Taman Negara

Canopy Walkway

It's a bus to Tembeling Jetty in central Malaysia and then a three hour slow-boat ride to a small town on the Tembeling River called Kuala Tahan which is where you base yourself. On the other side of the river (a 30 second boat ride will take you there and back) is the entrance to the National Park of Taman Negara.

Taman Negara is awesome. It claims fame to being the oldest rainforest in the world (130 million years). It sprawls some 4343 Sq Km and it is a wonderland of jungle wildlife and hardcore trekking. Forget those walks in northern Thailand - this is the real deal!!!

I covered a lot of ground on the few days that I spent here. On the first day, Peter and I went out on some small walks - not venturing too far - just to check some of the nearby trails out. We saw a variety of wildlife including a dying boar. We made it to one of the hides - an observation post where you sit out waiting for wildlife to appear on the grassy clearings and salt licks in front of you. You need a lot of patience here. It is possible to see elephants, black panthers and tigers out here - but generally they are rare and further in the depths of the jungle. There was a sighting of a tiger 21 days before we arrived though so we held out hope. We saw one large lizard.

That night we did a guided night trek. Most of the creatures in the jungle are nocturnal and so as you can imagine - we saw a lot of wildlife. Most were creepy crawlies including - stick insects, grasshoppers, frogs, crickets (I remember eating those in Bangkok) and giant red ants. We went back to the hide and saw wild deer and on the way back spotted a huge variety of large spiders - most of which were poisonous and all of which seemed to give you a week fever before a horrible death if you are bitten by them. We also saw a baby python - it was poisonous enough to kill small animals but when they are bigger they can easily take on a buffalo. I felt quite bad seeing the python - knowing it was an endangered species, yet munching on one in Cambodia. If I had been here first I probably wouldn't have ordered it from the menu!!!! The night trek was brilliant though - really worth it !!!

The next day we took a guided walk up to some viewpoints (Teresik Hill). Our guide explaining on the way what all the plants and trees are used for. Some plants were used as an insect repellent, or to stop the bleeding from a leech bite (I didn't know this at the time but this would become very useful knowledge), one was used as a natural shampoo, others ingredients in perfume. One plant has a very strong smell (some people pass out when near it) and is used for cures of dysentery and asthma!!! The rest of the plants however are toxic and often used by tribes people for making poisonous darts!!!

We then trekked to the famous Canopy Walkway, the longest of it's kind in the world. Its a wobbly rope walkway - very high up in the trees canopy. It's a lot of fun but I did underestimate how wobbly it is - nearly losing my camera (I wasn't going to lose another camera!!!). We were in a group with a reserved and quiet dutch couple. The lady was walking behind me on the walkway. Suddenly I turn around, holding on by both hands, she swings her legs up in the air - resting them on the top rope and swinging the walkway from side to side while making monkey noises. My jaw would have hit the ground had I not had to struggle to remain on the walkway which was now swinging frantically. I stood in amazement at this crazy dutch woman who must have been in her late 40's. Malaysian voices from all directions suddenly yelling around the tree tops for her to "get the hell down". Peter was laughing at the site, standing next to her husband who was shaking his head and shouting something in dutch to her. I asked Peter what he said later that night....."Act Normal" was the reply. I think she does stuff like that regularly. Actually this event was a bit of a wake up call for me. I had recently got used to the fact that people are pretty unpredictable. It was always animals and other wildlife that your told to look out for as they can be highly dangerous and unpredictable. At university, we learn how nature and it's most powerful forces are extremely erratic and produce the unexpected - an important lesson when you want to study and climb active volcanoes. Yet actually, people could be just as dangerous, pulling out the unexpected at any time. It took such an event to remind me of that - I won't forget it quickly.

In the afternoon I went to see the Orang Asli tribe, originally from Africa, they are the only tribe in Malaysia who never leave the jungle. They catch their food via poisonous darts, make their own fire and live a very simple life. Their marriage rituals are interesting. The father of the potential bride gives the man a task such as - catch and kill 3 monkeys in 24 hours or your not fit enough to marry my daughter. We got to try blowing poisonous darts at a target - I missed every time. They also showed us how they make fire which is amazing to watch and they can do it in just a few minutes. A very interesting experience altogether.

It's an interesting life they live, almost the opposite end of the livelihood scale to a westerner like myself. I thought of them as the same as the small island dwellers who reside on the tiny island of Ko Lipe in Thailand. You wonder sometimes who has the better life. These two communities wake up, are surrounded by stunning scenery everyday and live life in it's simplest form. They don't have to worry about trivial things like paying the mortgage or terrorist attacks on the underground, they don't have distractions of television or video games and they don't panic about when the next paycheck is coming through. Yet perhaps there lives are not better. They have to survive, if the male hunters don't return from the jungle with food - then they go hungry, they never really get to learn about the world or what wonderous things are outside of their jungle habitat. They will never experience some of things I have in the last few months. We have that option, they just simply don't. It's a difficult one - still haven't worked out the answer. Maybe it's somewhere blowing in the wind.

On our final day in Taman Negara, Peter and I got our supplies, took a boat 45 minutes up stream and then trekked the 13km on our own through the jungle. There are yellow markers to keep you from getting lost but they are few and far between and sometimes it is difficult to know which way to go. You don't want to be getting lost in Taman Negara. In 1996 an American girl (Molly) got split from her trekking group and to this day she has never been found!!! We started at Kuala Treggan, heading first to another hide although we saw nothing. Then we headed back. After 30 minutes, my bag split open and everything fell into a muddy ditch. Then while recovering my belongings I realised that small worm like creatures were moving towards me from all directions - they were leeches. They can detect body heat and suddenly start moving towards you, moving like a slinky down the stairs.It doesn't matter if you have repellent on or that your shoes and socks and done up tight - they get in somehow - there is no escape. After a while you just can't be bothered to flick each one off and you just give in to the fact that your gonna get your blood sucked. The bites don't hurt and they just drop off when they have had their feed - now looking like a big fat slug. I got bitten a few times - blood pouring out of every part of my body like a sieve. They inject you with an anti-clotting poison so you bleed for about 30 minutes. The bites don't hurt though so thats one bonus!!!

The trek was such fun. We had to cross a river - wading through up to our waists. We clambered across tree trunks, listening to the sound of the jungle. We had had training in the event of being attacked by an elephant or tiger but were lucky enough not to have to use our survival skills. Some parts were dense jungle, other bits opened out into clearings, birds and plant life and especially bugs of every colour, shape and worryingly of every size. We got lost a few times - but just headed back and found the yellow stickers - finding the right route and continuing. We were up and down slippery slopes, across termite colonies and over natural bridges or walkways. It was real jungle trekking and a lot of fun. After the all day trek, I collapsed on my bed, bleeding from every angle. My jungle adventure was over and I was heading out again to my next destination, where fine tea would be drunk and scones, cream and jam would be eaten - it sounds like England but I wasn't returning home..........