Staggeringly I got out of my hotel by 7am to start the jungle trek, and off I disappeared into the foliage. After a relatively short time I realised that bog roll would have been far more useful than the map I had, as the map turned out to be not very absorbent, and I was totally lost in the jungle with nothing but a load of monkeys around to laugh at me. They were something else, most of them were too far away to really see properly, but I did manage to creep up for a close look at one. Now, I’ve seen some monkeys in my time (especially at some of the places I’ve worked :)) but this thing was huge, a massive grey thing which would probably stand about 4 feet tall I’d say.
After a mild half hour of panic I came across the most ridiculous set of about 20 signposts beside a few picnic tables in the middle of the dense jungle, one of which pointed me in the right direction to get out! This was good as it meant I got my bus back to KL in time, however the driver had different plans – after leaving about 45 minutes late for no clear reason, we had to stop halfway down the hill whilst he did his weekly shopping, including a bunch of roses for which we had to stop every half an hour for him to reposition in the dash so they didn’t get squashed. We also had to spend another half hour at the most disgusting roadside cafe in history, which the drivers for sure get kick backs from as noone in their right minds eats the food, apart from the driver of course who gets a nice meal cooked for him to one side. We got to KL about 90 minutes late, giving me mild heart failure legging it across town to the train station for my train, but I made it, just.
Nice train ride, I was in a car of 40 bunks, you have curtains to close your berth off to some extent which was great apart from the fact that they don’t dim the floodlights that they use in the corridor, making it so bright that is was difficult to sleep. Also the berth was designed with Malaysians in mind so was somewhat short for me. All was going well until someone decided to fart, at which point half the blokes in the carriage entered into a farting competition which I think I won quite comfortably. You’ve never seen so many people run so fast for immigration at the border stop…
Now I’m in Hat Yai in the south of Thailand, literally as I had just walked through my hotel room door there was a knock, an old trout supposedly from room service who was asking me whether I wanted a sexy young girl for the evening as she was strutting her funky stuff around my backpack. Suddenly I realised I was DEFINITELY in Thailand. Tomorrow morning I am tentatively hoping to get a bus to Chumporn on the east coast, the gateway for the island of Ko Tao to get some diving in. Meanwhile, Hat Yai nightlife awaits!