Drive to Taman Negara National Park

I woke up around 5 AM and couldn't really fall back asleep.  Some of the issue may be jet lag and some of the issue may be that I took a 3 hour nap before dinner.  All I know is that i will definitely be going to sleep early tonight.  But, before thinking about tonight's sleep, we have to pick up and rental car and drive to Taman Negara National Park.  This park is about a 3.5 hour drive northwest of Kuala Lumpur, which isn't too bad.  However, Malaysia used to be a British commonweath which means the drive right-hand drive cars on the left side of the road...this should be fun.

But first breakfast!  Winslow was dropped off at our hotel and we met him outside at 7:30 AM for a 2 block walk to have breakfast.  I had the Malaysia most popular breakfast, Nasi Lemak Udang (pictured below to the left). It consists of Malaysian coconut milk rice, samba (hot relish), shrimp, a fried egg, a hard-boiled egg, fried crispy anchovies, toasted peanuts, and cucumber.  Tim stuck with the classic Chicken and Rice with some roasted pork thrown in.  Mine was delish!  I could eat this everyday.  Tim on the other hand, didn't love his breakfast...oh well, there is always the next meal.

Nasi Lemak Udang

Chicken and rice

After breakfast we walked back to the hotel, checked out of the room, and ordered a Grab (Uber) to take us to the rental car office about 25 minutes away.  All was going as planned until we stopped short because the car in front of us hit their brakes and then a Toyota SUV plowed into the back of us.

Winslow ended up with a laceration on his leg, Tim has a sore back and a bruise on his leg, and I just feel a bit sore, but maybe that is because of the hard mattress last night...who knows.  Welcome to Malaysia I guess.

That is our car pictured below on the left and the idiot who was not paying attention on the right.

Our smashed Grab.

The idiot that was probably on his phone.

Since nobody was seriously hurt, police weren't involved.  It took about 30 minutes for a new Grab to pick up off the side of the highway and continue the trip to the rental car office.  Luckily, we got the car and drove back to Winslow's house with little incident aside from a few wrong turns and me putting the window wipers on every time I meant to turn on the blinkers (they are reversed on a right-hand drive car).

After accessing everyone's injuries, it was determined that some ice-pack, band-aids, and ibuprofen was all that was needed.  Before hitting the road, it was decided that we also needed some of Kim Mei's lunch fixings.  I had a bowl of curry ramen noodle soup with bock choy and egg, Tim had ramen noodle bowl with chicken, others had steamed buns and curry soup broth.  There was also sides of chicken and fish cakes.

We finally started the drive about 1.5 hour late.  We were supposed to stop at an elephant sanctuary on the way to the national park, but by the time we got to our turn off it was too late since they close at 3 PM and it was already close to 2 PM.  Hopefully we will be able to go there on our way back to Kuala Lumpur, bur for now we pressed on.

After about 2 hours of driving we were looking for a roadside fruit stand to grab a snack, but most of the roadside stalls are closed due to Ramadan.  Finally we came across a market that was setting up for people to buy food to break the Ramadan daily fast. ​

Malay market

We didn't think our hotel was going to provide dinner tonight, so Winslow, Susan, and Kim Mei went off to gather whatever they could find for us to eat later at the hotel.

Here is a strange nut that was being sold at the market for 5 Ringgit ($1.14 USD).  It is called Jering, and according to Wikipedia:

• They are mildly toxic due to the presence of djenkolic acid
• They are traditionally used for medicinal purposes such as purifying the blood
  
• They have a bitter taste and smell that some people do not like
• ​Anyone who eats it will produce urine that smells strongly

After read this, of course we had to try it, but since it is Ramadan, we could only buy it and not taste it, so before i knew it, money was being exchanged and a bag of Jering was purchased.  FYI...I never did try Jering today, We ate so much for dinner that I wasn't hungry anymore, but Peter tried and disliked it.  I don't remember if others did.  I will try it tomorrow (if it wasn't thrown away) and provide a full tasting report.

1.5 hours later, just before 6 PM, we arrived at our accommodations for the next 3 nights.  Tebing is in the middle of a rain forest, just across the river from Taman Negara National Park.  I thought it was pretty cool that the reception desk was outside.

We are right in the middle of it all here.  The elephant graphic is where we are and everything else is just a short boat ride across the river.

Speaking of rivers...here it is...just down from your rooms.

Soon after checking into our rooms, we all brought together everything that was bought at the Malay market and dug into the food.  We had what seemed like everything you can buy in a Malay market: fish and squid balls,  sweet and sour chicken,  coconut curry fish, fried rice, rice wrapped in banana leaf, chrysanthemum iced tea, watermelon, baby bananas, and a few other Malay dishes that I don't know what they were.

After eating and eating, we were all full and tired.  Tomorrow we tour the national park and it should be an awesome day.