I had done everything that I could towards sorting out my passport at this stage, and Nafi invited me up to visit a nature retreat that he was a partner in.
Ulu Tupai is in the mountains near Taiping, away from the bustle of any cities, and has many water falls and nice views.
It was an early start, with us getting up at 7.10 am. I grabbed the breakfast, and sorted out my stuff so that I only needed a day bag and my guitar, as well as the camera, leaving the main rucksack in Suzies.
We made to the train station for 8.31, which was about 5 minutes after the train had gone by, though the next train was scheduled for 8.57, so we waited on the platform.
As time went by it became apparent that the train had been cancelled, and so we had to wait for the next one at 9.27am instead.
We eventually made it to Shah Alam for just after 10am, here we met up with Carmen, William, Ylyn and Zed, and got in to the vehicles to head to the retreat.
We stopped off at a service station for breakfast, where I just had some Teh Tarik, as had already eaten at the hostel.
We planned to get fuel, but there was a long queue for the pumps, so we arranged with the rest of the convoy that we would go to the next petrol station, and wait at slip for catch up. This plan was executed perfectly on our side, but the others drove past without informing us, so Zed advised them that they owed us a durian!
We stopped a second time around 1pm near Ipoh, and did some grocery shopping as well as getting some lunch and other things. I grabbed a sausage bakery thing for lunch, and then we headed onwards to Taiping.
We drove round block 3 times looking for parking space, and then headed to a restaurant for some proper food, where we ordered Nasi and Mee goreng, and let Salsa, a small black and white kitten out of the car, as we couldn't leave her in the car while we ate!
There was a meeting at Taiping Zoo between the people involved in making Ulu Tupai as marketable place, and so Carmen and I went for a wander around the outside of the zoo. I took my camera, and managed to get some photos of . some Dusky Leaf Monkeys that we saw in the trees, as well as some reflection photos of the lakes.
After the meeting was over, we headed up past the Chinese Cemetery and up the dirt track to the Ulu Tupai retreat.
We were glad of the 4x4 vehicles that we had, as it was definitely needed with the rough surface, but that added to the sense of adventure, and it really felt as though we were going deep in to the jungle of Malaysia.
We arrived at around 6pm, and as the evening light was good I rushed to try and get some photos of the waterfall that was just outside the Kampung style house.
It was still Ramadan, so we waited until sunset at 7.22pm before having a meal of Nasi Goreng and Ayam Bakar, with some cuttle fish snacks after. The cuttlefish tasted salty and sweet, and were definitely morish!
After dinner, we headed up to treehouse section so that the group could talk about the plans for Ulu Tupai, while I played guitar for everyone. I had already downloaded some tabs and lyrics for most of the songs I could play, so the lack of internet was not a problem for me!