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Published: December 2nd 2006
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A good view
This was taken from the rope bridge on the Canopy walk 45m above the ground Hello everyone again.
Well it’s time for another update this time it is for the little place called Taman Negara which is Malaysia’s oldest rainforest to be precise it is 130 million years old. This is now a National Park.
We got to the national park after a very long bus journey and a very long boat trip down the river 2 hrs and 45 minutes on the boat to be precise we were court in a massive down pour and all of us got soaked. When we got on the boat we met an Australian guy called Brad. Who we have now been traveling with for a week. He’s a great laugh and can drink more then Owen anyway. So he’s a good drinking partner for Charlie after Owen has passed out after 2.
Once we arrived we looked for a hostel most were dark and dingy but we found a hostel at the top of the hill that looked like it was straight out of Jamaica everything including the toilet was brightly painted in blues, reds, yellows and greens. But for 1 pound 20 a night we were not going to complain. After such a long
Do you like heights?
Owen's face as Charlie is about to jump on the rope bridge journey we decided to have a quiet night as it was a long journey from KL and we wanted to get up early so we could do some trekking.
We got up early the next day ready to tackle the jungle and other activities we had planned. The first thing on our agenda was the 45 meter high canopy walk through the rainforest. Charlie and Brad thought it would be great fun to shake the rope bridge as Owen was walking across (he is not to keen on heights). The easiest way to put it he was gripping the ropes on both sides it was a surprise they did not snap. We got through that ok but you could see so much from it. It was a shame half of it was closed. But it was still 250 meters over a lot of rope bridges. Charlie loved the view but Owen only saw his feet as he was constantly looking down.
Our tour guide met us at the bottom of the walk his name was Matt and he slowly took us through the rainforest to the top of the hill so we could see the awesome view at
A short break
Boy this was needed The guy to the right is Brad the Ozzy guy the top. As you can see from the pictures Owen was a bit hot and sticky. Charlie recons you could of rinsed a pint of sweat from his T-shirt but he thought only a half. The 1.2 km walk up to the top was incredible it took about an hour and a half in really humid conditions. The other difficulty was you had to climb up some really rocky and steep sections where you only had the tree roots to pull yourself up with. Toward the top there were some choice words from Owen in Charlie’s direction to the effect of why the @#$@ did you convince me to come up this %$#$(*& mountain? (But we were friends by the time we got back) However at the top the view was well worth it the whole jungle was amazing the pictures do not do it justice. It only took us 45 minutes to get back down we were then given time to have some lunch before we continued with the afternoon activities.
In the afternoon we took a boat trip down the river to a jetee where we were dropped of and had to walk to the bat cave.
As we were walking it started to rain and we were glad to get to the caves however when you get in there it is even hotter then going up the mountain. Sweat and bat poo was everywhere (guess who fell over?) every time you tried to wipe the sweat out of your eyes it just got covered in bat poo. Navigation through the cave was a bit tricky as the guide forgot his torch and we only had 2 between four of us. It was a lot of fun down there we saw hundreds of bats the only time Charlie got really worried was when Matt turned round and found a snake hole and told us he wasn’t home and Charlie wanted to know if he wasn’t there where the hell was he. We even got to see prawns in some of the pools but they were not edible. We all got slightly nervous when matt told us there were tarantulas who hide down there during the day. So from that moment on we were very careful when we put our hands. Suddenly everyone wanted a torch to make sure they were not putting their hands on a hairy
arachnid. On the way out the route was very steep and very narrow when Owen got slightly stuck he did manage to wriggle his way out but got more bat poo on him. Charlie and Brad did want to help but were to busy laughing as it looked like the rocks were giving birth to Owen.
After we left we looked like we had been wearing the same clothes for a month and smelt like it as well. The good thing was we were on our way to the Orang Asli Tribe or Original people. We met the people who lived there and were greeted by a few friendly locals. We were told we could walk around and take pictures however we were not allowed to go into their homes (well would you like it?) We were sat down and they demonstrated how they made fire they did this faster then it takes Martyn to find a lighter. We were then shown how they made darts for their blow pipes they mainly eat monkey, birds and squirrels the poison used on the tip of the darts is strong enough to kill a human. We were then given a demonstration
on how to use it Charlie was up first and it was such as feeble attempt it would not of put a candle out on a five years old birthday cake. So as you can imagine it fell short of the target. Owen had a go and hit the polystyrene surrounding but not the actual target. We all had three goes but none of us hit the target it is surprising how fast the dart comes out and how accurate the tribe’s people can be. After saying good bye to the tribe’s people we headed back through the jungle and made our way to the boat to go and do our next adventure THE RAPIDS.
Matt cunningly sat at the front of the boat and put his hand in the water and directed this tidal wave of water at us soaking all three of us. This happened at least 6-8 times and he had to go to the back of the boat and scoop the water out as we were getting quite full. So before we got to the rapids we got soaked and the boat broke down. So after a few minutes of going around and around they
The Monsoon
When it rains it rains started the engine and we got going. The rapids did not soak us half as much as Matt did but they were really intense. It was a great feeling especially as we had done all this before anyone got up in Sunny Blighty to start their week of work. After all this we had another quiet night as we were all exhausted as you could probably imagine.
The next day we got up and took the boat back down the river. Yes you guessed it Owen fell asleep again on the boat no-one knew how as it was the smallest space imaginable. We then had to traveled back to KL to start our journey north up towards Langkawi but that will be kept for another time.(We still have not been able to lose the Aussie no matter how much we try jungle, boat, bus but he’s still following us).
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