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January 30th 2008
Published: February 4th 2008
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January 30th:

Today we hopped on a bus out of the city to Jerantut (3 hr ride) where we then hopped on a boat to Taman Negara (another 3 hours). The catch is that between the two we had 2 1/2 hours to kill for lunch, which we drew out by typing up a long blog entry of our time in KL which disappeared into nowhere when we lost our connection and we also nearly missed our boat - luckily we were close to the takeoff point and the tour lady found us before they left. The boat was a long narrow wooden boat with aluminum sheet metal strapped to some 2X2s as a roof, which was nice shade from the hot sun. The ride was great for the first half hour - beautiful scenery, smooth - but then the rest of the ride was constant shifting to keep our bums from numbing. When we were not sleeping, we saw water buffalo, water monitor lizard, and the local natives (known as Orang Asli) going about their daily business along the river.

Once we arrived at the village, we realized that it was not nearly as primitive as we had envisioned. Everyone had power, running water, and most seemed to have satellite TV and/or computers (although we heard the connection was not very reliable or fast for internet). We also found out there was a road leading to the village, which the tour company who sold us our tickets failed to mention. After sitting through the tour company orientation (where they try to sell you guided tours and tour options, yet again) we went and found a place to stay on our own. We stayed at a place called Ekoton Village Chalets, which was okay - we got a deal on our room because the A/C was broken which means we were sweating like pigs 24 hours a day. After getting settled in (and finding out that we had managed to secure what seemed to be the last available room in the village) we figured out that all the non-tour company sponsored information (meaning the more accurate information) was located across the river at the forestry department park office. So we took the local ferry across for RM1 each and marched up to the desk to where we saw some angered hikers complaining about the trail and overnight hides (little cabins), they looked pretty rough. ANyway when they left we started picking the friendly park rangers brains about what to do for the next couple of days. After hearing more about the angered fellow we decided not to stay at the hides and to just do some day trips. A nice Dutchman was asking questions similar to ours so we asked him if he would like to join us. So the plan were set, we made reservations to have a boat take us up the river the next day. Since we already paid to get across the river that evening and we had some daylight left, we went for a short jungle walk. It was a great introduction to the jungle - we saw a wild boar before we even left the camp area then shortly down the trail we spotted several monkeys (apparently pretty unusual to spot there), and a mystery animal climbing down a tree, plus the usual lizards, ants, and other assorted insects. We were headed for the swimming hole the park rangers told us about but when we got to it, the dark, tea-colored water didn't look all that appealing (although it was translucent which was an improvement from the river water we came in on). Needless to say, we skipped the swimming. Since it was a half hour before nightfall we turned back to seek out dinner. The only dinner place on that side of the river was a very nice resort with a really inviting open air restaurant. After a quick glance at the menu we were quickly suckered in, they had some delicious looking american food. As we waited to order, we had fun observing the strange, large, LOUD insects that were buzzing our heads and ramming into walls and lights. We also noticed a leech that seemed to be creeping away from our table - we thought this was very strange and it didn't occur to us that we may have brought it in. Turns out, it had Trevor for dinner, which we realized much later that evening when he discovered blood on his sock and a hole in his ankle. Okay, back to dinner...the food was great, even though it was three times the price of our usual meals, but the atmosphere made it worthwhile and we got 2-3 times the amount of actual meat (versus mostly rice with a little meat). We also found out after asking a waiter that the large bugs that were everywhere are called "Vien Vien" (not sure on that spelling), but it translates to Happy Bug, so that is what we called them. The happy bugs make a really strange high pitch scream similar to a locust I think and their wings make a really loud flapping noise. They're about 2 1/2 inches long and look like a huge, fat fly with oversized wings. They are pretty creepy but harmless.

January 31st:

In the morning we tromped down to the restaurant boat (many of the restaurants were actually like houseboats tethered up on the side of the river). As we were eating, we noticed young lady walking toward the restaurant and we thought about asking if she wanted to join us on our hike (the boat could take up to 4 people and this would help spread out the cost a bit more), but decided against it because she didn't look prepared to go hiking, she looked more like she was going to a party with her fashionable shoes and attire. Tjabel, the Dutch guy, showed up shortly thereafter and introduced us to Beilla, the party girl, and said he had invited her along. We both silently had the same worried thought, but smiled and welcomed her to our little treking party. (pun intended). We put our backpacks on and Beilla put her purse on (with her lunch and water bottle in a plastic bag tied to the purse) and we boarded the boat. This boat was a one-person-wide rickety wooden long boat similar to the one we rode in on but shorter and without the roof. As in the other boat, we figured the life jackets were there mainly for cushioning. Ten minutes into our half hour ride, the driver of the boat mentioned that we may want to put the camera away as we "might" get a little wet. Talk about an understatement. We don't have pictures of it because we listened to his advice, but we ended up going up river through fairly good size rapids, some of them requiring tricky manuevering around rocks and bends in the river. A short ways into the rapids, and already wet, a boat full of what looked like local teenagers passed us, laughing and pointing. Trying to figure out what they were laughing at, we noticed they all had life jackets on and judging by the class 2-3 rapids coming up we swiftly put on our jackets. However, all the clips on cara's life jacket were broken. Needless to say, the RM90 boat ride was quite an adventure, and worth the money! When we arrived at our destination, Kuala Trenggan, they dropped us of at what appeared to be a dilapidated old resort and we wrung ourselves out from the wet boat ride. We double checked to make sure this is where we were supposed to be and set off down the trail.

