26th July - Beautiful Bako

Unfortunately another 6am wake up call for this one. But I was looking forward to this one, albeit with a degree of trepidation (for how difficult the walks may be). Another public transport do, and so I headed over to the third of the three bus stations. In actual fact there are not currently any bus stations, and two of them seem to use the same stretch of road to mill about in before leaving a 'few' minutes late. Confusingly the bus companies use the same numbering systems. So there are two or three number 1s, two number 6s etc. Idiots.

Anyway I got to the bus milling point, to find that bus station number three mills in a different area, and after asking several bemused locals I found an area of road with no signage other than road markings with enough room for 1.5 buses. This was the place. Especially if you had half a bus to park. Needless to say come 7am there was no sign of any of the number 6s, and certainly not the one to Bako. But at 7.15 a different and red and shiny new bus, with a number 1 on it turned up. It said Bako. A french family waiting ahead of me looked non-plussed, it was not how it should be (they weren't the same tardy frenchies from the previous day, these were nice timely ones). We want number 6. Anyway after asking the driver does it go to Bako and he affirmed this I got on and the French guys got on too, looking a little nervous. At this point I too got nervous, these guys followed me on, what if it was wrong, what if there was another Bako?! I later saw the map on the wall showing the stops, and it said final stop Bako National Park. While there may be two Bako's there couldn't be two Bako National Parks, could there?

Eventually there were 25 foreign types on the bus comprising Scandinavians, Germans, said French, Australians and even unfortunately some yanks (awesome!). A sprinkling of locals were on too to take them to their daily grind. Poor chaps and chappesses.

An hour or so later and we arrived at the port of Bako; well, small dock anyway. Our first part of the journey was over. It was time to catch a boat the twenty minutes or so out across the South China Sea to the national park headquarters of Bako National Park, home of the Proboscis monkey and pitcher plants et al.......

more to follow next time I can grab a computer....