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Published: November 22nd 2006
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The park
The park is on the other side of the river, which is lined with floating restaurants and shops selling an assorted array of hiking "stuff". Dont count on it for anything other than basic dried goods and fluids.
It costs RM1 per person per trip across the river. Taman Negara is one of the oldest (the oldest?) natural rainforest in some sub-segment of the world...or maybe the whole world...any way you look at it, they tell you it's really really really old. It's also pretty close to Singapore and a great hiking opportunity for those of us who want more than an
urban jungle from time to time. It's on the east side of Malaysia's "hinterland" and it's easiest to get to from Singapore by train, then take a boat and/or bus.
I have to thank Thomas from Germany who did most of the organising and planning for this trip...I just followed which made life much less stressful than one of my usual "get up and go and figure it out on the road" trips. Anyhoo, on with the show.
The Group: Thomas, Stefan from Germany, Annika from Finland, Lisa from Austria and me.
The Plan: Take the train up to Jerantut, boat it from there to Kuala Temeling and then Kuala Tahan and on in to the Jungle to hike the "Rentis Tenor" trail for 3 days and head back. The LP had listed guide prices as RM150 per day and RM100 per night...for up
Coffin Boats
These boats are the standard fare for going up and down the river (and its rapids). They are narrow but suprisingly roomy and stable. These guys must have done this run a thousand times because our driver moved in and out of the rapids like a champ. to 12 people, split 5 ways, 3 days, 2 nights RM500 would be RM100 per person, including food, not too bad for 3 days of hiking...as seems to be happening more frequently the LP wasnt exactly right, and our plan didn't quite go, well, to plan.
Getting there: Easy enough to start with, you can jump on the train from Singapore to Jerantut, it leaves Singapore (or at least did in Sept of 2006) at 6:30pm and takes about an hour to get to/through malaysian border control and leaves JB at around 7:30pm. Now, it just so happens that it's about half as expensive to go from JB to Jerantut as is it to go from Singapore to Jerantut...and you can just buy 3rd class seats the day of. It's not worth getting a sleeper for this trip, you get in early in the morning and a sleeper would just be a waste of money really. In retrospect I'd have gone to JB first and bought the ticket there on the day (you can book online, but for some reason the Malaysian Railway website doesnt seem to work from where I am in Singapore...)
When we arrived in Jerantut,
Resort Entrance
Welcome to your starting point. This was once a resort/lodge but got taken over by the jungle when it was decided that it wouldn't be profitable way out here and was closed. There are 2 or 3 others like this dotted around the park. the plan was to find somewhere to either stash our bags and have a shower for a few hours until the busses/boats started running and grab some food and keep pushing forward, but to our amazement and delight, as we were doing the usual "I'm a lost tourist, let's look at the LP" thing, a very nice man with a very empty private bus offered us a ride straight to the park for RM6 each...a bargain at 3 in the morning when you just want to get where you are going. It was a tour group perhaps of some company or something, I didnt quite catch the story, I was a little sleepy. A quick stop at a 24 hour food place (where I tried in vain to find an ATM that would take my MasterCard Debit card or NETS ATM card and vegan food) and we were back in the bus heading wherever they were taking us, something you can never be 100% sure of after getting on a random bus in a random town at the butt-crack of dawn...I fell straight asleep and slept very well.
The Park:
We got to the park somewhere a little after
Rope bridge anyone?
There is really nothing like a poorly maintained rope bridge, next to a crumbling abandoned resort to make you feel good about your choice to walk a trail with no guide. sunrise, I didn't have a watch so I can't tell you exactly when.
We pulled down a dead end street with a couple of guest houses on one side and something that could have been a school or other government structure (boring, big and problably wasted a lot of money) on the other. Our friends who had given us a lift stopped at one of the guest houses to take showers and get ready to head into the jungle. We decided to just head into the jungle.
It was still early so we figured we would be able to negotiate a good price for the trip to Rentis Tinor. Using the Lonely Planet's quote of the Wildlife Departement's quote we were assuming the prices would be RM150 per day, RM100 per night per guide for up to 12 people. In other words, RM600 for 3 days, 2 nights split 5 ways...easy. Yeah...uhhh...no. We looked for what must have been 3 hours, and everyone was saying it was going to cost us closer to RM300 per person for the trip...and if we tried it on our own we were alternately told we would get lost and die or that
The "cave"
More of an overhang really. It kept us dry when it rained, and it kept us off the ground, but none of us slept well for fear of some animal or army of leeches attacking us. Bring a mosquito net - there were practiaclly no bugs, but the sheer mental safety-blanket factor would make it worth it. we would be fine and be back feeling like we had gone for a saturday stroll in the Singapore Botanic Gardens. Now, I'm too cheap and Thomas was far to set on the Tinor trail for us to actually decide on something. We had read that the other trail...the popular one which I can't remember the name of...was "3 meters wide and might as well have been paved" which didn't really appeal to us, but then, neither did spending SG$150 when we had been expecting SG$50-75. Anyhoo, to cut a long story short and to get to the fun stuff, we finally decided to go for the cheap option, take the "3 meter wide trail" and no guide (which we were advised not to do, but I think they really just wanted to get rid of "those annoying kids").
We bought supplies (ramen noodles and fruit) and set off in a "coffin boat" for a long trip up the river to our starting point
Where we started was marked on the map as a resort, but when we got there it was completely abandoned and run down and overgrown with jungle. A very atmospheric way to start the trip. I approved. We then spent a good 30 minutes gassing ourselves with DEET (toxic mosquito repellant) and tucking various bits of clothing into other various bits of clothing in a vain attempt to keep leeches off of us. We ended up emptying 3 or 4 cans of hard core DEET onto essentially 3 people over the next 2 and a half days. Fresh air is a truly wonderful thing.
Once the soon-to-be-familiar routine was over, we headed off in the direction we thought we were most likely to find this mythical "3 meter wide trail." The plan was to spend the first night sleeping in a cave then the second in a shelter. We never did find the 3 meter wide trail (much to our collective enjoyment) nor did we find the cave (much to our collective sleepless night). The trail was mostly a well walked but still wild-enough trail for us to feel alone and jungly, and we didn't meet a single other person until the last few hours on our 3rd day. Coming from North America where the second you set foot on a national parks trail you are hit by a wave of hikers, this was a very welcome emptiness. The "cave" on the other hand was not so easy to find as the trail, nor was it
quite as enjoyable.
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