Awesome!

Goodbye Jerantut

Riverside

River View

The next three hours were spent voyaging upstream to Kuala Tahan, a small village across the river from Taman Negara National Park. Upon arrival we set up our trek and got a guide. Three days, two nights exploring the oldest rain forest in the world. We had no idea what we were in for and I was stoked.

The next morning were were to meet our guide at 8:30 beside the river and collect our food, water and sleeping gear before heading into the jungle for the hike. We walked into the village, secured a room for the night (less than $3/person) and then walked down to the river to eat dinner at a floating restaurant. We called it an early night, went back to the hotel, packed up our bags and got a good nights sleep.

Tuesday morning we started our trek. We gathered our supplies, met our guide, Ah-Ah, and also found out that we would have another person join us for half of the trip; a German man named Jans. After getting everything together, we crossed the river and went to the headquarters to declare everything we were bringing into the jungle. Plastic bags, food, socks, cameras, batteries, everything.

Monitor lizard at headquarters

We then set off on another boat as I described before. Our first stop was to be the canopy walkway, however after getting to the start we realized there was about a 90 minute wait to begin. We decided to push that back to the last day and get started trekking. Once we got back to the river, Ah-Ah tried calling out for the driver. Unfortunately, that means just yelling.

Waiting for the driver

About 35 minutes later he showed up, and we left for a 90 minute boat ride upstream to begin our hike. Ten minutes into the ride we hit something in the water (on the way back the water level had declined and we found out it was a giant stump).  It immediately killed the engine and a few of us wondered if it damaged the already dilapidated boat.  The current eventually caught the boat and we were carried directly into some large bushes or trees.

Stuck in the trees

After a few minutes we started hearing some disconcerting noise coming from behind. I looked back and the driver was beating the engine with a hammer. A few minutes of this passed and all of us couldn’t help but laugh at how our trip was shaping up.

Finally, the driver was able to get the engine working again, and I’ve got to give him props because it’s didn’t seem like an easy task. Off again we went, and a few minutes later small styrofoam containers were passed forward filled to the brim with vegetarian fried rice. We all scarfed down the meal while getting splashed with water from the rapids. Once at the entrance, we gathered our bags, and said our farewells to the driver and began our journey.

Lunch!

Not a bad view

Almost immediately, we began to notice leeches. When we asked Ah-Ah if they would be a problem, his reply was, “They are very friendly.” He was right and probably less than ten minutes later we were pulling the little blood-suckers off of us.

The roots on these tree are incredibly strong

Aboriginals will cut a notch and come back a few days later. They then rub the sap over their darts. It's lethal enough to take down just about everything, supposedly even humans.

Ah-Ah showing off a leech

The trick with leeches is to just let them finish sucking until they can’t hold anymore and they will fall off naturally. I must say that’s hard to do when you look down and see something attached to your body. They have an anticoagulant in their saliva that makes you keep bleeding, sometimes for hours after you remove them….

Smelled like almonds!

Tiger footprint!

Paul, Katie, Rachel and Me on the trail

Ah-Ah holding a giant millipede

Close up

Cool vine swing

Ah-Ah taking a break

Leech check

Tapir footprint

Shower time, sort of

We ended our first day trekking at a large cave. We set up shop inside and rinsed off at a stream nearby. The next few hours we spent cooking dinner, exploring and trying to get a fire going to prevent bats from sleeping above us. Starting a fire is pretty hard when everything is wet. We only partly succeeded.

1st day complete!

Giant cave

Sleeping quarters

Ah-Ah working on dinner

Drying off the feet

Paul and I

Ah-Ah, Scott and myself explored the cave after dinner. Ah-Ah showed us how elephants climbed up into the cave, where the majority of the bats slept, and some ridiculously large spiders.

We took this photo about 10 feet away, he was huge

After we laid down, a porcupine came  up and started to rummage through the cooking pots for a few minutes before disappearing back into the darkness. After an awesome night in the cave, we woke up and gathered all of our stuff for our second day in the jungle.

Other side of the cave

Nice hair

Ah-Ah, Scott and I waiting outside for the others

The trail was more technical and have a few more rolling hills than the first day, but still quite easy for trekking purposes. We stopped after about three hours for lunch next to a river. We all chilled in the river for a little while before eating and starting on our hike again.

Bats in the other cave we visited

Bats!

Odd spider

Inside Gua Telingga (the ear cave)

Fungi

Never rained once in the rain forest - lucky

Started every day with the intention of keeping the feet dry. I usually gave up about 30 minutes in

It was inevitable

Riverside lunch

This leech got me good

Shoe, sock, no problem.

Where is an inner tube and a beer when you need it?

Lunch

The rest of the hike went by quickly and before we knew it we had made it to the observation hide for our second night. There were a few other people there, so we could definitely tell that we were getting close to the base again. Our next day was only a few kilometers back to the base. That night we were able to see some tapir searching for vegetation to eat.

Observation Hide

Scott and I hanging out before dinner

No photo of the tapir because it was dark

Chilling on someones clothes

Dinner under the hide

This guy made Scott and I have a good jump

Thursday morning’s hike was an easy one. We met our boat driver who took us to an aboriginal village inside of the park. While at the Orang Asli village we learned of how they go about their daily lives. The experience felt quite intrusive and I was happy that we didn’t stay too long.

End of the trek

After the village, we made our last stop of the jungle for the canopy walk. I was definitely happy that we didn’t wait the first day for it. It had some cool views, but definitely was the least exciting part of the trip.

Chilling on the boat

Relaxing view

Caterpillar

Canopy walk

View from above

Water buffalo

That afternoon we arrived back at the village and learned that it was a public holiday and that we had already missed that last bus back to Kuala Lumpur. We grabbed a room and stayed one more night there before making our way back to the city the next day.

Six hours of travel to get to the city is a pretty long time. Since it was split in half between boat and bus, it seemed a little shorter than it actually was. That night we explored some of the markets in KL and visited the Petronas Towers.

Scott and Paul having their feet cleaned by fish

Patronas Towers

Temple near our hostel

The next day we headed to the airport and came back to Taipei. It was a great trip and it just made me look forward to the next adventure.