Taman Negara, Malaysia

As I plopped into the slender warped boat I knew our adventure had begun. Each segment could hold two people and had enough leg room for a nine year old to sit comfortably. There was a thin pad to sit on and life jackets to lean back against, which we would later find out harbored spiders.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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….

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.