12/13-02-2017 Travel Trail (Day 12/13) Taman Negara. A Beautiful Rainforest. My Final Travel Trail!

Hello all you beautiful, patient people,

Welcome back to a long awaited Travel Travel blog. Taman Negara edition.

I have been home for over a week now and still haven't gotten around to finishing up my travel trails, but here I am back at it again. Determined to get it all finished, beautiful and documented. For you guys and also for me.
The reason it has taken me so long to write again is honestly because I've been having a hard time settling in back home. I think it always makes more sense (in my mind) to feel lost while travelling in an unfamiliar environment. I didn't really expect to feel so lost when I returned home to Australia.
Luckily for me, I have some beautiful friends, family and cats to keep my grounded and loved here at home.
Actually,
Tuesday after we got back it was my birthday; Yay 22 years old! Maybe one day I'll actually feel my age because I feel like I have lived about twice as many years on this earth than I actually have. On my birthday I was lucky enough to have some of my favourite people in the world come and visit me and I think that was the start of me fitting back in with my beautiful but normal life. Thanks to all you lovely people, you know who you are! You brought my heart all the way back here to Australia, when
I kinda left it somewhere along my travels.

So here I am, ready to jump back into my posting and reminisce over my beautiful holiday. I am going to show you all the photos I took in Taman Negara, as well as some of the food we ate and things we got up to. But I really wasn't there for long enough to experience much of it at all. As I have said before if I could go back I would stay in less places for longer amounts of time. But I did love everywhere I visited. In this post it was also nearing the end of the holiday, a lot of my days here were filled with chasing sleep. But I enjoyed myself, so I hope you all enjoy reading.

So without further ado, after the worlds longest introduction, lets finally hop in to the good stuff!



12-02-2017 Penang to KL to Tamen Negara..... A Long Day of Travel. 

Today begins in Penang. Crazy early. I'm not just talking about a little painful 5am start either. We woke at 2.30am. No human should be awake at this time, unless they are still awake from the night before. So with very sleepy tired eyes we trudged down to reception. We even had to wake up the sleeping night manager for him to check us out.
If you are somehow reading this. Uncle (the only name we were given), from Apollo Inn, thank you for sharing our pain at 2.30am. Sorry we had to wake you, we had a plane to catch.




Goodbye Penang, Goodbye beautiful view. Hello airport.

Luckily for us, the plane flight back to KL was much less dramatic and high octane than our trip there. Also both plane flights were very quick. So naturally, I slept the whole way. Because last night sleep consisted of only a few hours (at best) it was a very welcome little flight.

So far so good, no drama. We arrived at KL airport safe and sound. But our bus was to leave at 9am, so we were cutting it pretty close with the timing. Waiting at the airport, we continued to order an uber. Since if I have learnt one thing, it's that it is best to avoid Taxi's like the plague.
But after at least 5 minutes of wasting time we didn't even have. He cancelled...ordered another ride...same driver...cancelled.
That's when lady luck decided to cut us a break and finally be on our side. A lovely man pulled up in his car and offered us a lift for the same price as the estimated Uber cost. A (very fast driving) angel sent from heaven, to get us to our bus on time.

It was still so early as we drove through the city of Kuala Lumper that the moon hadn't set yet and the
sun was only just rising.




We arrived safely and in one piece, even though there were no seat belts and he could just as easily have just kidnapped us to sell our organs. But luckily for us he was just a good samaritan wanting to make some extra cash.


Thanks to our lovely friend, we arrived at the beautiful temple of Sri Mariamman. We unfortunately didn't get to go inside as we were still tight for time. But we admired it from the outside, which as you can still, is still a beautiful sight. Even at 8am.


Our bus stop was behind this beautiful temple and we were lucky enough to be able sneak in a quick and surprisingly easy to find vegan breakfast from a little indian place just two doors up from the bus pick up area.




Then it was back on the bus from Kuala Lumper to Taman Negara. Apparently the bus driver was taking corners and driving like we were in some

sort of car chase. Luckily, thanks to my extreme napping abilities I slept the whole way. Which was probably for the best, since I really don't like travelling in vehicles, especially at crazy speeds. So I gladly dodged those hours of would-have-been anxiety.


We had thought the bus was going to take us all the way to our accommodation, since that is what our tickets said. But with little to communication we were dropped off quite a way from Taman Negara with instructions to get on the boat at 1.30. So we ate, we waited and sorted our boat tickets.

Another thing that was neglected to be mentioned was that we had to purchase a photography license, it was a small amount, paid per camera and the money goes towards the conservation of the rainforest. So that's another thing to keep in mind if you are lucky enough to be having the same journey as us.

Travelling on a boat is by far my least favourite way to travel. For those of you with horrible motion sickness like me, I'm sure you'll agree.









The boat ride ended up going for 2-3 hours, which would have been lovely except I was absolutely busting to pee... and surrounded by water. This made the boat ride a lot less pleasant. I would recommend going to the bathroom before your boat arrives to avoid the same issues as I had.



However, all that aside it was lovely to travel up the beautiful river, with towering rainforest either side. We even saw a couple cows on the river bank and some fishermen too. I would recommend doing the trip, it was beautiful. You can always catch a bus back (which we opted to do).

