Journal excerpt: Malaysia, July 24th 1999

We found the beginning of the trail without too many problems – it began around the back of a Camelia garden. However, after we got totally confused and did a big circle around the garden, up the same hill twice, before we finally worked out which way the trail went – and that was the easy part – perhaps we should have given up then!

However, once we found the path, it was fairly easy to follow for a while, as it skirted the edge of a quarry but through fairly dense forest/jungle. The path was very overgrown and a few times we had to crawl under a fallen tree, or climb over one, as well as jump across the occasional small stream. At one point it was so overgrown, I could barely see Tanya even though she was only a few metres ahead of me – good job she was wearing a bright red t-shirt.

Even though the path was overgrown, it wasn’t impossible to find our way, as there were markings on the track every now and then.

But suddenly we emerged from the jungle and found ourselves on a sandy road – it looked like it was used very occasionally for works traffic. The path met the road , but it was impossible to tell which way we should go next – there were three alternatives:

– Up a very steep hill going back in the direction we had just come from (not fun)

– Up an equally steep hill on a road which looked blocked by fallen trees; or

– Down a sandy track continuing in the same direction we had been going

Being pretty tired and hoping that downhill looked more promising that uphill, we followed the last option. It was fairly straightforward for a while until we found ourselves at the bottom of a very steep hill. The sand track looked like half of it had been washed away and it would be a scramble to get up there….

Coming around the back of a small power station, the path seemed to disappear completely, there were no marking at all, no helpful clues as to which route to take. At the other side of the power station, we could see a paved road which we guessed would lead us back to civilisation. The difficulty would be getting to the road. We found a gate, which we thought we could squeeze through, but it was not the best route, and we didn’t even know if the fences would be electric.

But walking back the way we had come was not all that appealing. So we squeezed through the gate, took a few steps then heard dogs barking. We got ourselves back on the other side of the gate, pretty sharpish. About six dogs appeared but didn’t come racing towards us – they stayed at the far end of the compound. But we needed an alternative route – we climbed up on a wall and followed it around the outside of the fence.

We saw more signs of life; a couple of workers who reassured us that we could follow the road back to civilisation.

So we did!

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Written whilst sitting on the verandah of the Twin Pines Chalet in Tanah Rata – a good place for tuning into the travellers grapevine. Tanya was staying at the hostel too and this was one of three eventful walks we completed.

Malaysia, June 24th – August 21st 1999, volume 2.