(Daniel) I could hardly move when i woke up this morning, but somehow managed to drag myself into the shower.  After washing i had breakfast with Fie and his family again.  Then packed up my stuff and left with Fie.  Just as I was walking out, I asked Fie’s mother for some strawberries and roses from their farm.  For those that haven’t been paying attention, Zie the village girl who I met in Batu Rackit  had asked me for these a few days ago on the phone.  Fie mother was happy to oblige and went and hand picked them herself before boxing the strawberries and wrapping the flowers.  I said my thanks and left with Fie.

We drove to the workshop, where I picked through the piles of scrap to find any tools and equipment that I had left behind.  After throwing any of these in the back, Fie and I wound the winch cable back in place to prevent it weakening through the cable being crushed by criss crossing on the spool.  After this, I spent a good ten minutes saying thank you to my friends, most of which was hardly understood!  then said my goodbyes to Fie and Thomas, before heading back out onto the road, and starting the long descent down from the Cameron Highlands towards Taman Negara and the East coast.

The roads out of Cameron were superb on the way down, and it was hard to keep the speed down on the perfect Malaysian roads.  I passed waterfalls and amazing jungle views as I drove towards Gua Musang in the centre of Malaysia where I picked up the north south highway and drove another 150km to Kuala Besut.  As I approached the town, I called Kumin and left a message that I would soon be passing through the area.

I drove on and as I got closer, my phone rang.   When I answered it, a man introduced himself, he told me that he had a copy of the local Malay paper that had run the story about the Expedition a few days ago.  Apparently a friend had asked him to give it to me.  I told him that I had no idea where I was apart from heading towards a village just outside Kuala Besut.  He asked me to pull over and wait for five minutes.  I pulled in to the side of the road, and waited, but just then my phone rang.  It was Kumin returning my call.  On the phone Kumin sounded overjoyed that I was coming back to Besut, and asked me to meet him for dinner.  It sounded like he wanted to invite me to an upcoming off roading competition.  I agreed to go and pulled out onto the road, just then, a man in a very nice Mercedes with a private plate of DR 333 pulled up.  This was the guy who had called me earlier, is anyone else noticing something strange here?!  He shook my hand and handed over the paper.  I told him that I had to go, as Kumin was waiting, and he drove off.   Once again I pulled out and travelled a few more km’s before coming across Kumin at a crossroads in his Landie!  It seems as if everyone here is perpetually on the road, and seems to know exactly where I am at any given time!  Someone told me once that Malaysia was the most spied on country in the world, I am starting to believe it!  

Kumin was really pleased to see me, and we caught up on the events of the pasty few days over lunch.  Afterwards we headed into town, where I bought steel cable and tensioners, along with shakles and clamps.  Thse parts I will use to make safari cables to stop bamboo and other brush from smashing into my lights and windscreen.  As had been a problem in the jungle.  I decided not to fit them now, but would do this at Rumah Yamin.  Now I had these parts,  I had to press on to Batu Rackit as I didn’t want to arrive late and upset the housekeeper Pak Uda,  apparently I did not endear myself to him last time by leaving a bag of empty beer cans in the house when I left!  Pak Uda is the local Muslim Holy man, and probably didn’t appreciate the tribute to Carlsberg which I had created in such a short time!  My thinking behind leaving them had been innocent, as I thought he could get some money back for the recycling!

I said my thanks for all the hospitality that Kumin and his friends had shown me.  And told him that I would try and make his off road competition in a few days time.  In my mind however I was thinking how lucky I have been to get away from the jungles with as little damage as I had suffered.  And that I probably wouldn’t risk anther foray so soon! After a couple of hours more on the roads I arrived in Batu Rackit and headed straight to Zi’s restaurant.

AT the restaurant, I was greeted with a very shy Zi, and half of the village who materialized from somewhere, presumably as word got round that i had returned!  We spke briefly, as I ordered some noodles, I sat and ate in silence. As 20 or so people watched me from various vantage points around the area!  Afterwards, I walked over to Zi and asked if I could see her this evevnig.  She told me that it would not be possible, but that I could call her.  I was beginning to realise that I had possibly wasted my time in coming back here to Batu Rackit, but tried not to look too upset.

As I started to walk back to the car, she called out one word to me, “Strawberries?”  Fortunately I was prepared, and pretended not to hear her as I walked back to the car.  I picked up the two boxes of strawberries and walked back to her with them behind my back.  Her face lit up briefly as she saw them, and then she regained her composure, and came out with another word, “Flowers?”  Thanks to Thomas, and his flower arranging business, I happened to have the two dozen roses in the car also, and walked back and returned with these also.  Zi couldn’t keep her composure this time, and grabbed the flowers before running inside and disappearing.  I sensed that any relationship beyond this, was going to take several things.  Time, a knowledge of the Malaysian language including the Campong dialect... oh, and getting married!

I returned to the car, and drove back to the House, where Pak Uda met me and gave me the keys.  Back inside I suddenly felt like I had returned to this strange place that had confounded me before.  I spoke to Zi on the phone, but the language problem only made the situation worse.  This feeling was only interrupted by a call from Fie, he sounded a bit drunk, but more obviously, he sounded as if he was not happy about our brief and not very heartfelt goodbye.  He said that he was thinking about coming to visit me at the house for a day or two.  I told him that it was a great idea, and that he should look into it.  After I put the phone down, I watched a movie and then slept fitfully, waking up several times to strange noises in the night.

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