Malaysia 2000, Part 3

How are you all, my dear brothers? I hope everything is great for you as it continues to be so for
Mustafa and I. I'm sorry that I haven't written to you for a while. I have been very busy. 

At the moment I am in Bandung, Indonesia. Arrived here this morning from Jakarta. Am staying with
some students from university here. Mustafa arrived here last night and has already left for the
next destination, Cirebon. I'll be going there on Friday morning. We will be reuniting on the
Dieng Plateau on Saturday night, Inshallah.

Anyway, here are the next two entries...the second of which is slightly longer than it is in the
previous email.  


SUNDAY MAY 4

An earlier start to the day. We were gonna go to these cascades about 9km from the Taman Negara HQ
but we couldn’t find two others to share a boat with. So instead we took a boat up stream about
3km or so and then came down on rubber tubes. It was more relaxing than exciting. The rapids and
currents weren’t strong enough to really get the adrenaline flowing. 

Took the 2pm boat downstream to the town of Kuala Tembeling from where we shared a taxi to
Jerantut with a couple teachers from Singapore. Arrived in Jerantut at about 4:30pm and were
greeted with bad news. On Thursday we’d left some laundry and asked that someone from the
guesthouse collect them on Saturday as they are closed on Sundays. This particular Saturday was
the Sultan’s birthday so it was closed also. We were forced to stay another day in Jerantut. 

Had the most expensive beard turn ever – 15 ringgit! I didn’t ask beforehand as I usually do. And
I had to shorten the moustache later, which didn’t go according to plan. Oh, had rice and omelet
(mushroom and cheese) for dinner again! 


MONDAY MAY 5

All the direct buses to Kuala Lumpur (KL) were full so we had to first go to the town of Temerloh.
Arrived there just before 1pm. But we couldn’t get on a bus for KL before 5pm. I was gonna spend
the time catching up on some writing and reading (Sophie’s World) but got in to a really
interesting conversation with this Christian from Atlanta who did his MSc. on Church history and
the theses on the plight of the Palestinian Christians. He was very frank about the Church and
Bible’s history. 

Prayed Zuhr and Asar at another Onion Mosque before boarding the bus bound for KL. Arrived just
before sunset. After some shopping around and negotiating, booked in to a youth hostel, run by
Indians and Bengalis, where only European nationals were aloud to stay! They were especially eager
to exclude Pakistanis, Indians and Bangladeshis! 

Had dhal and rice ‘til our stomachs were content before going for a short walk around town. First
went to the Jamek Masjid but it was closed. I was seriously impressed with the level of Kuala
Lumpur’s development – the most modern city since Abu Dhabi. The ultra modern metro system was
particularly impressive, but not as impressive as the Bangkok sky trains. The commuter trains were
also better than those in England. The stations were better too. Of course, everything is much
newer in KL than in England so you'd expect it to be that way.