Welcome to the Jungle!

7th of October 2006 - 10th of October 2006

When I (finally) escaped from Singapore, I went back K.L. to hang out with Vinnie, Reena, Naim and Micha for a few days before they left Malaysia, going separate ways. Then after another pleasant stay at the Red Palm, Morgan and I made our way to Taman Negara, a huge jungle in the middle of Malaysia, and apparently, with it's about 130.000.000 years of age, the world's oldest. To get there, we went on a bus followed by a three hour boat ride on the river, in a cool boat! Those boats are wicked, they are the perfect river boat and they are even comfortable enough to sleep in. After three hours of cruising, spotting monkeys and colourful birds and sleeping, we arrived in Kuala Tahan, a little town in the middle of the jungle. There was no doubt we had come to a pretty special place, with most houses etc. right by the river - and as you can see, restaurants and cafes floating on the river itself.

On our first night, we went on a night safari in, or rather on a four-wheel drive, as we were sitting on the roof :) First animals we managed to spot were a couple of birds followed by a snake. Then for a while, we didn't see a whole lot, but I didn't mind - I had plenty of fun sitting on the roof, dodging the palm branches and listening to all the noises you hear in the jungle at night. Suddenly, our guide spotted something sneaking around in the high grass - a leopard cat! Unfortunately, it was way to dark to take photos of it, but I assure you it was beautiful :) It looked just like a leopard (or a cheetah), except it was only the size of a big house cat. On the way home, we saw a really funny animal crawling on the aerial cables - a Slow Loris! Hard to describe it, but it is sort off a cross between a squirrel and a monkey, except it moves very slowly - as you can see on the video. Pretty cool. Oh yeah... At night I saw some kind of insect (looked like a fly) which was about the size of a tennis ball (both in width, height and length)!

Next day, it was time for a lot more jungle exploring. We had signed up for a two-day overnight jungle hike, with two guys from the UK, Billy and Andy. First thing we did was take a boat across the river to one of the major attractions in Taman Negara - the canopy walkway! These canopies are suspended about 40 metres above the ground, which gives you an excellent bird's eye view of the jungle. We also had a great laugh rocking it from side to side :)

Next up was a boat ride for a couple of hours to the place the hike itself started from. It was a beautiful ride - the jungle is spectacular. After that, we started walking, while Cha, our guide, showed us stuff on the way - e.g. poisonous trees. Though it was f*cking hot and humid, and we had to climb over a lot of roots etc., I really enjoyed being out on an adventure again... and getting a bit of exercise. And as our two group mates, Billy and Andy both were really nice guys, we were all having a good time... despite all the leeches. It got even better when we got to a big cave and climbed inside the rather creepy place to say hi to the thousands of bats who lived there. As the flew around us, flapping their wings all over the place, I kind of felt like Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins when he enters the cave underneath his house and is completely surrounded by bats... But that's just me being a total nerd. Anyway, after another couple of hours of hiking, we arrived at our 5-star luxury accommodation. It was without doubt the biggest room I've ever slept in :) We did have to share it with a bunch of other guys though... A few bats and and the biggest bloody rats I've seen in my life - size of a small rabbit, about 40 cm long including the tail (plus an elephant). But that's okay - gotta make room for everyone :o) It was pure homely comfort at night when we sat around the fire singing kumbaya. Couple of times when I went outside to do a wee-wee, I heard some spooky sneaking noises, sounded like a human sneaking around or something. After hearing it a couple of times, I told the others, and Morgan admitted she had heard it as well, but didn't want to tell us because we would probably just think she was imagining stuff. We never found out what it was, leopard, tiger, monkey, who knows... Spooky! Nevertheless, I slept like a little baby at night, on my mat in the open cave...

Next morning, after a bit of monkey-spotting outside, breakfast and packing our stuff, we headed off again. Still a very enjoyable hike - huge trees with roots wider than a car, dense growth where you had to cut your way though and high tech bridges across the streams. Not surprisingly, the dense vegetation prevented us from spotting elephants, tigers and leopards (they are all there), but we did manage to find both elephant footprints and elephant poo-poo! Lucky us! Coming across such a magnificent treasure like elephant droppings was a big moment in my life... It was as if, all of a sudden, my whole life made sense and I no longer had to search for the purpose of human existence on earth... or something. No, mum, we did not eat the funny little colourful mushrooms in the jungle. Morgan turned out to be the new Steve Irwin - she managed to spot both a dead Tarantula and a Leaf Frog. Eventually, after banging my head on a massive tree hunk, we made our way back to the river, near some old deserted bungalows - one of them completely smashed up by a crazy elephant. This bridge wasn't built for to carry elephants either. Anyway, after a boat splashing boat ride, we were back in civilization.

Billy and Andy left early next morning, whereas Morgan and I had an extra day, since we had decided to jump on the night train. We spent the day going on a short walking tour, drinking Milo at the cafes and visiting an Aboriginal Village! Very interesting. Other than learning about their life and culture, we learned how to fire a blowpipe and how to start a fire from scratch. Wicked! Starting the fire from scratch was actually surprisingly easy, once you had the right stuff - e.g. a special type of dry wood, a string plaited of some kind of palm leaves etc. What wasn't that easy was hitting the god damn target with the blowpipe :O) After about twenty tries, I (and resting the blowpipe on a stump, ehrem) managed to do it though. I was surprised how far you can actually shoot the darts with the blowpipe...! Quality hand craft, the 2 metre bamboo weapon.

Taman Negara is definitely something you just can't miss out on if you're in Malaysia - it is such a special thing, experiencing a proper big jungle, the wildlife, all the funny noises coming from the trees and the beautiful scenery. It was quite simply tremendous...

After a horrible minibus journey, a couple of hours waiting in some city, and a even more horrible train ride (the train was absolutely fine, but some poor guy was throwing up ALL NIGHT in one of the bunks next to ours, which did disturb our sleep a little bit), we were back in K.L.!

Next stop: Hanoi, Vietnam.