We spent the first part of the hike getting to know each other. Tjabel lives in Amsterdam and is a Ferrier(?not sure if that's the right word, but basically he's an auctioneer for high end art and stuff sold through places like Christies and Sotheby's). Beilla is from Paris, but lives in Vietnam and runs a french language institute. Both very nice people and a joy to hike with.

The hike was quite an adventure. We were told it would be about a 6-7 hour hike (leading us back to the main village area). Shortly into the journey we noticed the infamous leeches all over the trail. They looked like little worms sticking their bodies into the air, waving themselves around in search of a victim. When they did grab onto our shoes, they were surprisingly quick at inching up toward the openings and toward skin. This slowed our hiking down considerably as we had to do leech checks every 10 minutes or so. About an hour into the hike, we had to do a river crossing. After seeing all the hungry leeches we were hesitant to expose our skin, but definitely didn't want to spend the rest of the day hiking in wet shoes so we took them off and crossed the thigh-deep (on cara anyway) water. The crossing went well, but it was a race to put shoes on quickly as there were many leeches waiting for us...we hurried and continued down the trail.
As we hiked, we stopped for the occasional snack break, which was taken standing up and only for a few minutes due to the leeches and the abundance of ants (some up to an inch long!). As we continued, our leech stops got more and more spread out without incident until Beilla looked down and saw lots of blood on her pant leg. Quickly, she took a better look and realized a leech had already had its fill and escaped. Suddenly we were on level red leech alert and the checking became much more frequent.

Apart from all the leeches, the jungle was really great! There was an amazing variety of plant and tree species. Many of the trees were over 150 feet tall and 5 (or more) feet in diameter, not to mention some really interesting shapes and root structures. A lot of the lower plant life had scary defense mechanisms like spiny stalks and leaves, which snagged us and our clothes on occasion . The ants and termites pretty much ruled the place and were everywhere. We'll try to upload one of the videos. We saw huge termite mounts up to 5 feet tall and maybe 5 feet wide in some cases. Another amazing thing was the symphony of sounds that was constant and sometimes so loud it was annoying, which included bugs, monkeys, birds, wind, trees, and who knows what else. The trail itself was generally pretty good, except for the occasional fallen tree that caused a diversion in the path and actually led us astray off the path for about a half hour. It was a little scary because we were following some sort of path but then it just ended and this happened several times. We finally decided to backtrack until we found the part of the trail we knew was the right one. During this time spent lost, we came up with the headlines that would appear weeks later - "Four Westerners Marooned in the Malaysian Jungle" - "Couple Weds in Jungle, Not Sure When They Would Escape" - you get the idea.

With all the fallen trees, we had wondered what it would be like to be around when one fell and where would you go if it was falling toward the trail. A while after this conversation, we heard a loud noise not too far away which got louder and louder until it stopped suddenly. We figured this was either a tree falling or an elephant jogging through the woods. Then later on, Trevor and Beilla were suddenly startled by a falling branch near the trail. Keep in mind the size of some of these branches is bigger than many of our trees at home.

We should refer back to our original description of Beilla and how unprepared she was for this trek. She actually admitted early on that she was not prepared and laughed about wearing her "party shoes" (those are her words). She was a great sport about the whole thing, especially when one of her party shoes had a blowout and the front part of the sole separated from the rest of the shoe. Tjabel came up with the idea to re-lace it in a way that would actually tie the sole back on - this worked pretty well, but about every kilometer, she had to re-adjust. 5 to 6 hours into the hike, we started complaining about our feet getting sore, yet she barely said a word about it, and we couldn't imagine how bad her feet felt. She even talked about doing a hike with us the next day!

The other thing we should mention is the very inconsistent signs along the trail. At one point we saw a sign saying we had 8 Km left to go, then a while later we saw one that said we had 9 km left. Different variations of this went on for several signs and we started to question all the information we had been given about this trail.

Leeches Strike Again!!!

Trevor noticed a slight itch on his foot and looked down to see his sock soaked in blood. Upon further investigation, he discovered 2 more still sucking away inside his shoes! At this point, Beilla had also been attacked three times, but Tjabel and Cara managed to escape unscathed. Later, the points for the most alarming leech attack went to Trevor when he looked down and noticed a 6 inch round blood stained area of his shirt on his abdomen. He frantically stripped down to his tighty whities to discover.........
nothing! Okay, actually he just took his shirt off and found that the leech had already done it's business and left, but the thought ran through his head that they might be all over his body when he removed his shirt. Despite the bloody mess that these creatures left, the assaults were painless, which made detecting them all the more challenging.

Fighting off leeches, thorns, broken shoes, and poor signage we finally reached our destination after 8 hours and several liters of water. We were all itching for a cold drink so we had drinks at the fancy resort to celebrate coming out of the jungle alive. After cleaning up, we headed back to the resort for a nice dinner and conversation with our newfound friends.


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4th February 2008

omg...leeches
I'm so glad I'm in modern medicine... because just reading about the leeches I became sooo itchy!!! I am reading your blog every time I get an update!
4th March 2008

Leeches and Party Shoes!
Sounds like a good adventure. I didn't realize leeches were so sleuth.

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