30 Jan 2003 Kuantan, Malaysia

[Eric's journal]  We did the boat journey out of Taman Negara in two hours.  We saw lots of water buffalo, many were relaxing in the river.  We then had several hours in Jerantut waiting for the bus.  It was almost 3.5 hours across to Kuantan and we are on the east coast.  We walked to check out a hotel we selected from the LP only to find it closed for Chinese New Year.  We tried another one a few doors down that was open but Emma couldn't find anyone at the front counter.  We finally found one and got a room.  We wandered around town and had dinner.

Sitting for so long all day was a real pain in my rear end.  I think it must be with all my extra weight my rear end is not used to holding so much weight.  The bus was on time again.  It is a little scary on some of the roads as they are very narrow.  Many people ride scooters, including on these cross-country roads.  Since they are not motorcycles, they don't quite have highway speed, so you have all these buses and trucks that get caught behind them trying to get by.

In the toilet at the hostel in KL there was a sign reminding people to not squat on the regular commode.

We have come across more Dutch people in Malaysia than any other visitors.  They are here in big tours and as individuals.

One of the English guys who shared our dorm in Taman Negara had big braces for his lower legs.  Even with the braces, you could see walking was still an effort for him.  In spite of that, he was travelling all over southeast Asia.  We saw him walking to the top of the viewpoint in the jungle which was hard for us.  It is inspiring to see people like him still out backpacking.  He was an IT recruitment consultant from London.  He has travelled in Asia before and taught English in Thailand.  His plan was to teach in Thailand again and then go to China to teach.

While in Taman Negara we also saw a blind German guy who was travelling with two friends.  He had gone on one of the tours in the afternoon ( I think they went on the cave tour).  It is so nice to see him out and travelling in out of the way places.  I overheard him telling someone about when he was in Australia a year ago and he wanted to touch an alligator and they tried to tell him he should just feel a pair of alligator shoes or a purse!

[Emma's journal]  We left Taman Negara at 0900.  Once again we took the relaxing boat ride down the river.  There were quite a few water buffaloes relaxing along the river bank.  After arriving in Jerantut we grabbed lunch and took the opportunity to take a walk around the town-not really much there of interest.  ( The LP was right again!)  We then caught the bus to Kuantan which is on the east coast and about a 3.5 hour bus ride.  The hotel we planned on staying in was shut for New Years-the first time we had not got the hotel we picked from our bible!  We ended up finding another one about a ten minute walk away.  It was grim but fine for the night.  Kuantan reminded me of a large Aussie country town in size.  Of course the mosque was something you wouldn't find in one of those.  The mosque is meant to be the most spectacular on the east coast.  When you saw it at night, the way it was lit up reminded me of the Excalibur Hotel in Vegas.