Taman Negara

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Taman Negara, the jungles of Malaysia are over 3 billion years old and supposed to be amazing for trekking, but they are only half our story.

To get to the jungle "HQ" we took the famous Jungle Train which leaves Kota Bharu at 9 in the morning and takes about 6 hours through the Malaysian countryside, forests and lots of tiny little villages. Luckily it was a Thursday when they ran a special "express train". Otherwise we would have had to get the normal train that stops at every single village and takes about 10 hours. We met 2 friends along the way, an Englishman called Harold who joined us for a trek the next and a Malaysian pensioner called Mohammhed who was on his way to see family in KL.The journey was really amazing, gorgeous scenery, all from the comfort of a airconditioned train!

Unfortunately we only had a day in the National Park and so didnt expect to see any animals as we wouldnt have time to trek very deep into the forest. But we very pleasantly suprised on our 2 treks. We did the first trek with Harold in the morning and saw some Long Tailed macaques monkeys feeding so we stopped and looked at them for about 20 minutes in the treetops til our necks ached. Later we read that you weren't supposed to stare at them as they may get aggressive and attack you. Whoops. We also saw some huge lizards who we stood and took photos of for ages and they werent timid at all.

Just Adam and I went for another trek in the afternoon and happened upon another couple with a guide who were going to a bat cave. I thought, yeah ok, will probably be a huge cave with a few bats in. Far from in, we wedged ourselves into a tiny cave with hundreds of tiny fruit bats hanging centrimetres above our heads and once in a while launching themselves into the air and narrowly missing our heads!

If we werent following someone else's guide who we have stopped there but he showed us a route into some deeper caves, through a series of more tiny gaps, pools of bat poo filled water and caves full of bats. I was just about ok getting back out into the open at the other end, but for a while we were all worried about Adam who got stuck for a while, unable to move either way from under the rock! The trek back to the village went smoothly apart from a herd of wild boar charging across our path and scaring the life out of us!

We were exhausted by the end of the day and had an early night ready to get the bus to KL the next morning for the final stop of the Asian part of our trip. Spent a few days there shopping and enjoying a bit of luxury while it cheap as we would soon be back grotty dorm beds in Oz!

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