Taman Negara is said to be the oldest rain forest in the world (130 million years old), covering 4,343 square kilometres. It’s home to one of the richest and most complex ecosystems in the world. Needless to say that we couldn’t miss out on this :)
Getting there wasn’t easy, exactly like our Lonely Planet guide mentioned – it takes a few bus and taxi (or boat) rides, but they’re not regular and it’s hard to get from one connection straight onto another. As we missed our bus from KL to Jerantut, we opted to take another bus to Temerloh around 12.30pm. Arriving there, we were told that the next bus to Jerantut was only at 5.30pm… We bought the ticket and waited for the bus… but at 6pm the bus was still not there. When I enquired at the ticket counter, they told me that the bus broke down and another bus would make a detour to pick us up… around 7-7.30pm. We weren’t happy about this, but we didn’t have much of a choice but to wait. At 7.30pm the bus arrived, taking us to Jerantut. From there we managed to arrange a cheap taxi which took us to Kuala Tahan Kampung, near the entrance of the National Park (at last!).
The next day, we got up early and made our way to the park’s headquarters to arrange our permits and inquire about trails, boats,… When we crossed the river, we noticed a lot of tourist facilities and a resort-like atmosphere… inquiring at the park HQ, it turned out even worse – all tours and activities were really expensive and everything needed to be arranged through them (so they told at least…). This was not what we were looking for, however. We wanted adventure, not an expensive tourist package. That’s why we decided to try our luck and get a cheaper boat ride with some local people… and we managed to find someone who was willing to bring us to Kuala Keniam and pick us up the next day at Kuala Trenggan.
When we arrived in Kuala Keniam, we were surprised to find no one there… even though our Lonely Planet (2007 edition) said that there was accommodation available there… Anyway, we decided to start a moderate 6 hours inner jungle trek to Kuala Trenggan – according to our Lonely Planet… So we thought at least. The rain forest was beautiful, but we soon found out that the trail was quite difficult. We had to cross rivers and it was constantly raining so we got soaking wet, as a result the path was very slippery, trees were blocking the path so we had to climb over or underneath and the signs were hard to follow at times (sometimes hard to find or even non-existent at junctions, only stating how far we were going away from Kuala Keniam, not how many kilometres were still remaining). Soon we also found out that we were making friends all the way, only they sucked J I’m talking about leeches here. Quite scary to notice your shirt is covered with blood, finding leeches attached to your body, not easily wanting to leave their meal behind (afterwards, we heard that the best way to avoid them is to spray insect repellent on your shoes and pants). One moment we were doubting whether still to be on the right track or not, but when we wanted to consult the small map they gave us at the park hq, we discovered that it had become totally wet and unusable… whoops :$
So there we were at some point in the afternoon… in the middle of the jungle, completely wet, walking for hours and hours without seeing a human being, not knowing how far the trail was or for how many hours we had to walk, being attacked by leeches, getting totally exhausted (we were carrying a backpack), and without carrying enough food and water (fortunately it was safe to drink water from the river )… To make it all a perfect setting for a horror movie, it started to get dark and there were all kinds of sounds around us (amazing though). At that point we realized even that we hadn’t looked up much information on the national park – not knowing what kind of animals were out there and how to cope with them (afterwards we heard that fortunately, encounters with wild animals are rare). Fortunately, we had a torch, so we could continue our journey (sleeping in the jungle with these suckers was not an option :)), even though in the dark it was even harder to find the signs marking the trail.
At around 8pm, after having walked for over 9 hours (our Lonely Planet mentioned 6 hours!) and being totally exhausted, we finally reached Kuala Trenggan… At least, what was still left of it. The village had been closed 3 years ago a park ranger told us afterwards and they left the houses there… to rot, basically. As a result, the village looked like a ghost town when we arrived – all quiet, no one was there (just a bunch of curious cats and lots of leeches), no accommodation at all (our Lonely Planet stated otherwise!)… So we didn’t know what to do – walking to Kuala Tahan (the park hq) was not an option. We decided to check out some of the houses… and at the back of one of one of the – still maintained – houses we found a kitchen window open. We didn’t like the thought of entering someone else’s house, but as sleeping outside was not an option we decided to climb inside. We were so glad to find that the place was clean, and were so happy to be able to change clothes and have a sleep on the beds we found inside. We also found a can of sardines and couldn’t resist them as we were so hungry :) I must mention, however, that we didn’t feel comfortable being there. We didn’t want the owner to show up and find us there and having to explain – how would he react even if we explain it was an emergency, if he would speak English at all that is… We found a park ranger’s shirt in the room, so we knew the owner was a park ranger. So we weren’t surprised to see he had handcuffs… that they were lying next to the bed however… no, we didn’t want to think about this guy’s hobbies and interests :)
We got up early, packed our bag, made sure that the owner wouldn’t notice that we had been there (except for the fact that his last can of sardines disappeared in a mysterious way that is :)) and walked to the river. Our boat driver was supposed to pick us up only at 4.30pm but it was only 8am… and as we did not want to spend a whole day waiting in the middle of nowhere we decided to wait for another boat to pass by. Fortunately we didn’t have to wait for a long time to haul over a boat. The driver was willing to take us to Kuala Tahan… and safely dropped us near the park hq. There, we had a long talk and some laughs about our adventure… And both agreed that we had needed this lesson and fortunately nothing bad had happened. When we do jungle trekkings in Borneo next week we will make sure we’re well informed, hire a guide if necessary, take enough food and water supplies, iodine tablets, a proper map which we’ll keep from getting wet, enough dry clothes, insecticide (we bought it already :) and a second headlight). I guess we should’ve read “jungle trekking for dummies” before taking off to Taman Negara :)
We pread the word in the village that we were looking for a ride (there were no taxis to Jerantut and we didn’t want to wait for another 3 hours for a bus) and less than an hour later a park ranger turned up telling us that he had to go to Jerantut for a meeting and he wanted to give us a ride. We told him about our adventure; we only skipped the “entering someone else’s house” part… just in case it would have been his house (hell, we didn’t want a raging muslim behind us angry because we ate his can of sardines :)). In Jerantut we were able to catch a bus to KL right away. I called Somsiah to tell her we would come to KL and ask her whether she could offer us a couch; “come home guys” she replied. We already told her she’s too nice and should stop spoiling us that much because she won’t get rid of us :) Arriving here, we met Gary (a cs’er from South Africa who was staying here for a few days). Joey was staying for the night as well. We had a few more talks and told them about our silly adventures in the jungle… we had already started relativating the misery we had gone through the day before :)
From my friend Olivier and his travelmate, who will be enjoying Asia for the next 2 years. They're barely 2 months away from us, but I'll bet their last day will be just as exciting as the first. That is the greatness of traveling
0 comentarios:
Publicar un comentario en la entrada