Taman Negara National Park

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Hello! We are in Taman Negara National park the Eastern side of Malaysia, where we have spent two nights so far, plus a further one tonight before KL tomorrow morning. I never never been to a rainforest, and it is spectacular. The power of nature is evident in such abudance in the rainforest. As we found out yesterday....

We caught another minibus from the Cameron Highlands on Monday with our new friends Diana and Lisa an American and Australian respectively, after about 8 hours travelling and a short delay in a small town outside the park we arrived in the pouring rain, wanting to sit in the van a while longer because it was so wet. We were turfed out pretty quickly and left to find ourselves shelter. We stumbled upon a cheap hostel and decided just to check in ASAP, before even checking anywhere else or if they had hot water, not clever. The girls found a lovely warm hostel with free tea, AC and hot water for showers. Oh well.

That evening we explored the settlement called Kuala Tahan and discovered it really was a tiny place, with a school, a hospital but no ATM, however you could still buy Coca Cola and people walked around in Man Utd shirts. The two biggest brands in the world... Anyway before long we became bored and decided to eat at one of the many floating restaurants on the river near where we are staying. The novelty of eating on a river lasted a few seconds, but the surrounding scenery was incredible, with no real night life we headed in early ready for our trek the next day.

The plan for Tuesday was to do a jungle trek through the forest for about 11km reach a hide, which is a remote shelter with no light or water or anything but is great for wildlife watching, camp there for one night and walk back. We entered the park about 9.30am and bought our permit and registered to stay in a hide that evening, the warden said the terrain was difficult, but the trek should not take longer than 6 hours. This was fine as our only problem was the light, but the sun did not set until about 7pm. Usually every afternoon around 4 it starts to really rain as well so we were going to try and beat this. First on the agenda though was the 350m long 40m high Jungle Canopy Walk which is the longest rope bridge in the world and towers above the forest floor and is a great place to view the trees and animals. This took about 30 mins to walk to and after about 30 minutes walking around, we were ready. Onwards to the hide.

We left about 11.30 and for the first hour or so the terrain wasn't too bad, just the relief was taking its toll. We also spotted some big bugs. I mean big bugs. Planet Earth offers no real perspective on a rain forest in terms of the wildlife that lives there. The first things we noticed were so rather large ants and other creepy crawlies which we weren't too bothered about. Then I spotted these weird worm like things which walked like a slinky falling over one end to move forward. We then found out they were leeches. Crazy leeches which grabbed onto your shoes or trousers and moved up into your shoe incredibly quickly. Rick noticed the first one on his leg, which started to bleed quite badly, then Muc had them in his shoe. We all checked our shoes and socks and I too had some in my shoe. From then on every 4 or 5 minutes one of us would shriek as we found more and more climbing up our legs. By the time you had sorted one foot out and taken off your shoe and put it back on, the other foot would be swarmed with them. And the suction! The little buggers were incredible to get off. They just would not go after flicking, burning and squashing they would still be there!

Anyway we coped and marched on. At about 1pm we had our first real break by a stream. We gathered our thoughts rung our shirts of the sweat, as we now in the heat of the day, it was sticky with humidty and we were sweating gallons. Then out of nowhere Muc couldn't remember if he had locked the hostel door. We discussed if any of us could remember if the door was locked and concluded we couldn't though Muc had the key. Because he maintained he was the last one out of the room he heading back. I started to head back too thinking we would just go back and see if it was locked, however Rick decided to go to the hide. Thinking that Muc would go back, stay there as he would not have enough time to get to the hide, I changed my mind and tried to catch up which Rick as he would be going into the jungle as his own. This was all a bad situation to be in. I should've known better and tried to keep us all together, but Rick insisted on pushing on and Muc did not want to be responsible for our bags being stolen. Instead I quickly caught Rick up after running through the jungle for about 20 mins. I have never sweated so much in my life. Turned out Rick had taken a bit of a tumble down a wet clay bank and injured his shoulder, his mobilty was limited and the terrain was getting worse. Still we pushed on for maybe another 90 mins through the jungle terrain, but the path was not getting any better and it would be easy for one of us to hurt ourselves, and still the leeches were crawling up us. Then it started raining. Really raining. Me and Rick toyed with solutions, as we felt out of our depth and Rick's shoulder was starting to give him pain, to either push on to the hide, although we were running short on time and didn't know how far it was. We cut our losses and made the sensible decision, which we felt was to hitch a ride on a boat back to the town and meet Muc there as we hoped he had returned, figured he had not enough time to make the hide and stayed put, especially in the weather conditions.

