Taman Negara

Taman Nagara National Park

To get to Taman Nagara is quite the trip. The bus ride from KL was 4hrs to arrive at Jerantut before getting on a 3hr boat cruise to the national park. The long thin wooden boats were deep set in the water almost to sinking point. As we began our 3hr cruise I felt quite at ease, for this is the first time that Megan and I had finally come into contact with fellow travelers! I felt calm for the first time and excited about the adventure ahead. The water was very brown from the muddy terrain with the rivers edge dense with jungle. At this point I was so keen to talk to as many backpackers as possible. Our first contact were two English girls (Angela & Becky) who are 18 and had just finished school and on their first trip. Virgin travelers! These two girls would end up traveling with us for a further 7days. Once we arrived we were swamped with very well rehearsed sales tactics to lull us into a false sense of dependence for these tour operators. Luckily Megan had done a lot of research and found out that most of the activities at Taman Negara can be done on your own with out a guide.

Once we found a great bright yellow hostel we ditched our bags and began wondering. We both bumped into anther traveling couple from the UK (Tom & Ladia) who are around our age. These guys would be our new Bestest Travel Buddies (BTB). After having an amazing onion and egg Roti with a second consisting of banana and honey, we set off for our first jungle trek with our BTB.

As we begin our trek I find Tom is obsessed with digital macro shots as much as I. So a 1hour walk turns into two while we try to capture the most vivid plant colours available. We then arrive at the 50ft high canopy walk. While waiting for our tickets we discover a huge beetle and a green tree snake. The canopy walk is made of basic aluminum ladders laid flat with planks of wood across them, VERY BASIC! After the canopy walk we decide to cool off in a local river with strong rapids that could make an elephant stand. That night we relaxed on another floating restaurant as the rain started to piss down! I could almost cry with happiness as it reminded me of the good old Queensland tropical storms. Just when you thought it couldn’t rain any harder, a wave of force would "step it up a notch" and become deafening. At this time we realised that our evening jungle walk would no longer be possible. As we made small talk with some fellow travelers around a large table two bold and beautiful Canadian men were about to rock our world! Scott "danger" Adams and Jason Be-atch joined our humble gathering and proposed the idea to roam the local town in search for beer. We gathered a crew of keen adventures and head into the unknown! With little luck we came across a local resort who offered us beer, pool and Karaoke!

The next day all our friends left us for greener pastures but it would not be the last time we meet while Megan and I set off for our jungle trek to a local cave. After dripping with sweat and almost dieing of fright after seeing a huge Goanna type lizard run past us, we came across a local tribe. This tribe was native to the area and were still accustomed to traditional clothing (lack there of) hunting and accommodation. It was interesting seeing my first true tribe in person and seeing the tribal kids hunting birds with their sling shots. We then progressed to the cave through leach infested mud trails to the caves entrance which had an entry the size of a small man hole. This was REAL caving! No tour guide and no lights! So I pull out my mini travel torch designed to find things deep in my back pack and was now being used as our complete guide. To enter the cave we had to walk through a foot of water for it to then suddenly open up into this amazing sight filled with thousands of wild bats! Then suddenly without warning one of the bats smelt Megan’s body odor and we were engulfed in a flurry of flying bats. It felt like we were sitting under a screeching helicopter waiting to take off in the dark!

After the cave we felt like we had conquered allot and were keen to move onto our next adventure...........THAILAND!

---

---