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After another year of teaching and also retiring from the profession, I was more than ready for this trip. I had been reading tidbits about traveling Southeast Asia during the last few months of my teaching career. But didn't go in depth, nor did I have any particular place I wanted to visit other than Taman Negara National Park. I had 3 weeks to experience, wander, and play. I would highly recommend everyone to do the same :-)

From the Kuala Lumpur Airport I took a local bus to Nilai for RM2.50 (US$1 = RM3.7) and then caught a train for RM4.50 to the center of Kuala Lumpur. I took this way only to experiment and because I had the time. This method is much cheaper than taking the express bus to the Kuala Lumpur, but it also takes a lot of time. Having gotten to sleep a little past 11:00PM the previous night and waking around 4:15AM, I fell asleep in the 75 minute ride back into the center of the city.

I needed and found a chartered bus going to Jerantut – the gateway to Taman Negara – Malaysia's most famous national park. I spent one of my two and a half hours writing on this uneventful bus ride. It was a little tough in the non "super V.I.P." bus, with less amount of leg room and seat room as this bus sat 2 on either side as opposed to two and then one.

Arriving in Jerantut and not having any particular place to stay, I took the beckoning invitation of some men who had a van and a guesthouse in which I could stay. The facilities were typical as guesthouses go – cold showers, squat toilets, 4 beds to a room, and a ceiling fan. In this room was a British guy, Rob, who would be leaving on a train headed for Singapore at 1:00AM, and a plump European girl who I didn't formally meet, but I knew she was European only in the fact that she didn't mind stripping down to her underwear before getting into bed while I was in the room.

One of the great services from this place was an hour-long informercial about the "World's Oldest National Park" – Taman Negara. They made the appropriate reservations for me to stay three days and two nights. I was pumped up to go that next morning.