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Published: December 10th 2006
The Dock
Q: Why the hell didn't we take a boat in?! A: Because it costs money.The travel party left downtown Malaysia early in the morning on a sequence of bus rides into the ancient forested region of Malaysia called Tamma Negara National Park. The trip began with a small trot to the rapid transit station about 5 blocks from our Hostel that took us to the bus station, where a bus took us to Temerloh for a brief pause. While I don’t exactly have kind words for the Temerloh bus station, the shopping mart there offered us all kinds of road snacks we tucked away for our next ride to Jerantut. Finally, from Jerantut a final minivan took us first to the local grocery store and second to the town which resides on a large sloth of a river that runs gently through the park. The floating restaurants and other amenities scattered the shores of the swollen brown flow for quite aways up and down. While the proprietor of the restaurant we visited tried to sell us everything under the sun, we opted to continue on our adventure with no outside help and paid a ringette (sp?) each to cross the river.
The Tama Negara park headquarters were extremely helpful offering us maps and bookings
Jason "Leech Foot" Lush
The bleeding stopped sometime during the night, I can't say when. Thankfully we had emergency electrical tape, though I can't explain why anyone justified it's addition to the packs. for the small huts deep in the jungle. These huts are very basic dwellings where hikers and campers can trek to and spend the night all while crossing their fingers for the rare animal sighting. The huts are raised and positioned with the hopes of spotting anything from a Jaguar to an Elephant. Being somewhat of a veteran of these trials, I wasn’t expecting to see very much and as it turns out we got exactly what I expected in terms of animal sightings -rien. Regardless of that, the trails and jungle were really incredible, it brought back less than fond memories of our jungle adventures in Guatemala. Some similarities existed albeit this park had proper trails, maps and sleeping arrangements (well maybe not sleeping arrangements or meals) but normal things one would come to expect from a park. Getting there from Kuala Lumpur in one day left us with very little time to proceed on our hike and pack all the needed gear. We had laughable stocks of bread and spreads, unhealthy amounts of water and a few sleeping mats.
The expedition was going as expected until we breached the boundaries of the Malaysian leach kingdom and found ourselves
Days
Days were spent trying to read by the limited light provided by gaps in the jungles canopy. in great trouble and discomfort. The severity of the leaches was clearly the worst I had experienced and left my childhood leech experiences in the same category as Disneyland and Christmas morning. While I try not to take away any evilness from the Malaysian's far away leech brothers in B.C. it became clearer and clearer with each step forward that Canadian leeches simply don't have what it takes to fall grown men or make passers by scream and shriek in utter hysterics along well trodden paths. Ultimately these past leech experiences in my childhood were likely my downfall, as I really never minded leeches that much to begin with, and as we began the hike I might even say I was fond of leeches, given their ability to catch a fish from time to time and their propensity to play a good joke on someone.
What was more important I realize now in sober reflection, was to begin the situation in complete terror of the vile bastards and thus sprint the entire 3.8km through mud and stream to avoid the creatures and their tormenting ways, plus coat ones feet and legs with a healthy dose of duct tape. The
Leech Land
You're now crossing the border into a land ruled completely by the iron will of leeches. Though this picture was taken before we realized that and the sarcastic fear is quite obvious, please sympathize. parties initial downfall after coming upon the realization that the leaches had struck was to stop and remove them. The leeches after realizing this with what I can only attribute to be a heightened sense of awareness, pressed forward to conclude their feast in haste. It was a race against time as the wretched creatures clung with all their known strength both above the sock, over the sock, under the sock, under the shoe, over the pants and under the pants. Our attempts to push them back and remove their assault from our limbs only increased their wrath as and we started to panic. We later determined it was this very fear that they smell. Historians would later declare this moment the first low point of several on the trek. We increased the pace all while bleeding profusely and shouting occasionally as we moved forward. As dusk began to fall we scratched and crawled our way up to our shelter in complete and utter trepidation.
The shelter was a basic wooden structure raised on concrete pillars roughly 20 feet above the mud and leeches. While I wouldn't claim the leech siege was immediate, we could feel their presence from
Food Store
James elevates the food in order to avoid the draw of any unwanted visitors. inside the shelter. At this point we realized that we were, in fact, inside the shelter and had brought in countless leeches on our legs and feet. We fell back to the patio where clothing was removed and quickly set up a quarantine area which was quickly established as de-leeching platform platform alpha. With pools of blood everywhere, it took several hours, half a roll of toilette paper and 10 feet of electrical tape for my ankles to stop bleeding. At this point screams echoed through our wooden shack as Jord found a leech in his bed and we all shuddered in fear or laughed at him appropriately. Later after a modest dinner of 5 sandwiches each and 150ml of water we all lay in our hard wooden coffins that failed at being beds and witnessed the hilarious episode of my poor brother and cousin rigged with fear attempting to assassinate an innocent spider from the corner of the shack. Once the screams died down and arms were taken (a bamboo stick and unsteady words of encouragement respectively) they attempted to strike the unsuspecting creature and failed. Laughs erupted from other shack members. Apparently the spider had moved after the
Supplies
Nothing but what we needed to survive. first assault. Future attempts were apparently successful although I still suspect a conspiracy was at hand.
