Next day we slowly headed back in to signs of civilisation, morning coffee at a cool little local shack with bemused locals. The rain returned in full force, actually being rather painful to ride in so took shelter hoping it would pass but in the end just got totally drenched riding into Gua Musang. Its the biggest town in the area and still pretty small. Had some lunch and dried off a bit in the afternoon as the sun came out again. Joined a much busier highway and made it to Merapoh, one of 4 entrances to Malaysia's biggest national park. Got some food supplies and did the 7km through plam oil plantations to the headquarters. Here we had a huge camping ground and facilities all to ourselves for 1 ringet each. That's like a penny/cent. Relaxed and cooked dinner and watched the monkeys play in the trees (after ascertaining that they weren't the evil kind). In the morning we decided to go on a short forest walk in the park itself. Here we had our first experience with the dreaded leech. Tabs looked down to find one had already begun sucking away on her ankle and more were in quick pursuit - a short bout of hysterics ensued as we hopped around madly trying to remove then whilst not letting others climb aboard! They move amazingly fast and need a good tug to pull off, horrible things. Once off the wound continues to bleed for ages and leaves a scar. We made a speedy exit back to camp, totally grossed out.
The road that day was nice riding and only a few small villages etc on the way as we followed the boarder
of the park. Up a sizable hill in the hot hot sun - and then had the downpour for the decent. Everything
saturated again. Took shelter but again just had to ride on through it. We weren't really sure what we were
doing for accommodation that night, camping didn't look appealing with the rain and leeches, and the next
town with hotels was a while away, but we were let in on a short cut through the plantations and a mad 20km
sprint at the end of a long day got us pulling in to Kuala Lipis just as it was getting dark. Phew. Found a
nice cheap hotel, ate some hot food and collapsed. That day was also election day. Haven't mentioned this
yet but our whole stay thus far in Malaysia has been in the midst of election fever - this means flags,
flags and more flags! All the different parties have their logo splattered on any free surface and bunting
etc line the streets. Election day itself wasn't too crazy as we were in a sparsely populated area, but
people have to return to their state to vote so there was more traffic than usual. The following days it
was the talk of the nation - the ruling party had lost quite a few seats to the opposition,
the winds of change surprising many.We mucked round the following morning, not getting on the road till noon, but figured we should be OK, 35km to the ferry crossing and then... well our map didn't have the road up to the main park headquarters on it but hoped it wouldn't be too far. Another day of muggy sun or torrential rain alternating every hour or so - got to the ferry crossing, with little village attached in the middle of a downpour to hear the bad and the good news. Bad was the park was actually another 75km away, good was that we could put the tent up in the terminal complex and stay the night. The alternative transport - you guessed it, a ferry - would leave in the morning and for a pricey number we could go up the river instead. Funny evening in the big bus station like building, the locals wondering why we were still around, then up and on the boat for the 3 hour trip up river. Decided we could cycle down again after a break at the park, and the trip was scenic with sights of river-jungle things. Arrived at one of the floating restaurants that make up the small kampong' (village) of the park headquarters. A mission to take bikes and gear up steps and tracks to the road and finally settled in to a great little camp site. The place to ourselves over looking the river and best of all we put the tent up in the kitchen shed bit to keep nice and dry from all those daily showers we were getting used to.
We did a small walk the next day into the park to check out the canopy walkway. The tallest in the world at 45m and although packed with people, it was a good experience to see the trees from a different perspective. Also saw some monkeys and a wild boar - the sum total of our wildlife witnesses in the park. We had hoped to see more the following day by going deeper and taking a 6 hour walk along a track to stay the night at a bunbum (hide or mountain hut). However all we saw were our friends the leeches. Some areas were teeming with the suckers, we couldn't stand still and were constantly pulling them off only for more to arrive. I had holes in my hired boots which didn't help either! Had about 10 good bites in all. Pretty hard going and pleased to see the hide at the end of the day, thankfully arriving just before another opening of the skies. Shared the hide with a Swiss couple and four folks walking with a guide - even with his high beam torch and trained eye we saw no creatures. Ah well. In the morning we saw elephant poo. We were planning to take a circuit route to get back but the river was up too high, and not wanting to do the same track in reverse we managed to hitch on a boat back home. Later in the day we caught up with a German man also cycling round Malaysia, oogled each others bikes and talked touring stuff.