While I was born and raised in Pahang, spent the 2/3 of my life in Pahang, I knew very little about it. After spending a night in Temerloh (mainly for the shower, really), we biked to Chenor- a small little town in Maran district that’s slightly more familiar to Jonas. He showed me (bit rather too enthusiastically) this warung situated next to the river that he has visited a month ago, of which the Malay lady still remembered and recognised this ginger creature. We spent a good hour or so, relaxing, playing with our phones and me taking endless selfies, with gentle breeze brushing against our cheeks.
To be honest, I wasn’t too impressed by this warung- like what’s so special about this place? Growing up in a small town situated at the confluence of Sungai Lipis and Sungai Jelai… my point is, it’s really not that special, but it was rather fascinating to see how excited one foreigner could get. As the day progressed, we were desperately looking for food and water. And to my own despair, there wasn’t any kampung or warung in sight. We just had to keep our eyes and ears wide-open, in search for an ‘oasis’. Being the more inquisitive one, I sought advice from a guard of a Malay boarding school, he then told us there was this kampung by the main road via a tiny road that we might be able to get the stuff we wanted. Day 3 into my touring journey, I was slowly getting used to the stares and attention from the locals. To my surprise, they were even more surprised at the fact that I could speak Malay… and the ginger next to me knew a little bit of the language as well. Communication wasn’t an issue here, but getting the exact things we craved for to feed our tummy was tough. We left once we have purchased the ‘necessities’- white bread, water & bananas. Fortunately not long after, we managed to find one, which according to the locals, IT’S THAT ONE AND ONLY warung around here.
That plate of fried noodles was good I remember
As the sky got darker, one of the locals who ate at the warung asked where would we sleep tonight. I told him we were going to look for a campsite, near the plantation further in front. He then told me about this school close to here (where we met the school guard earlier on), we could try to camp out at the pondok, it wouldn’t be a problem. We thanked him for the suggestion and then biked to the boarding school. While I was the one who spoke better Malay, I was assigned to speak to the night shift guard… who happened to be a lady. I introduced ourselves and explained to her our intention, she then asked me to wait for a moment as she was going to ask the permission of the teachers. Minutes later, she came back with good news. I was thrilled. I wasn’t planning on having a proper shower that night but I was just going to use their toilet to freshen up and change into sleeping wear. The lady guard then informed me that the teachers also allowed us to use their toilet for shower (mind you, it's not your typical shower room, complete with water heater and shower head; just water pipes and squatting toilets). And wait for the best part, I could have hot water for drinks in the next morning too. OH MIIII LORD, I nearly burst into tears. ARE YOU AN ANGEL SENT FROM ABOVE BY MY MOM?
While going to the loo was quite a hassle (gotta alert the guard to let me in and walked some distance), I climbed out from the tent, carefully surveyed around and made sure no one was spying on me (or maybe there was)… and just hid behind a bush next to our pondok and released... XD