Taman Negara

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Taman Negara is a National Park protecting one of the most ancient rainforests in the world. It was aptly named as it rained on and off all three days we were there. Still, it was an amazing experience. We had to take a 3 hour boat ride to get there in these narrow, long wooden boats. We had most of our meals at little open air restaurants that were floating on the water. It really felt like you were far from civilization. Our first day we went on two tours. The first one was to a cave system called Gua Tellinga. It was really narrow in parts and full of water, but really neat. The best part was when we got to the center and there were hundreds of fruit bats sleeping from the roof and walls. If you flashed them with your camera they would wake up and fly around for a bit before settling down a bit. We got a little wet and very dirty, but it was really cool. After lunch we visited an Arang Asli village - they are the nomadic people who live in the rainforest. They continue to live traditionally, and it was really interesting to hear about their customs. We got a demonstration of a blowpipe that they use to shoot poison darts at their prey and then got to try it ourselves which was really fun. We bought a smaller one as a souvenir. Taman Negara is known for leeches that fall out of the trees on unsuspecting passersby. Although I didn't have any encounters with them, Steve was a leech magnet. He got one on his hand (see below) and one on his ankle. They were really small and didn't really hurt, which we found out when Steve changed his shirt later that night and discovered that he had been sucked dry by a leech that had cleverly hidden under his shirt! It left a perfect circle with a dot in the middle (kinda like the plague . . .).
The second day we went hiking up Bukit Teresek which was a hill in the jungle. It was very scenic, except I didn't like the climbing part very much! We went on a night safari after, which was really fun. Basically we sat in the back of a truck while a guy sitting on the top of the cab with a torchlight tried to find nocturnal animals for us to see. We saw some birds, but the neatest of all was the leapard cat. It is a little bigger than a domestic cat, with slightly bigger ears and has similar markings to a leapard. The guys who were leading it were a hoot, and we had a great time. The boat ride back the next day was much nicer as it wasn't raining, and we were able to see a lot more of the country side as we went by.

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