Drive to Taman (Marina Island)

What is that sound?!?  It is the middle of the night!!  Oh yeah...that is the alarm at 5:15 AM.  Who's idea was it to sign up for a Sunrise Tour?

The Land Rover picked us up at 6:15 AM in front of the apartment.  There was already 5 other tourists in the truck, so we made 9 plus the driver.

About 15 minutes later he pulled off the side of the road and said, "This is the place."  We got out and looked at our dark and cloudy view until we saw a glimpse of a sunrise over a tea plantation.

Due to the clouds, we weren't going to see anything spectacular today.  Luckily, the guide had a video of what a nice sunrise looks like here.

Even though there wasn't a sunrise, we did wake up early and come out here, so we may as well take the "sunrise" photo.  Oh...check out my new quick-dry shirt.  All the locals where shirts like this.  I saw it in the window of a store to check it out and it cost me 10 MYR => $2.25 USD...sold!

It was about 7:30 AM when the guide said he was gong to drive us to another viewpoint.  We all loaded up and he took us about 10 minutes further up the hill for this view...wow!

He left us up there and drove down about 1/4 mile and told us to walk down to meet him.  These photos were taken along the walk:

Here is what the Land Rover looks like in the daylight.  Kind of a cool vehicle.

It was finally 8:30, when Boh Teahouse opens, so we headed there.  We (Tim, Susan, Peter, and I) have already visited Boh on Monday, but to get the ride up the mountain to Mossy Forest, we have to do this tour.  Anyway, I'm not going to complain about going back there and tasting some more really good tea and having a small breakfast.

Hum...I guess I didn't take any photos of our tea visit and breakfast.  I guess you have to click here to look back at Monday's visit if you want to see what it looked like.

After about 1 hour at Boh Teahouse, we all loaded up into the Land Rover and headed up the mountain.  The road was definitely better than I read about.  Could I have driven our rental van up here...maybe...and I happy to sit back and relax as someone else does the driving...yes!  

Before entering the Mossy Forest, we were greeted with this view by the entrance.  We may not have had a sunrise view, but at least we get this view at the top of the mountain.

Before entering the boardwalk, our guide explained to us that this forest is the fourth oldest forest in the world (130 million years old) after Daintree Rainforest in Queensland, Australia (80 million year old), Borneo Lowland Rainforest (140 million years old), and Tamen Negara National Park (130 million years old) which we visited earlier in the trip.

The visit to Mossy Forest consists of a 600 meter (2,000 feet) long boardwalk.  At the end of a boardwalk is a gate that allows people to hike beyond, but you need a special permit and it must be guided.  Since we don't have a permit or the proper guide, we are limited to the boardwalk.

The boardwalk actually goes along the border of two Malaysia states, Pahang and Perak.  Look, we are in both states at once.

We were here.

The tour finished up and dropped us back at our apartment at 11:00 AM.  In case you were wondering, for the 5 hour tour it cost us 65 MYR => $14.60 each.

We went back upstair, packed, loaded the car, and drove 2 minutes to a Chinese restaurant for lunch.  They only had 2 choices, so I picked the vegetarian (veggie fried rice) and the others had the roast pork on rice.

We are now supposed to drive to our next location, Taman. Weebly says that going left is about 30 minutes faster than going right, but yesterday, about 5 minutes right, we saw a jackfruit stand that I wanted to check out.  If you have never had fresh jackfruit, go out and try to find it.  It tastes just like Juicy Fruit gum and is delicious.  I figured we would drive down the hill to the right 5 minutes, but a jackfruit, then head back the other way.  Well...as we headed down toward the jackfruit, the traffic was building up in the other direction.  OK...I guess we are going the long way now.

We reached where the jackfruit stand was yesterday, but it wasn't opened.  Next to it was this stand. The guy said it was an Asian Sea Coconut.  OK...I'm game.  I ordered a larger one so I could share with the others.

When you cut a sea coconut opened, there is not milk  There are 3 sections with fruit in it that is pried out, peeled, cut into pieces, and put into a cup to eat.  To me it tasted like raw sunflower seeds with a bit of sweetness.  It was actually pretty nice.