When the boat finally came to a holt I literally ran away leaving Nick with all the money and the bags, in quest for a toilet. Luckily for me a lovely lady at one of the riverside restaurants took pity on me and let me use her bathroom (even without the 1 ringgit cleaning fee... which I paid later, by the way).

Then after that, there was only a temporary moment of relief before we realised we had not been dropped at our resort. Nor did we get any instructions on how to get there. So my anxiety, naturally took that and ran with it. "We got off at the wrong stop" "Now we are lost, in the middle of nowhere." Of course there was no reception for us to contact anyone. Luckily for me Nick kept his head and as we trudged across the riverbank with my panic levels high. He asked a local who pointed us to a bus that drove us about 500m (which we totally could have walked)

FINALLY to reach our resort.
But the drama was not yet over
*Begin Rant*
We stayed at The Han Rainforest resort, which I don't mean to be a neg, but I would NOT recommend. Let's just say that I wouldn't consider myself to have very high standards. As long as I can shower, sleep and have access to a bathroom I am all set. But this was woeful. The room we were given had rotten food in the bins, clothes from the last guests and 5 minutes into my shower the water was flooding the floor. The drain was completely clogged.
I was going to just roll over and accept the fact that we got a bad room. But then I thought better of it and we ended up asking for a new one.
Because we were paying more for this "resort" than many of the other places we had stayed in Malaysia, that had much better quality and service.
I ended up writing a long letter of complaint to management and filled out a review, in hopes that no other guest in the future would have the same experience. Although the receptionist was rude, unhelpful and unapologetic. Management dealt with the issue well, very apologetic, gave us the new room and a complimentary gift basket (unfortunately not Vegan, but still great effort)
*End Rant*


With that our very long day filled with many curve balls finally came to an end. With vegetable instant noodles for dinner (which are a secret favourite of mine) and a well earned sleep.

13-02-2017 Sleepy Day, Rainy Rainforest Walk



After yesterday's mammoth travelling effort, today turned out to be a very sleepy day. We slept in
until around 3pm, with the exception of sneaking out of bed (at some point) for a quick breakfast.
After a lazy morning of playing laptop games and having several solid naps we decided to finally venture out into the rainforest.
We didn't plan for nearly enough time, yet again. So today was our only day to explore the rainforest, it also started to rain so we ended up getting a little wet, which means I didn't end up taking as many photos as I would have liked.
But instead of a drawn out explanation I wanted to just include some of the photos I did manage to capture.

I didn't have the opportunity to see as much as I would have liked, nor to take any photos that did this beautiful rainforest much justice, but I will definitely be re-visiting when I have more time to hike and to see all the this beautiful place has to offer.
I did enjoy the small amount of time we had here. There is something very special and rather humbling about walking through a 130 million  year old rainforest, no internet, no reception, just you. A small speck in a giant rainforest and an even smaller speck to the whole world.

I don't really have much to write about for the rest of today's post. After our adventure we ate at one the floating restaurants along the side of the river. I didn't get any photos of the food because Nick and I were both so hungry we practically just inhaled it all at once.

Delicious, vegan, Indian food. The perfect warm meal for a good nights sleep. Because at 9am the next morning is was back to KL for a valentines night before heading back to Singapore to fly out.

So my beautiful people this is where I end this travel trail you can find what we did tomorrow in "My time in Kuala Lumper + Valentines Day blog" .
I am not going to do a post about my last few days in Singapore, most of it was rest and we stayed in the same place, so there isn't a lot of interesting new things to talk about. But I will include a few of the photos I took right at the end. After my final goodbye to this wonderful adventure.

So for now I am signing out of my Travel Trail for the last time. Remember to check out the post linked above for the 14th day of my Travel Trail.
I am so honoured to have had this opportunity, to be able to afford and plan my own travels around these two beautiful countries has been one of the best experiences of my whole life. The lessons were amazing, the people, the food the places, all of it was perfect.... even when it wasn't.

I am endlessly proud of myself for achieving this, (almost) by myself. For someone that suffers from depression and anxiety at the best of times I never would have thought I would take myself across the ocean, part way around the world, to do what I love (travel and blog). Regardless of the fears that I felt and struggles I faced, I made it! I now have a beautiful Travel Trail to look back on and a million more memories that I love.
So to anyone else out there that struggles with everyday things, like getting out of bed, eating 3 meals and working a job, just like I do. You can achieve things you never thought possible as long as you love them enough to trudge through all the fear and hurdle all the obstacles to get there.


I want to thank you all you guys for being with me and following my journey, for always being interested and encouraging me to keep posting.

I want to give a big shout out to my parents, who have been huge influences on my love for travel, as well as a huge help and support in every aspect of this trip; and the rest of my life. For always being there to calm me down and have endless answers to my ever complex problems.

I last but not least want to give a shout out to the amazing man who did it all with me. Of course, Nick. I could never have done it without you and I would never have wanted to do it with anyone else. Thanks for being forever patient and loving me, always. Thanks for making so many amazing memories with me that I will always cherish.

So now, with all the text aside. Enjoy my last few snaps of Singapore.
Thank you all again for reading and being part of my crazy journey, you're all amazing,