Since the shack had no doors, or manner of closing the windows James erected a makeshift (and apparently now patented) "noisemaker" that would crash to the ground and wake us if any creature larger than a raccoon were to enter without seeing this barrier. While no unwanted visitors breeched his defenses he still woke up several times in the night due to what I can only figure was a seemingly predetermined schedule of paranoia. The most exciting event out of our nightmare of a sleep was a squirrel (or so it was claimed) running over Jord's face from some manner of an abyss that both created and sent it on it's perverted errand. Initial claims labeled it as a rat, but after some calm and well worded disputes we determined it quite clearly was a squirrel. James later encountered another bug of sorts in his sleeping area which we all reluctantly agreed to acknowledge in order to try and return to sleep. It may at this point seem odd that the only sufferers of heinous insect or rodent crimes were the same two
"Beds"
Labeling them as such is rather generous. I prefer: "wooden coffins of pain". that have extreme phobias of the named creatures, we're proud to say that the group drew no correlation between the claimed events and the claimers, and furthermore share the utmost sympathy for all victims involved in these shocking events.
How this charade continued for well over 60 hours is totally beyond me, but somehow we fought through backaches, stomach problems, leeches and cabin fever to emerge as stronger men and nearly sprint back to the park headquarters in record time (and fewer leeches) to pack up and ship out. The boat ride to the Jerantut jetty was pure pleasure (not counting Jordan and I's ill attempt to hydrate and almost wet ourselves) and after 2 hours of gliding down the river we emerged to a bus tout and were dumped at the local bus station with tickets in hand to Temerloh. Arriving back to Temerloh we found comfort in the local Pizza Hut and ordered what can only be described as a sickening amount of food. Five grown men eating nothing but cheap bread and nutrient free spreads for 3 days brought on intense hunger and the result was 7 pizza's, 4 bowls of soup, 2 orders of bread
Photo
In a moment where I drew my last remaining inner strength, this photo was taken in an attempt to leave the world with one last shot of me before the leeches won their final victory. sticks and pitchers of Pepsi.
We decided our quickest route back to Bangkok should begin back in Kuala Lumpur, so we jumped on one more bus and took the 2 hour trip into the city. From there we took the what can only be described as the "hot shot monorail" across town to KL Central which is an extremely modern facility that has anything a wary traveler emerging from the jungle could ever expect. We bought overnight tickets to Hat Yai and waited 3 hours for our train to arrive. The train was a nightmare. We were so tired from sleeping on wood for so long it was thought that nothing could rival that misery and a train with padded chairs would be delightful. We clearly thought wrong. What happened on that train still confuses me to this day. The seats were fine, the movie was decent but it was like nobody else on board realized it was a night train at all. The lights were on the entire time (piercing, penetrating terrible bright lights) and none of the locals on board really slept. I remember waking up sometime around 1:00am, lights on full blast, kids running up and
Escape
It felt much like I would imagine Dutch felt after escaping the Predators nuclear weapon blast and getting picked up by the helicopter. down the aisle, people talking and then desperately trying to sleep again. Finally at 5am I gave up and wandered around to find the others. Jord and James had vanished with no signs of their whereabouts besides a blow up travel pillow. After seeing the movie "Flight Plan" a few weeks ago I quickly grew terrified of where they might have gone (or been taken). I searched most of the cars and finally stumbled into the dining car to see them both, bloodshot eyes, a zombie like stare, total confusion, babbling to one another complaining how they hadn't slept yet, so I sat down and kept them company trying to play Hearts, but I just kept winning given they hadn't slept at all and couldn't count past 8.
Finally we arrived in Hat Yai and made it through the border with little hassle. We spent the afternoon there and then got on another train for Bangkok. This time we very happy to have tickets on an actual sleeper train. And while sleeping on a train is never as good as a hotel, it far supersedes chairs. Finally after hiking, a riverboat, 3 buses and two overnight trains plus a
Sweet Gemmel
How we rely on you in times of need. taxi we arrived at our guest house in Bangkok safe and sound and craving a real bed.
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Stephen Paul
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nice string...
I just discovered your blogs, and what a journey you have been on. I liked the second post of your things you took along- vital items must have been the flask and frisbee. I like your journal entries, and the more pictures the better. Dude how much weight have you lost since those first few posts of your epic journey? you look totally different!