Me and Rick found a rocky outcrop on the river and flagged a boat down, and were surprised when it took us about 15 mins on the boat to return, which meant we had covered more ground than we thought. We arrived back at the hostel it the pouring rain sat down, but there was no sign of Ross. We asked around, no-one had seen him. We started to get a bit anxious. We decided to wait at the hostel for half an hour sort ourselves out and then see if he showed up. It was at this point where we took our shoes off. Leeches were everywhere inside my shoe, my white sock was red from all the blood they sucked, apparently these leeches can suck through sports socks. It was pretty gruesome and annoying. I even had one on my stomach a little too close to home for my liking. This was nothing to Rick's though. His shoes were more like sandals as they had breathing holes down each side. The leeches simply crawled through these holes and started sucking. Whereas I have about 6 wounds, Rick has over 15, on his toes, ankles, feet, inside of his leg the blood was bad. Our hostel resembled the Bates Motel. They were impossible to get off and right little buggers. We also were wet and stunk really gross. It was not pleasant. While Rick got all the leeches off him and his blood tried to clot I set off back into the main area of the jungle up to the canopy and the reception, to find or see if anyone had seen Ross. After an hour I returned without him, and no-one had seen him come back through the park entrance. We were getting a bit edgy, so hired a boat to take us up to the Jetty nearest the hide. The driver was a tour guide and extremely helpful and he alerted all the rangers up near the hide but due to fading light we nor them could get up to the hide still a 45 minute walk away. Still we shouted down the river, but there was no sign. The guide though he had probably made it too the hide in time, but the time scales were not that positive and this did nothing for my mind thinking of Ross stranded in the jungle, or injured after taking a fall. The terrain was bad, and we knew it. The rain had stopped but the surface was still wet. We returned to the entrance of the park and found that two other people were staying up at the hide, so if Ross had made it he would not be alone.

Last night was long, and neither me or Rick got much sleep. As Ross also had the key too our room we also had to break off the lock just to get in. Tomorrow the guide advised we stick it out until about 3pm which would have given him enough time to walk back, after that we could report a missing person. I was up at first light this morning, and Rick not long after we waited around until 9am, when we decided we had to eat. Neither of us in a great mood, we were just playing the waiting game and keeping our eyes peeled in case he had got a boat at early light. Then we saw him. We lept up from our table and called his name and embraced him and quickly pulled away from him, as he smelled so bad with a puzzled expression on his face. "What?" he said, always one to put a downer on the situation. He was ok, aside from a few falls of own and the attack of the leeches all down his ankles as well, and after a round of questions each we had worked out that Ross had legged it back to the hostel in marathon-esqe time Rambo style and walked back to the hide. He had made it with just enough light, yet was worried by our absence. Respectably he was worried for our safety just as much as we were for his, despite him being on his own. He confessed he too had visions of us in a cave with no water or light. We all agreed it was a stupid decision to split and vowed never to do it again, we all shared responsibly for what happened, and at one point yesterday we were all on our own. This was daft and goes against everything I have been taught when walking, although at least me and Rick did turn back when we felt out of our depth, Ross should've been there with us though. At least no-one was seriously injured and we all live to tell the tale. We all have a new found respect for nature and it shows the power of the elements. Scarred and tired, Ross didn't get any sleep for worrying either, we have chilled out today doing our own thing in the town, each of us has learnt something over the last 24 hours though, and it is this kind of experience which really makes you think about the bigger picture. All three of us had horrible thoughts going through our minds at some point yesterday and I have never been so relived to see someone in my life.

At least it was an adventure.

J x

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Comments

[Jenny Caroll]

Thank goodness
Thank goodness you're all ok. Like you say it was very foolish to split up. After everything I said to you James about staying together. Please take care and think things through. Are you taking your anti-malarials? Don't forget to do that. TAKE CARE. Lots of love xx

[Sarah]

Oooo James - what happened to 'I won't do anything too stupid' - guess it's all part of the experience though Looks rather fun =) Xx

[Timothy MacKay]

Leeches
Sounds like an interesting time so far!!! Just a quick tip, probably too late now, as you'll have left the rainforest by the time you get this, but squirting insect repellant on leeches will make them fall of within a few seconds. Have fun and take care Timxxx

[Steve & Dee]

The other two from the hide.
Just come across this blog and realised it was Ross's two friends writing it. This is so funny from the other sides perspective - the three of us were sat in the hide wondering what had happened to his "two skin head mates" lol Glad you both made it out ok!!