Since ppl agreed to meet up at Kranji MRT at 6AM, I woke up early to get ready by 5AM and that's what made me a bit drowsy in the morning. My team had 2 other Vietnamese friends from shatec and a Pakistani: Nguyen, Thanh, and Yousuf. Girls are quite talkative, friendly, and Yousuf is a caring man, look like a senior (lol, he really is).
6:30AM at Woodland checkpoint: I realized that Singaporean friends have much advantage at the checkpoint: using their ID to slot into the reader, super fast. I remember the check-in/check-out gates for Vietnamese in Saigon, which are meant for Vietnamese and the Q is always longer than the one for int'l passports.
7AM, I lost my group and just followed some random trekking participants to a McD restaurant. The burger was okay but the black coffee was terrible; it's not Singapore black coffee, it's not as sour and bitter as Vietnam black coffee, it was like soot mixed with plain water. you can imagine!
The group of ppl started heading to the JB Sentral to board the train to Tampin. The ticket was MYR 25.00 per person for a 400km ride, comparable to those in Vietnam. The coach was quite spacious with aircon. It's not too fast but since it was only 4 hrs, no one was really tired. Some took a quick nap, some went to the ends of the coach to have the view of Malaysia urban. Thru the window/door, the view is surprisingly similar to Cambodia and Vietnam but there was no rice field, just palm tree and some jungles.
Strange that we can open the train doors. Quite dangerous, especially when the train did a quick turn.
Arrive at Tampin around noon. We had quick lunch and drink to recharge for the trek. Food was damn cheap, we can get nasi lemak at MYR 1. Ppl here can understand basic English, so we didnt have to struggle. For me, I just shut up and buy.
After 1/2hr lunch, we took taxi to the base of the mountain to prepare to climb up to the summit. There seems to be no traffic rule. The taxi driver was just so friendly that he kept telling us to take photo of mosque, tell the history of the tampin town, where to it, where ppl go jogging in the morning. He spoke Malay, mixed with some broken English, and always with smiles and laughs. 4 of us in the taxi were quite enjoying with such a friendly local man but were really scared when he did not look at his driving. Lesson learnt: never talk much to a friendly taxi driver, or else you will risk your life. The road sign required a maximum of 60km/h but he speed up to 100km/h and even tried to pass some trucks. He opened the radio and swung himself with the music too. The taxi ride took 20 mins.
At the base of the mountain, we needed to drink up, stretch our muscle and apply repellent.
Ascending the Datuk was not as easy as i had imagined. A lot of insects, tree root, rocks... the slope is quite as steep as 45 degree and it's advisable to have your gloves on. No leeches, no snake, no centipede but a lot of huge, really huge, mosquitoes. Trekking up the summit takes 3.5 hours including resting time. When you finish half of the way up, there is a flat land where you can rest. Before you reach the base camp (despite its name, it is near the top of the mountain), you will see a huge rock with wet algae. But don't touch it, it is itchy and may be poisonous.
I used 2 litres of water when I climbed up.
(Feel tired reading? Ok I'm tired writing too. Going to sleep now. Will continue soon!)
