The 5000 Project

The last night in taman nagara was something to note. At 2am a blade on the ceiling fan became loose, which caused the fan to come off balance and make a thunderous racket. I woke up and starred at the guy in the other bunk, who was starring at me – eyes fixed in terror, we were both certain that we were in an earthquake – this is when the heavy plastic fan covering fell from the ceiling, shaterring in many pieces.
** Note: could have added this bit to the end of last post but forgot at the time

Soo in the morning, it was me and the lads from Singapore, hoppin’ on the local bus for jerantut, the town with the train.

Unfortunately for us, school holidays had started, the jungle train was fully booked – up until a town called kuala lipus, a few stops in. We walked back to the bus station to get ourselves out of town.

Lipus is a vibrant hub of local trade, although the trade was limited in selection but abundant in numbers. Every second shop was a chemist/Chinese herbalist/fruit store and every other shop sold shoes and bike parts. The buildings were unchanged since colonial days, the signs were dusty with old fashion font, a bit like an old western.

After a meal and supplies, we hopped on the jungle train towards gua musang. Gua’s main landmark is a giant limestone hill with a verticle cliff-face, right at the location of the train stop (the image when Googling is what lured me to this small town).

We found accommodation at a hostel owner’s house and prepared for the steep hike up the hill the next day.

It took us half the day to find the entrance to the hill path (through semi-slums and villages, dodging goats and angry geese). After 15min of climbing, we came to an apparent dead end, until my singaporean buddy noticed a gap between the rocks, just large enough to fit through, for him; just large enough to fit through if I breath out, for my bulky European body.

Within the gap was an epic large cave, we could see faint light coming from the other side, so we carefully trekked through aided by the torch on my phone.

After climbing through to the other side of the cave, the rest of the hike was reasonably easy. The top had a decent view, although trees clouded what would have been the most scenic spans.

All the meals in the town were Chinese, infact most of the people were Chinese-Malay, with my friends being Chinese-singapore it was a good opportunity to try some unique Chinese food and practice/learn some more mandarin.

The next day we hopped back on the trusty jungle train towards  dabong, a town that is host to what it boasts as the largest waterfall in south east Asia, about 15km from the stop.

Before heading to the fall, I went to the only ATM in the town to extract some well needed currency.  I inserted the card, the on-screen display mentioned that the card was being verified, a consistant beeping sound came from the machine, then it sucked my card in and printed large text on the screen ‘System malfunction – Card withheld’. From walking to the ATM until the current stage of the ATM user input, I had pressed nothing at all other than put my card in the slot (It wasn’t a scanner, I checked the slot beforehand).

I called the bank number. Thankfully they had English service reps. I Thanked too soon.

‘No I will not call my bank, your ATM has my card’

‘No I will not put my card on hold with my bank, it is nice and secure; within your heavily fortified ATM safe with alarm’.

After mentioning the ATM location three times and passing the phone to a Malay guy, who also mentioned it three times; it was evident that either the ATM wasn’t listed with the bank, or the customer service guy isnt brightest guy in the office. He told me he has put through an escalation and that I will be contacted in three days, hopefully, when the card is out of the machine.

Generally I look for the cirrus sticker before I try to use ATMs, I was annoyed with myself that I didn’t, more annoyed that it ate the card instead of just politely letting me know it wont work. The bank that owns this ATM is “The Bank of Islam” – I wondered if all their ATMs swollow cards from other banks as a purist religious statement, I quickly abandoned this theory as fundamentalists are generally against corporate influence.

The rest of the day I tried to enjoy the waterfall, but my mind was on the thought that without money, life can get a little tricky.

I got back to the base of the waterfall before the others, to collect my thoughts. I was shortly approached by a local holding a phone.
“ATM – you talk”
I was a little stunned, I slowly took the phone to my ear.
“Hello ATM man coming”
It was the local guy near the ATM who helped me communicate with the dimwitted bank guy
“Hello, ATM maintenance man coming, 5pm”

I was still a little stunned how he knew this information, also stunned how all the locals know each other, least surprising was everyone knowing I’m the ghost white foreigner of the ATM. If the bank called, they would have called my phone. I was cautious with this news as the guy near the ATM wanted us to stay at his Guesthouse earlier, weird thoughts of a possible elaborate con sent warnings. A good distriction was hitchhiking back to town on the back of a Ute as it poured down with rain.

We got back to the ATM at 4:30 – noone was around. 10min later an unmarked white dirty old sedan drove up to the ATM, a guy in a clean white shirt stepped out. He had a lanyard around his neck with a security card attached, he immediately approached me and asked me to photocopy my main passport page while he fetches the card from the machine. I found a print shop and did as he asked. I signed a page in his documents and he gave me my card back.

I know that most of this text is just for getting a card from an ATM, but for me it was a pretty eventful day.

In the end the local guy who was near the ATM never returned, perhaps he is somewhere else in the world, in another time maybe – helping other travelers with their resource trade units withheld within evil devices. He could be out in the vast cosmos right now, perhaps one day you too will meet the man near the ATM.