Many travelers take the well-worn path to Kuala Tahan when thinking of visiting Malaysia’s largest national park, Taman Negara. Kuala Tahan is a little town where most of the accommodation and food options are found. You can take a 2 minute boat ride from here over to the National Park entrance for 1 ringgit per person.
We arrived to Kuala Tahan from the Cameron Highlands after taking a 55 ringgit bus. When looking for transportation to KL however, all the tour agencies displayed quite expensive prices, usually 90 ringgit. We almost hitch-hiked, but found how to take local buses for a much cheaper ride.
Taman Negara to Kuala Lumpur by local bus
If you want to follow our footsteps from Taman Negara to KL for roughly 25 ringgit as opposed to the 90 ringgit buses offered in Taman Negara, you can do this:
Catch the local bus to Jerantut that leaves below the tourist information center in Kuala Tahan. It leaves at 10:30 (and also at 5 or 5:30, but ask a tour agency to double check the time). It costs 7 ringgit and takes about one hour. You buy tickets on the bus.
You can take a bus straight to KL from Jerantut for about 18.5 ringgit. The journey is 3 hours. We would have had to wait three hours for it to arrive, however, since the earlier times were already sold out.
Instead, we took a bus right away to Temerloh. It’s about an hour and a half ride and costs 6.3 ringgit.
From Temerloh, buses leave regularly to KL for about 11.6 ringgit. The journey takes 2- 2.5 hours.
We arrived in Kuala Lumpur at the Pekeliling Bus Terminal.
From the bus station, there are city buses, a skytrain, and the free GO KL buses available to take you where you’d like to be in KL. It is roughly two miles from Chinatown.
There are a few routes around the city that are covered by the GO KL free buses. The one that comes to this bus station is called the Red Line. The Red Line does not go directly to Chinatown, but it will bring you to the Central Bus Station where you can switch to any of the other lines. Purple Line brings you to Chinatown. All the lines stop in the city center, called Pavilion.
To do the route backwards, from Kl to Kuala Tahan, jump on the Red Line to Pekeliling Bus Terminal and you can most-likely buy a ticket straight to Jerantut for the same day. If there are no available tickets for Jeranhut, perhaps the route to Temerloh and then Jerantut will serve you well. If you would like to do part of the journey by boat to Kuala Tahan or the resort in Taman Negara, people at the bus station will have the bus driver drop you off at the boat dock. I believe the boat ride costs around 37 ringgit.
Happy travels!
