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Published: October 11th 2008
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The Hide
We stayed here on our second night in the jungle. The morning of the day I left Melaka, for Taman Negara, there was a big thunderstorm. The jungle at Taman Negara isn't very accesible and because of the storm I ended up leaving on the afternon bus and having to stay a night in Kuala Lumpur becuase there wasn't a connecting bus to Jerantut until the next morning. From Jerantut you can get a bus straight to Taman Negara or you can get to a jetty at Kuala Tembling and the get a boat across. I wanted to get the boat beacuse it's a scenic three-hour trip and the last one is supposed to go at 2pm so I thought I'd miss it because my bus from Jerantut didn't get in till about 13:15. Lukily, I met an Argentinian man on the way to Jerantut and he speaks Malay! I would have been completely lost at Jerantut and would probably have ended up just getting the bus straight to Taman Negara but he spoke to a couple of people and one of them owned a boat that goes across that wasn't going till 3pm so we got a minibus to the jetty and then got the boat to the jungle. The
Taman Negara
A tiger footprint boat is a small wooden thing that you sit on the bottom of. We saw some water buffalo and I think some wild pigs of some sort, a couple of people said they spotted a monkey but I didn't see it.
There's one guide recommended in the Lonely Planet and I e-mailed him before I got there to see if he had any trips into the jungle planned for when I was going to be there. I wasn't very hopeful because everyone has the Lonely Planet and he's the only guide mentioned in there. He e-mailed back and told me to find him when I got there and he'd need a minimum of four people. So, I still wasn't too hopeful and I turned up a day later than I'd said I would be arriving but when I got there he was sitting with a group of seven Polish people who wanted to do a three-day, two-night inner-jungle trek and he told me I could join the group and we would leave the next day, so I was very lucky.
Before we started the trek on Monday we were taken by boat to the Canopy Walkway. It's the
Taman Negara
A Three-Horned Frog longest one in the world and I did it! Although the bottom is made up of a bit of rope and some planks of wood layed on top of ladders it actually felt really safe and I enjoyed it. Afterwards we got back on the boat and headed up the river for an hour or two before we arrived at the start of the trek. On the first day we walked for about five hours and that was the most walking we did in one day. We saw tiger and elephant footprints and were shown marks where elephants had rubbed themselves against the cave that we slept in on the first night. The cave was cool, it was really big and tall and suprisingly warm.
Yesterday, we didn't set off till after 10am and we only did a couple of hours walking and then stopped at a river for a couple of hours for lunch. Then, we only had about another half an hour of walking before we arrived at the hide where we stayed that night. There was a shower at the hide, which was a lovely surprise! The jungle stinks! Most of us went to bed quite early but a few stayed up with flashlights to watch from the viewing window and I got woken up after a few hours in bed because a tapir had come into the area of jungle right in front of the hide. It was great to see a wild tapir and it was in full view. It stayed around for a few minutes but I was half asleep and wasn't quick enough to get a photo before it wandered off.
Today, Man, our guide, found a Three-Horned Frog, which is a rare species of frog only found in Taman Negara. We ate a flower called White Ginger, that is supposed to taste of ginger but it just tasted like a flower to me! We also ate some small red berry looking things- I can't remember what they're called- that tasted a bit like grapes. There was only about an hour of walking to do today before the boat came to meet us. On the way back to base we stopped at a couple of kampungs (villages) alongside the river. At the second kampung we were shown how Orang Asli (indigenous people of Peninsular Malaysia) make fire and hunt with blowsticks. Man also arranged for us to drink water from a type of tree found in the jungle. On the way back to base in the boat the driver of another boat wasn't watching where he was going and crashed into us. I was at the front on the side it hit but the boat is made of stronger stuff than it looked becuase I came out of it unscathed. We got back at midday and I got straight into a delicious cold shower before heading back to Jerantut.
I really enjoyed the jungle trek but now all of my clothes really smell! Oh well, I'm home in a few days so I'll get Mum or Dad to wash them. Haha. Just kidding, Mum and Dad! I've just had all my clothes washed, dryed and folded for the equivalent of less than a pound in Jerantut, which is where I'm staying tonight and catching the train back to Singapore from tomorrow.
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