En Route to Johor Bahru

Saturday, November 23, 2013

While driving out of Melaka we realized that we hadn’t even seen the half of it… we managed to miss the Portuguese Quarter all together. In our defense: we are still struggling with the very humid heat and, because of that we end up walking around places less than we normally would.

We headed north out of Melaka to Ayer Keroh, where our first port of call was ‘Taman Mini Malaysia/Asean’, a kind of a theme park that has a traditional house from each of the 13 states of the country. Visitors are allowed in all of them, which makes it worth the visit. Afterwards we went for a walk on some paved trails in the ‘secondary’ jungle in ‘Hutan Rekreasi Ayer Keroh’, the highlight being a 250m canopy walk on very narrow swing bridges.

Stephen promoting tourism Malaysia 2014 Video
Visit to Mini Malaysia tourist park.
Caroline on the Canopy Walk

Our destination for the day was Gunung Ledang Nat’l Park, where we stayed at the Gunung Ledang Resort. Suffice it to say I was not impressed with either. Don’t get me wrong: the scenery was good, but the management of the ‘Nat’l Park’ has some work to do. The path to the waterfall (just under a kilometer) was littered with trash, and so was the water. And people were in the water, amongst the trash. The Resort… well… I will only say that ‘resort’ was a tad far fetched. Yes, I know, I like my creature comforts, but still…

Sunday, November 24, 2013

We’d also read that the resort could at least point us in the right direction of how to get to the top of the mountain. Some sources suggested it was possible to drive to the top by 4WD (organized or self drive), but we found staff there and a the park’s entrance office less than helpful. I guess I’m used to Nat’l parks in the US, NZ, Australia,…. Oh well. It’s all about expectations, isn’t it?

As a trek up to the summit would have involved guides and at least 2 days in tropical heat, we gave the whole thing a miss and headed for Johor Bahru. So far we’ve stayed off the main highways so our route takes us through villages and townships. Our new Garmin navigation unit is proving to be a priceless investment. On arrival in Johor Bahru it directed us straight to Stephen’s funky hotel choice 🙂

Waterfall in Gunung Ledang NP.