters above the ground through the canopy layer of the rainforest. I have never been so scared in my life. Needless to say Tom stayed firmly on the ground with his fear of heights to keep him company.

A 2hr boat ride back down the river through the jungle brings us to a tiny rubbishy town called Jerantut where we catch another train out of here and onward to Singapore....