I am pretty sad since I took a really nice video of the guy preparing the sea coconut, but I guess I didn't push record.  Oh well...

We continued our drive down the mountain and kept seeing roadside stands selling plants or something.  We finally decided to pull over and see what it was they were selling,

This stand was run by indigenous people, were selling tropical plants, roots, seeds, etc. that have medicinal uses.  This crazy looking plant, that looks like guinea pigs or tribbles.  It is called Pokok Ayam Emas or Golden Chicken Tree.  The seller told us that the hair of this plant stops bleeding.

This pod is called Petai (bitter bean) and by one little bite I can tell why they have that name.  They are supposed to provide overall good heath for those that eat it.

This plant is called Tiger Milk Mushroom and is used for respiratory diseases and breast cancer treatment. 

We noticed houses behind the stall and they said that this is where they live.  They gave us permission to look back there and take photos.

I mean...wow...image if all these natural products actual do what they say they will do.  Do they have the actually cure for cancer?  It is amazing what is out there.

Further down the mountain was a roadside stall selling bamboo products.  I saw these wind chimes and loved them.  There is a small piece of bamboo I marked in red.  When that blows, the birds head sways back and forth.  Very cool and it only cost 45 MYR => $10 USD.  I would have definitely bought one of these if I didn't have to carry it around for the next 4 months.

Wow...this drive keeps going and going.  Between the curvy, windy road and the on again off again torrential rainfall, it seemed like a very long 3.5 hours.

But wait...there is another roadside stop...let's stop and make the trip even longer.  This woman is selling Nasi Lemak.  Malaysian coconut milk rice, served with sambal (chili sauce) and a variety of toppings.  It is all cooked together inside a pandan leaf.  I chose one with an egg and dried anchovies and one with prawns.  Total cost for 2 was 6 MYR => $1.35.

As we were looking at the selection, a young man pulled up in a truck and got out to buy himself some Nasi Lemak.  He spoke good english and was able to answer many of my questions.  At the end he insisted on buying me 2 more Nasi Lemaks that he wanted me to try...wow...such nice people here.

Since this car trip is never ending, why not add one more stop that is about 10 minutes away.  During my research to find Toddy (remember a few days back that Tim and I found some at a brewery, but I didn't think it was the real thing?) I marked a place on Google Maps called "Teluk Intan Toddy Shop."  I didn't think we would come close to it, but taking the road down the mountain to the right versus the left, brought us within 10 minutes of the shop...is this destiny?

I set the GPS and we were on our way.  We turned off the main road, down a narrow one, made a right at the end of the road and there was a bar...this must be the place.  ​I went in and they pointed next door.  I didn't notice anything next door excerpt for a small wooden structure:

with a man sitting at a table.  He said, "Toddy?"  I nodded and he went behind the bar and produced ​a bottle of Toddy.  OK...I think this is the real stuff.  I asked him if there was alcohol and he said very little, maybe like a beer.  I gave him 10 MYR => $2.25 USD and went on our way.

I have the whole drive to decide if I am going to drink this stuff or not.  I remember back when we traveled Cambodia in 2014 when I searched and found and drank Palm Beer that put me in bed for a day with a fever and diarrhea.  Actually...is this the same Palm Beer?  Hum...  I will keep thinking about whether to drink it or not.

Finally...around 7:30 PM we made it to our rental apartment.  We pretty much dropped our bags in the room and went out to eat the Nasi Lemak that I barely got a photo of before I finished it.  It was really good.  My favorite one?  The one the young guy bought me.

OK...After thinking about it, I tried a bit of the Toddy.  I figured if I feel fine tomorrow I can drink more of it then.  It actually tasted pretty good.  Definitley better than the one we had at the brewery.  

After dinner and Toddy we went into the bedroom, blogged some, and went to sleep pretty early.  It was an early morning today and after the long drive I was ready for some sleep.  Tomorrow we don't have much planned, so it should be a nice relaxing day.