Day 223 (Thu 15 Feb) - Kota Bharu / Jerantut

Up at 4.45am after a restless nights sleep. Packed our gear and got our taxi bang on time.

Travelled through the dark but bustling town and soon arrived at Wakaf Bharu. It was a bit confusing trying to work out what train we needed especially as the booking office was closed. It soon opened at 6am and after a bit of discussion we booked two tickets to Jerantut.

Train arrived on time and we sat in our allocated seat numbers. The few other passengers did likewise. Seemed a trifle daft as the carriage was empty but the handful of passengers were all crammed up at one end sitting next to one another.

Very dark as we set off so we both had a snooze. For some inexplicable reason the train would spend about half an hour waiting each time it stopped at a station. Soon the sky began to lighten and we could get a good look at our surroundings.

The train traveled through dense forest; at times it felt like we were going through a tunnel that had been made up of trees and leaves! Occasionaly we would cross an iron bridge over a muddy brown river and small settlements sited right alongside the tracks would flash past the windows.

When the dense foliage occasionaly gave way you could see huge limestone rocks appear out of the jungle. Their sides were bare and sheer whilst the crowns had a dense carpet of trees.

Got to Jerantut just after lunchtime. By chance we met a tout who offered to take us to the hotel that we had planned to go to. No doubt we were charged a little extra at the hotel for our free pick up but we had no map and it was too hot to go traipsing round town trying to find it.

Checked in to our fairly comfortable and clean room. Wandered round town for a bit and had a quick KFC to keep ourselves going.

At 8.30pm we went to a sister hotel of ours where we booked up bus and boat tickets for our journey into Taman Negara.

Had a particularly insipid meal at a small cafe.

Jerantut can only be described as a small nothing of a town!