Our first stop on the journey to the jungle is in Jerantut where we need to pick up a boat to continue our journey. We also stop for lunch which is (the first of many) a chicken rice dish, which actually wasn’t that bad – and I get chatting to one of the other people on the group – Elvis, from Hong Kong. He’s on his own too but has already befriended someone else on the trip – a young Korean girl called Jiyoung, the dirty dog.
Anyway, he’s pleasant enough and I am feeling a whole lot better about this trip than I was – the group size (assuming that we are the group) is only 10 people – so far there is Elvis, Jiyoung, a couple from Holland, two girls from France and the French family of four that I'd nodded to at the tour operator base. And no annoying loud American or German tourists.
We have to wait a while for the next bus to come and take us to the jetty, so we have time kill, and I'm looking at all the other tours they operate, minding my own business, when I tune into a conversation between the tour staff (a rather fierce looking Indian woman and a man of about 90). She's going on – in a really puzzled tone – about “Cock-less me? Blanched cock-less me?”, and referring back to this book.
Naturally, I am intrigued, so I pretend to be interested in one of the tours and have a look at the book she’s reading from – it’s a cookbook. She was reading out a recipe for steamed clam noodles: 'cock-less' were, in fact, cockles, and 'mee' are noodles.
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