Princess in the Jungle

I find it ridiculous, but just two days living it up in the lap of luxury that is Singapore seems to have ruined me for roughing it in the Malaysian jungle. I feel like such a sissy girl princess-type, it's disturbing.

I arrived in Singapore last Wednesday night. For two days I enjoyed efficient public transport, excessive air conditioning, soul-less malls, movie theatres (my first popcorn in months!) and quick and easy access to chilled cafe mocha's courtesy of Starbucks. I'm ashamed to admit it, but it was a totally beautiful couple of days. As for cultural experiences? Well I wandered through Little India (where the momos and chai were inferior but comforting) and Chinatown (it felt a little bit like the interior of a miniature snow globe universe - Chinese-like, but a little cold and artificial).

Friday night, I hopped on the train to Malaysia for a little jungle trekking with friends Anne & Brian from Vancouver, who now live in Singapore. We arrived at 2am in the morning and were driven an hour to a national park in central Malaysia in the sketchiest cab I've been in (well, since Mumbai.) We dodged herds of cows amidst inferior visibility due to fog, and I attempted to stay alert, as it was decidedly alarming to hear the driver express such disbelief and terror every time he narrowly missed hitting some cows. For the first time on this trip, I had no idea where we were going - I hadn't even cracked a tour guide on Malaysia, and had to keep asking Anne the name of the national park, as it kept escaping me. (Taman Negara - seriously large ancient rain forest in central Malaysia - I finally retained it! Apparently it's 130 million years old.) Anne even was responsible for holding all the tickets, so I was footloose and fancy free, and it was magical.

Oh, but on to my Princess moments. Right, so as I suspected, it's pretty darn hot in a tropical rain forest in the middle of May. I know I whined last week about the sweating, but this just took it to a whole different level. Absolutely every pore of my body was busy producing excessive amounts of sweat, and it was just sort of gross. I got kind of used to it eventually, but having sweat drip off the tip of my nose for 5 hours on Saturday was a bit much. Anne just sort of glistened in a more lady-like way, but Brian and I were pretty much soaked. I should have wanted to do some serious hiking, but 5 hours on Saturday and 3 on Sunday were enough for this Princess. I chalk it up to the sweat production, because otherwise the scenery was great, and we saw some really weird jungle bugs, which was cool.

And while I tried to internalize it, the coffee at the resort was total crap - having recently had access to Starbucks (and I don't even really like Starbucks when I'm at home), I was all the more painfully aware of how horrid the coffee was. I know, those of you who know me well are wondering what's up with this coffee consumption? Well kids, Heather's growing up. I can now drink beer and coffee without groaning, and am capable of ingesting a fried egg if it's sort of masked by other flavours (e.g. on a club sandwich or on top of fried rice.) The jungle featured excellent BBQ and fruit shakes though, so there was some high points. It always seems to come back to food for me!

Monday morning we caught a boat up the river and then a bus back to Kuala Lumpur. While we had 5 hours to kill before we caught the night train back to Singapore, Brian and Anne's offers to take me on a tourist hike through the city were politely rebuffed. I think 4 and a half months of travelling have tired this Princess out. So we went to K.L.'s Petronas Twin Towers (seriously cool) then camped out in the mall at the base of the towers - enjoying, you guessed it, more air conditioning, shopping and Starbucks!