Advertisement
Published: January 14th 2008
Malaysia PART 1: "Malaysia Truly Asia!!" (Kuala Lumpur) Malaysia PART 2: Malaysia Truly Jungle! (Taman Negara) Malaysia PART 3: (Georgetown) Malaysia PART 4: Malaysia's Island Paradise (Langkawi) After yet another late night of craziness in Kuala Lumpur, Jenna, Brian and I opened our sleepy eyes at 9am on the morning of the 26th to pack up our bags and head downstairs to meet our driver for the day. Our destination - the
Kuala Gandah Elephant Conservation Centre in Temerloh, followed by one night in the small town of Jerantut, before proceeding to Taman Negara, the world's oldest rainforest. As is the case in any country, your guide/driver can either make or break your trip, but with little to no control on selection, you always just have to cross your fingers and hope for the best. Luckily for us, our guide turned out to have a good sense of humor, and was really flexible, changing our itinerary slightly to take us to the unadvertised (but really cool)
Deerland Animal Park.
At the
Deerland Animal Park we were guided by a local to various areas where we were able to feed and
pet different animals. Our first stop was a field full of deer where we were able to feed them carrots (but that did not excite me very much as I live in an area overcrowded with tame deer). Next, we briefly held a hedgehog before proceeding to the cute, but dangerous, Sun Bear. The first Sun Bear we touched was still in training, so basically we were only able to take pictures with it, but the second bear was the father and was fully trained to lick honey off of our hands!! Having a bear (who was clearly much heavier and stronger than me)
gently lick honey off of my hand was really cool!.... However, as we joked around about how silly it is to cover yourself in bear food, before proceeding into his caged territory, I started to get a little scared and decided it was time to let someone else have a try! Only 5 minutes later the trainer talked us into hugging the bear as he was standing and drinking honey from a bottle! Crazy times!!!
Our second stop of the day was the much anticipated
Kuala Gandah Elephant Conservation Centre. For years this conservation center
Fooood!!
Front Row: A deer thinking my camera is stuffed with carrots.
Back Row: Jenna being bombarded by deer.has been responsible for the capture and relocation of rogue elephants from across Southeast Asia. As dangers such as poaching and reduction of natural habitat increase, the number of wild elephants has seen a dramatic decrease. The teams of men working with this conservation center trek into the depths of the jungles to capture and transport elephants (which are living in dangerous areas), and relocate them to areas such as Taman Negara National Park, where they will be safe from loggers and poachers. The tourist-oriented portion of this conservation center was established to bring awareness to the dangers facing Southeast Asia's elephants, in addition to help raise the required funds for elephant relocation. Visiting the center was heaps of fun! After watching an interesting, but brief film on the dangers and difficulties of elephant relocation, we went outside and were able to feed, ride, and bathe with the elephants. Feeding the elephants was by far my favorite! By holding bananas, melons, and cucumbers above them you can get their attention, and from there they will either grab it with their trunk and put it in their mouth on their own, or they will open their mouth and expect you to
Sun Bear
("Mare guma" in Japanese) push it in for them. This part is quite gross as the inside of the elephant's mouth is extremely slimy!! I'm pretty sure that everyone who was taking part in the elephant feeding let out at least one or two squeals!
That night after checking into our little hotel in Jerantut we had Adam, our driver, take us to the local eatery and we feasted on authentic Malay cuisine.
On the second day of our wildlife adventure, the 27th of December, we woke up a mere 10 minutes before our tour taxi was scheduled to pick us up. It was hectic! We were brushing our teeth, throwing everything into our backpacks, and trying to pack an overnight bag all at once. In addition, the three of us were in a tiny little hotel room with very little space to organize anything. Between expressing our frustrations at the broken alarm clock and asking how many more minutes we had, we somehow managed to get ourselves presentable and we rushed outside only to find that we were actually the only ones on the tour bus and we could have taken our time! Crappy!! (... After purchasing our park entrance and
"As long as he has food you will be safe."
How reassuring is this? When the bear is eating, you will be safe... when he finishes his coconut... he will attack. Good times! camera permits it was a pretty quite ride to the Kuala Tembeling jetty as we all took a little time to "wake up.")
The 60 km (3 hours) boat ride to Kuala Tahan was probably one of the most peaceful experiences I have had in a long time, and was definitely a highlight of my travels in Malaysia. Riding in this boat, which usually carries 15-20 people, with just the driver, Jenna, Brian, and myself was soooo nice. With not a soul in sight (except for the occasional monkey climbing the trees on the riverbank), and nothing but beautiful nature on either side of us, it would have been impossible not to relax. But... as was the theme with our vacation... we were soon busy again. With only one day in Taman Negara we knew we would have to see as much as possible that afternoon if we wanted to stick to plans. So, as soon as we got off the boat we found someone to organize tours for us, and within the hour were hopping on another boat to take us to the Canopy Walkway, bat caves, and
Orang Asli village.
Out of the three activities, the
Orang Asli village was my favorite. I guess since I have always been fascinated by foreign cultures, it is really no surprise that seeing and experiencing the daily lifestyles of this indigenous tribe fascinated me the way it did. Hearing about things such as hunting methods, and family/marriage rituals was very interesting.... especially since they are interrelated. Apparently, in the
Orang Asli tribe, the chief keeps track of how many monkeys a man kills (for food), and once he has consistently killed a certain number of monkeys over a period of time, he will be allowed to take a wife from within the tribe. Girls tend to be married off at the young age of 13 or 14, and guys are usually 17 or 18 when they first marry. On our visit I asked about a young mother with 3 babies, and found out that she was only 17 years old! I know that they are happy with their lifestyle and do not want to change anything... but man am I ever glad that I came from the background that I did!
Later that night, after a dinner which exploded all over my shirt, we climbed into the back
of a pick-up truck for what we thought was going to be a very exciting night safari. ... and one hour later, after seeing a very small snake, 3 birds, and a person walking, we climbed back out of the pick-up truck to call it a day.
Overall impressions - Taman Negara is amazingly beautiful, and contains an abundance of flora and fauna. However, if you want to see wildlife, it is NECESSARY to participate in one of the longer jungle treks which take you REALLY deep into the forest. Going in for just a day, you see some birds and bugs, and you get eaten alive by mosquitoes... but you do not get the whole jungle experience. But... it's still really pretty and I loved it!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.175s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 18; qc: 89; dbt: 0.1123s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
mom
non-member comment
Another amazing adventure. Glad it was you on that Canopy Walkway though - they would still be trying to pry my hands loose from the handrails. LOL