The following day we decided to try a short walk through the
jungle to get a feel for the terrain and the state of the trails. We did a short 5km loop, including the ‘canopy
walkway’ which was the main attraction for families and day-trippers to the
park. Nestled 40 metres up in the trees,
this was supposed to enable us to see the abundance of wildlife in the upper
canopy. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any
animals, probably due to it being the middle of the day and other tourists
making a fair bit of noise as they walked through the forest. We decided we would need to go deeper into
the jungle if we were going to spot anything more interesting than monkeys, small
lizards and leeches (which were out en masse). In Taman Negara there are Tigers, wild Elephants,
Slow Lloris and Hornbills, as well as many other species which are unique to
Malaysia. Taman Negara is 150 million
years old and has never been cultivated or interfered with. It is also home to the Orang Asli aboriginal
tribes people.
We decided to do a 2 day trek with an overnight stop at a hyde
some 13km away (for £1 a night, it was our cheapest accommodation and a great way to save some money as well as being fun) . We didn’t think 13km sounded a lot (thinking how much we walk at home normally) and we were sure we
could make it quicker than the 6 or 7 hours the guide told us it would
take. We set off with a lighter than
usual backpack and trudged our way through the jungle. To begin with the trek was fairly easy, and
we looked around in the trees trying to pick out some animals. As the day wore on, the air got warmer and
more humid, and sweat was covering us from head to toe. We took 3 litres of water each for the 2 days,
and realised that we were drinking much more than we expected. The route was quite hilly and we constantly
had to look at our feet to make sure we didn’t miss a step in the muddy up and
down, up and down (and to avoid the leeches).
Early in the afternoon we heard something rustling in the
foliage in front of us. Suddenly a Monitor
Lizard about 4 feet in length ran across the trail in front of us and down the
hill towards the river. We tried to get
a second look to take a photo, but it was gone.
We struggled along the route crossing several streams, hoping to see a
bridge that we were expecting to cross to be just one hour from the hyde. It felt like it would never come. Finally we found the bridge and this gave us
the boost we needed. Soon afterwards we
came across some Orang Asli women who were walking barefoot (and topless) through the mud on
their way back from washing in the river, despite the leeches. We were having to ration our water at this
point. It was a relief to make it to the hyde, and we found there was
another guy there. He was from Brighton
and we had a chat for a good while, which must have scared away the wildlife as
we were seeing nothing through the window of the hyde. As we were enjoying our ‘Fish and Chips’
dinner of cold, tinned Mackerel in tomato sauce and Crisps, we saw a Hornbill (with
an orange nose) fly high above us between the trees. The sun had set and it was getting gloomy now,
and we waited in silence to see if more animals would come. Flora went to the back of the hyde and saw a a
racoon/otter-like animal on the stairs of the hyde. We later learned this was a ‘Civet’. An hour or more passed and we saw nothing
else, but could hear a million noises.
It was now dark and we could see several fireflies lighting up in front
of us. High above the stars were very clear
and we could see more stars in the sky than we ever imagined were up there.
We eventually went to bed, although sleep was difficult due
to the noise outside and we were lying on hard wooden beds with no mattress. We could hear birds, monkeys and squirrels
jumping around on the roof and the trees nearby, and we thought we would never
sleep. Eventually, somehow we managed to drift off. In the night Flora awoke to hear a snuffling,
grunting noise outside (which sounded a bit like a pig). She got up and looked out of the window with her torch and
saw a strange looking animal foraging around in the bushes. This is how she
described the animal to us in the morning:
“It was sort of like an elephant, but with a smaller trunk
and smaller ears… and it was wearing a T-shirt”
The first two people to email us with the correct name of
this animal will win a prize .
The following day Dave woke to hear something jumping up and
down on his rucksack. He shone the torch
on it and it was a squirrel. He chased it
away and realised that it had chewed a hole in his bag to get at some bread
that was inside. This meant our
carefully planned meals were disrupted, and we would now need to eat tinned
tuna from the can, rather than in a sandwich.
We made our way back to Kuala Tahan via a different route, which was
even more muddy, but a bit flatter. On
the way back we saw some Orang Asli men on their way to go hunting, carrying
their blowpipes and darts. We were
amazed how quickly they could walk even in the mud. We also met a guide with a french couple for a day trek and they asked us what we saw. When Flora explained the animal she saw to the guide, he knew exactly what she meant and said she was quite lucky to have seen one. We made it back to Kuala Tahan late
afternoon, and went straight to the café to get a well-deserved drink and
admire our leech bites. Dave was a real mess. His shorts were ripped and he had quite a lot of blood on his shorts due to the leeches. We reckon he could have easily said that he'd been attacked by a tiger and survived the jungle experience.
When we got back to the guesthouse, the owner gave us some washing powder and few buckets and invited us to go to the back of the garden to do our washing. Even though they had a laundry service, we believe they didn't want to do ours for any money after seeing the state we were in. We washed the mud and sweat from our clothes, and the
following morning left Kuala Tahan to make our way back to Kuala Lumpur, where
we would get a connecting bus to Lumut on the west coast of the peninsular Malaysia.
