Archive for June, 2002
Does anybody in this town stay home on the weekends and like, maybe relax, watch a movie, or read a book? I don’t think so. I’ve been out and about in Singapore for the past 2 days and EVERWHERE I go, EVERYPLACE is packed! The malls, the stores, the restaurants, the subway, the sidewalks – there are just literally mobs everywhere. The national pastime is definitely shopping and it seems as if all 3 million people who live here go out to spend, spend, spend on the weekends. It’s a nice city, but I don’t think I could actually live here and deal with these crowds on a daily basis. The food is great though and the city itself is really safe and easy to get around in so I think I can entertain myself for a few more days…
After exploring the town yesterday, I headed back to the guesthouse for a little break and then met up with some other backpackers to venture out and watch the Turkey vs. Korea World Cup Game. It was 3 Norwegian girls, 1 British guy, and myself. We went down to one of the many outdoor bar/cafe/restaurants along the riverfront and get this, paid $18 USD for a pitcher of beer!!! Oh my, this place is VERY pricey. I nearly fell off my chair.
Everyone was sad that Korea lost.
After the game we went over to Chinatown for some dinner and then decided to go out for a drink. The Norwegian girls knew of a good place that had been recommended to them so we went. It was a bar/club on the 70th floor of the Swiss Hotel. The hotel lobby was amazing. We tried our best to clean up and present ourselves well but admittedly we were a bit scruffy for the likes of this place.
Anyway they had an express elevator straight to the 70th floor and from there we wandered around the multi-level club, taking in the night views of the city. It was so cool! We all could only afford one drink since at the end of the day we’re still just po’ backpackers, and after awhile we walked back to the guesthouse. Even at 1:30am it was perfectly safe to walk around the city. No leering men, homeless people, drug addicts, muggers, nothing. Well where’s the fun in that you ask? Well it’s refreshing, even though it feels strange not to have to be on the lookout.
More walking around town today. Will likely catch the Final somewhere tonight. Also, I bought my ticket back to Bangkok today so I’ll be leaving here on the 3rd of July.
Downtown Singapore
A blend of the old and the new
How long would this place stay in business at home do you think?
June 30th, 2002
I’ve jumped head-first into the ice cold pool of westernization, straight from the jungle. What a shock! Arrived here last night direct from Taman Negara, after 13 hours and 3 bus rides (actually 4 because the third bus broke down on the way to Singapore and we all had to hop on another bus). I’ve gone from drinking tanin-colored river water and eating mac and cheese to sipping lemon water in a vegetarian restaurant waiting for my grilled veggie sandwich to arrive, ahhh, civilization can be a good thing sometimes.
Our last day in the park was not a’day in the park’ exactly. It was a 3-hour trek down to the road which we did in just over 2 hours. Again we woke up at 6am to hit the trail at 7am. We hiked down to a fishery where we had to wait for a 10:30am pickup from the park’s 4WD vehicle to take us out to the park office. It was not a good thing that we arrived early for our ride. The bees were already waiting for us and there was NO escape. At first there were only about maybe 20 or so which was no big deal and we were all going through our packs, organizing gear, etc, business as usual. Then there were a few more and a few more and after about 20 minutes they were just everywhere. I thought they were bad before. Actually they were bad before. I just didn’t think it could get any worse. But it did.
They were crawling all over my body, my face, my backpack, everywhere. I could barely see at times there were so many in front of my face.
We quickly decided to start walking up the road slowly, slowly, trying to remain calm and hope that eventually they would go away. They didn’t. They actually seemed to get worse. They were crawling up my pants and down the back of my shirt as well. I almost started to cry in sheer desperation, praying that the truck would get there already and get us the hell out of there.
About 20 minutes later the truck arrived and we threw our packs in the back and jumped in as FAST as we could. In the end I git stung about 12 times, which, considering how many bees there were, really wasn’t that bad. Except this time I didn’t have any chance to stop and pull the stingers out so I really got the full dose of poison with each sting. When I finally got into the truck, I felt nauseous and thought I was going to pass out. I still don’t know if it was from the poison or the dire stress but it was probably a combination of both. I really can’t explain how maddening those bees were. Even last night, more than 24 hours later, I had trouble sleeping because I kept hearing the buzzing of all the bees and thinking they were still all around me.
