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Published: March 17th 2007
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We arrived at the main village people stay in called Kuala Tahan in Taman Negara National Park at 6.30pm. The forest here is supposed to be the oldest in the world, the area was never affected by assorted ice ages or volcanic eruptions so besides people there has been little interference with the virgin jungle in the last 130 million years, (or so my little book says!)
We found accommodation which turned out to be a bit of an effort after travelling for so long but was also quite entertaining. Whilst Rich was trying to barter the price of a room down with a Malaysian man the man thought he was asking where the internet was so Rich was saying 50 Ringitt a night & the man would say it's round the corner & to the left, this conversation was repeated about three times, it was quite funny.
We hadn't eaten all day so grabbed some food from a floating restaurant on the river & managed to locate a hotel that had a bar in it & sold cold beer, it was the most expensive beer of our trip so far; 1.50 English Pounds for a small can. Rich
stayed for one & then went home, Claire & I got chatting to two American guys, Clay & Geoff & a Canadian guy called Ian. Clay invited Claire & I to go & see him in a show he will be in when we plan to go to Las Vegas in September time, (My Fair Lady, which could proof interesting but I love musicals!)
When we got up I had a shower which was so cold I almost cried, the screams I made put Claire & Rich off having a shower. We had arranged to meet another German couple we had met on the mini bus from the Cameron Highlands, (Ingrid & Gorlo), to get a long tail boat to Gua Telingga, the bat caves. We met them as arranged for breakfast at 9am in the floating restaurant & got the boat down stream at 10am.
We walked up the river bank & were in the Orang Asli village, who are the people who live in the jungle & are thought to be the original inhabitants of Peninsula Malaysia; their homes were made of natural materials & we saw how they used sap from one of the trees
in the forest to hunt & poison animals. It feels rude when you walk around these villages as if you are just walking into someone’s home & looking around.
We walked about 2km's through the jungle to Gua Telingga, which is a cave. We realised we had only one torch between the five of us, which I would like to add was my torch! We went in the cave which was very dark & small, (you had to climb on hands & knees & use a rope as a guide). It was a struggle as we had to pass the torch back & forth along the line, we got so far into a cave which was almost completely pitch black & there were hundreds of bats hanging from the top of the cave. Of course we were all excited & got our cameras out, the bats started flying around & you could feel them brush past you. At one point I had to put my hands on the rocks to guide my way around the cave, I was obviously putting my hands in a lot of bat pooh but didn't really have much choice, it was quite funny! We
turned back after a while as having only one torch was proving too much of a challenge & it was amazingly hot.
We walked back through the forest to the Orang Asli village, on the way Claire spotted some huge monitor lizards which were great to watch; we then got our boat back to Kuala Tahan where we had some lunch. We arranged to meet Gorlo & Ingrid again in fifteen minutes & when we met back up Ingrid had decided to spend the afternoon relaxing. The four of us went for a walk through the rainforest to the Canopy Walkways, which was about 2km's away.
When we got to the canopy walkway we went 25 metres above the jungle floor into the tree tops along 400 metres of rope bridges, (Claire & I thought we were in 'I'm a Celebrity get me out of here'). On our walk we saw quite a few monitor lizards; some were almost 3 metres long. We walked back towards our guesthouse & saw a couple of wild boar; we went & sat in a hide & managed to annoy a man that had been sat there quietly looking for animals but
apparently we had scared the birds off walking up the stairs.
We sat there for a bit like children waiting for Christmas & after 10 minutes all we had seen was another wild boar. Rich kept whispering to me, "Look there's a tiger!" Then Gorlo said he was going to run across the clearing in the jungle & that we were all to take photos, after that we headed back, we saw a mouse deer on the way home before crossing the river to Kuala Tahan. We stopped on one of the floating restaurants for a cold drink & some fresh fruit.
Claire & I went home & had a shower & a sleep whilst Rich & Gorlo sat & watched some footy on TV. Claire & I wanted to do a Night Jungle Safari on a boat but the lady had overbooked it so we were going to do it on Monday night instead & Sunday we all had a fairly early alcohol free night.
Monday we had a lie in & had breakfast then headed out on our trek, (the three of us). We started out on a fairly flat part of the jungle before
starting to ascend a hill. As it was so hot I really struggled & it was at this point I said I was not going to climb Mount Kinabalu in Sabah, (East Malaysia/Borneo which is half the size of Mount Everest).
The hill was called Bukit Teresek & was only 344 metres but it was really hard work, more like climbing than trekking & it was really hot. I made it to the top & collapsed on a bench which had a fantastic viewpoint. We met a German Family & as we were talking to them a big tropical storm moved in really quickly & it started to rain heavily, which was really nice & cooled the forest down.
We saw two large black & white birds, called Botak Leher Hitam, (a local man said they were peasants!) We also saw a squirrel, lots of spiders, giant ants, (at least an inch long; the biggest ants I have ever seen), butterflies & some more monitor lizards.
We passed a swimming area on the way home where they were a lot of Muslim people swimming fully clothes. I said to Claire & Rich "I will if you will", Rich said he didn't want to but Claire was up for swimming in the river fully clothed, I was so hot it was nice to cool down, we just had to keep an eye out for leeches! We walked through a camp site & sat to eat our picnic, (a rather late lunch). We went home & got showered & had another afternoon nap.
We decided to give the night jungle a miss as we thought we would be able to do it when we get to East Malaysia/Borneo. We went for dinner & Ian, the Canadian guy joined us. We had another early & alcohol free night, (I think I was getting withdrawal symptoms by this point).
On Tuesday we had breakfast & got a long tail boat for two hours down the river to the jetty, it was brilliant & we had great views of the forest from the river. We got a minibus transfer to Jerantut station where a local man asked if he could talk to me & Rich, he was lovely, I was asking him all about Human Resources in Malaysia, (what a geek!) & he was telling me people don't like HR in Malaysia.
We got the jungle train from Jerantut for 7 hours to Wakaf Bharu & a taxi to Kota Bharu where we spent the night briefly before heading to the Perhentian Islands the following morning.
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Andy
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I didn't know u were going to Vegas!!! You'll love it! XXXX