Me Tarzan?

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The journey to Jerantut (transport hub for Tama Negara national park (TM)) was uneventful. The bus was not overcrowded, no one had tried to rip us off nor did we have any near collisions with other traffic or cows. Still, the landscape was great as we traversed through many forest, jungles and plantations. In Jerantut we were picked up by a travel agency which arranged our trip to and from TM. Normally we opt for doing everything ourselves, certainly if the agencies seem a bit dodgy. This meant we just could not commit our safety and well being in the hand of any tourist agency in India, except for the official Incredible India one. and it must been said, the people working there are really helpful and friendly. But we had good faith in the one in Jerantut as the Malaysian people are great to live with. So we just sat back and enjoyed the ride.

One of the best parts in the TM experience is entering worlds oldest rain forest by boat. Here the river provides a gateway into a new world. Although wildlife was scares so close to civilization, the jungle commands more and more respect the deeper you penetrate. our destination was a village near the park headquarters and main entrance. This meant it was very tourist, something we were expecting. So we decided to heed the advice from our friends at the KL hostel and went off the beaten track and set up camp 1 km from the village. This, and our decision to do most of the closes trails to the park headquarters on Friday made TM a great experience for us, even though we greatly dislike lots of tourists. The reason Friday was so great for this is because Malaysia is a Muslim country. This means many people don't work on Friday. This means there are no tours and thus no tourists!

The next day I faced 2 of my fears.

I always believed that I would freak out or really dislike small spaces. Next to that I would not have accounted height as one of my specialties either. But our program was merciless. We would first visit a bat cave. After we would trek to and walk the canopy walkway and end with a night jungle walk. The last wouldn't be that bad I thought because I have no problem with creepy crawlers. Still the bat cave were up first.

Our exploration of the bat cave mostly involved not seeing lots of bats most of the time. Because it was dark and I didn't have a flashlight. Also we crawled through loads of bat guano (poo) and in the end we encountered some narrow passages. To make things worse, the going got a bit tougher after these small enclosures so frequent waiting was required. Yet I didn't freak out, nor was I unnerved in any way. So apart from acquiring a poo drenched pants, I got to know myself a little bit better.

Another one of my small fears has always been height. not a great thing when your about to enter a 0,5km walkway suspended 50m above ground. Jet instead it was a great experience. Also the canopy provided a great new perspective on the jungle.

The last activity was a night jungle walk, which was very lame. All we saw were a few walking sticks and one scorpion. We didn't venture far from the park either, but it was just 20 ringgit and better than sleeping I guess.

Early the next morning we bid the jungle goodbye and made our way to paradise

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Photos

Boat pushing
Later that trip we had to do the same to our boat.

Comments

[marlies]

tarzan and jane
hey tarzan and jane. you experienced the real jungle feeling. I guess. The picture of the real art of camouflage is outstanding: briljant is het juiste woord!! compliments for the photographer who made this picture and his model.