Anyway, I survived. We all survived. Another adventure behind me.
After we got the truck ride to the park office, we had to register with the ranger in order to get our summit certificates. Then we got another ride to the train station and caught a 3-hour train ride south to get back to the main entrance of the park. JC got off early to catch a bus to KL. Ubai, the guide, and I continued on and then had to catch a 2-hour bus to get all the way back to Kuala Tahan.
Finally I arrived around 7pm, took a shower, ate, packed, and went to bed. Long day. We thought once we were done with the hiking we were home free. Boy were we wrong!
Even on the train ride back there was still one bee stuck in my hair that I didn’t realize was there. These 4 backpackers sitting behind me saw it and were like,’Um, Miss, I don’t mean to scare you, but there’s a bee in your hair.’ And I went, “Oh, Thanks,’ took my hair down, picked through it until I found the bee, grabbed it with my bare hand (the stinger was already gone, probably deep inside my neck somewhere), threw it on the ground, and stomped on it with my foot. Then I realized they were all staring at me with their jaws dropped, unable to comprehend that I just grabbed a live bee with my bare hand and didn’t flinch. I heard the one girl say, “Wow, I thought you were going to freak out.’ I didn’t have the energy to explain what I had been through. Only later when I thought about it did I realize how funny the whole thing was.
So the only reason why I really had to go all the way back to Kuala Tahan was to get my other bag out of storage before moving on. Yesterday morning I left, hoping to get to Singapore, but not knowing the bus times so intending to get as fas as I could in one day.
I took at 7:30am local bus from Kuala Tahan to Jerantut and it was pretty uneventful except for the albino man that kept staring at me. I have nothing against albinos mind you but it was definitely freaky to be the only foreigner on a local bus and to be stared at by an albino to boot. In Jerantut I caught the 10:30am local bus to Kuala Lumpur, again the only foreigner, but luckliy the albino went elsewhere and was gone. Arrived in KL at 2:28pm and as luck would have it (for once, but this time I am fully deserving it), there was a 2:30pm VIP bus to Singapore. Excellent. Big seats, air con, a movie even, which sucked (Scooby Doo), but I didn’t care.
All was going great on the 5.5-hour ride until the bus broke down 3 hours into the trip. But you know, compared to the bee invasions, the bus breaking down seemed like absolutely no big deal whatsoever so I just patiently sat and read my book while the drivers figured out what to do. About 30 minutes later 2 other buses pulled up and picked up their share of stranded passengers and I was on my way again. Excellent.
I arrived in Singapore last night around 8:30pm. I saw some other foreigners, 3 girls, at the taxi line at the bus station and asked if I could share their taxi to backpacker land, which, in this town, is in Little India. It’s a good thing I had been recommended a place to stay because the 4 of us had no problems getting beds but they were the last 4 available. I couldn’t understand why the hostel was so packed. Well it turns out that about 2 weeks ago the city closed about 7 or 8 of the backpacker places because they were violating fire codes and were infested with rats and cockroaches. No surprise there. And now there are only a handful of places open and everyone’s fighting to get a spot. If I hadn’t been recommended a place (which was from someone who was just here), I could have spent half the night trying all the other places only to find them closed.
Even after all that adventure I was feeling pretty excited to be in a new country and new city so I dropped off my bags and went out to walk around. Singapore is an island, a city, and a country all in one. It’s very clean and very safe and as a female travelling alone that makes me very happy. I went across the street to the Bugis Mall, got some grub, and decided to see a movie. Went to see’Bend it like Beckham’, a very funny film. Great way to end the day.
Been walking around town all day today, taking in all of the massive shopping areas and westernization, which, after the past few days, is a warm welcome indeed.
And this was before they even got bad
Times this by 100 and thats when it got ugly
Back at the park headquarters at Kuala Tahan after a long day
June 29th, 2002
The end of another long day. 10 hours of hiking. All but a distant memory now as I sit by our campsite by the river, enjoying the clean air and many strange sounds of the jungle. But my knees remember!
Yes it was a lot of work to get here. Another 6am wake-up call (well, 6:30 actually; I didn’t hear my alarm because I was wearing ear plugs to sound out JC’s snoring) and we were on the trail at 7:30am.
It was a steady 3.5-hour climb to the summit from our campsite, with amazing views of the Titi Wangsa mountain range. We went back and forth between an alpine-like environment and the thick, lush, green jungle which I was surprised to see up at such a high elevation. Mind you, the rainforest is so thick here, that even though there are elephants, tigers, wild pigs, and tophairs running about, no one can even catch a glimpse of them through the dense forest. It’s not like the plains of Africa where you can sit at a restaurant in the middle of the park and watch the animals come to the river at sunset. It is a bit daunting to know there are tigers running free around here, but hey, if they don’t bother me then I’m happy.
Anyway, we went up and up until we couldn’t go any higher and we finally reached the summit of Gunung Tahan (2187 meters, over 7,000 feet) at about 11am. It was just the 3 of us at the top – myself, JC, and Ubai, our guide. The views really weren’t that great because we had some clouds and mist rolling through, but it still felt great to be there! We took all our summit photos (and I still can’t believe it, but I left my American Flag back at the park headquarters with my other stuff), and then we rested on the top for about an hour.
From 2187 meters we went down, down, down for almost 6 hours to our current elevation of 750 meters. So in one day we went 787 meters up and 1437 down. That’s a lot of hammering on the knees! But I felt strong and focused all day, what a great feeling.
From here it’s only a 3-hour hike out but since we got here at 5:30pm and it was getting dark soon, we’re going to do that bit tomorrow.
At this campsite by the way, there are almost NO bees!
So it feels good to have the worst behind us and know that we will have an easier day tomorrow. Looking forward to a shower when we get back to civilization.
Shes on a mission
The summit!
Enjoying the last views before heading down…
June 26th, 2002
Long day today. This is not an easy hike, I can tell you. Actually today we finally started climbing the mountain Gunung Tahan. The past 2 days have been an up and down and up and down approach through the jungle. But today we left the river and started up. And up. To a final elevation of 1400 meters. That’s a lot of climbing for one day.
But first we had to escape the bee invasion this morning. We got up at 6am (in the dark), but the bees had been up since 5am. We did as much as we could (eat, pack) inside the tent and then got out, packed up the tent, and slowly, calmly left the bees behind. JC had a few casualties during the night though. I guess 2 leeches made it inside our tent and sucked on his ankle all night long. When he woke up there was blood everywhere, all over his sleeping pad. Somehow they missed me and man was I glad about that.
Anyway we started to hike at 7am and had a steady, steep, uphill climb for about 3 hours. We actually had to summit 4 other mountains today on the route to Tahan (which hopefully we will hit tomorrow). Those other 4 were Gunung Pankin (1463 m, 4800 feet), Gunung Tangga Lima Belas (1539 m, 5050 feet), Gunung Reskit (1666 m, 5466 feet), and Gunung Gedong (1830 m, 6004 feet). Many hours of climbing up, up then down, then up, up – a total of 11 hours today. We pushed it to get here because there was no water anywhere else and now that I’m here I’m happy we did it but it was a long day. I wasn’t expecting this trip to be as challenging as it’s been but I’m happy that it’s worked out this way. Mind you most people take 4-5 days to get where we are now and we’ve done it in 3.
The bees have definitely added a new element of challenge for me. And the trail itself was pretty difficult in some parts today – sheer rock faces with ropes hanging down that you either had to scale up or belay yourself down. And when you’ve already been climbing and sweating your ass off all day those rock sections can be a real bitch. But we made it.
We had some great views from the summit of Gedong and we also got our first glimpse of Gunung Tahan. At 2187 meters, it’s another 700 meters of climbing from here, but after what we did today that seems like nothing.
The plan is to set out early tomorrow morning for the summit and then descend down the north side, a different route than the one we’ve taken up. Should be a few hours to the peak from here and then we hope to put in another 6 hours or so to get down to the next camp.
Oh, and the best thing which I forgot to mention is that there are NO bees at this campsite where we are tonight! How wonderful!! When I unrolled the tent to set it up here, there were about 30 or 40 dead bees which had gotten caught in the tent from this morning. Ha – suckers! Have to admit it felt pretty good watching their dead bodies roll off the nylon.
We did see a few other hikers today – 2 groups of Singaporeans heading down from Tahan. Not too many people actually venture this far into the oldest rainforest in the world I guess.
Gaining elevation
Summit of Gunung Gedong
This is where were headed folks
June 25th, 2002
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