Friday, July 15, 2005

 

Taman Negara* - Day #1

* The National Park - located in the state of Pahang, Peninsular Malaysia

The trip started off well – we drove off on Sunday nite to put up at a mate’s place in Mentakab. We missed the F1 but was on time to catch the Wimbledon finals at his place. As usual, Charles – me mate there – was the perfect host. He even bought some durians for us to eat during the game and then took us out for supper after the game.


We started off for the Park the next morning – going to Kuala Tembeling and catching a boat ride up the river to the Park. It was a 3 hour ride – if u ever do that, please remember to empty your bladder b4 getting on the boat!

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
The jetty at Kuala Tembeling

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
The start of the boat ride! Pretty low flat bottomed boat.

The ride was nice but after like 20 mins or so, everything looked the same. At least we were entertained by the sights of some birds along the way and a herd of water buffalos … in the water, of course!

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
The first thing I noticed when we finally got onto dry land at Kuala Tahan - a TV satelite dish!!! Balanced on a piece of wood.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
This was the palce we stayed for the first nite.

After discovering wat a run down place we booked ourselves in (recommended by Charles!!!), we had a quick lunch and started off to explore the place. Basically, the cheap run down places are on one side of the river while the park proper and the expensive resort is on the other side. There are a few floating restaurants on the “poor” side – which is more like a desert in the day time compared to the other side, cool wif lush greenery.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
The "poor side" - or the "desert"!!! (Pic taken from the "posh side"!!!)

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
I like this pic. The main means of transportation!

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Lone boat

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
To get from poor side to the posh side (and vice versa), one has to take the river taxi - RM0.50 one way. Altho I'm quite sure it is possible for one to just wade across!!!

Of course, if you stay on the "posh side" you have no reason to go over to the "poor side"!!! After all, the treks and verything else is on the posh side!

So off we went, across and started our first trek!

Someone once commented why I dun have many pics of meself on me blog! Well, one of the reasons (not the main one, tho) is that I mainly travel on me own and I'll be the one doing all the photo taking. But in Taman Negara, I got me mate to take pics of me!

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
There I am, armed wif me Lonely Planet Guide book (the map at the Wildlife Centre was pretty pathetic and the guy tried to sell it to us for 3 bucks!!!! Forget it, man. The map in me Lonely Planet guide was far much better!

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Mushrooms

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Took this pic specially for me mate, Kit!!!

We tried to make it up a hill but I couldn't. So we detoured to do the canopy walk! mind you, it's much scarier than it looks!!!

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Don't look down if you have a fear of heights!!!!

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Safely on one of the platforms way high up on a tree, I took this pic! Yeah, you can't even see the ground!!!! That's how high it was!

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
The view was excellent, tho!

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Good advice!

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
At one point, you had to go upwards!!!!

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Putting your best foot forward? Yeah, I did look down!!!

Later in the nite, we went for a “Night Safari” – where we sat in the back if a pick-up and were driven into… nope, not the jungle but a palm oil estate!!!! Still, it was quite nice. The highlight for me was being able to sight the “leopard cat” – it looks like a cat but its skin is spotted like a leopard’s. It wasn’t too bad – we saw some boars, water buffalos, some other wild cats, robins asleep in the trees, scorpions and even a small snake! We were more amazed at how the driver managed to spot the snake in the brushes while driving in the dark!

 

Taman Negara - Day #2

After sleeping in late, we packed our stuffs and moved to another place - an "A" hut. Thereafter, we started off for our trek - a loop trail which we estimated would take us til late evening!!!

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
First, to complete wat I couldn't do the day before - take a hike up to Terisek Hill. As you can see, it's no easy task, steep climb all the way!

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
"X" marks the spot?

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Finally, made it to wat we thought was the top of the hill!!!

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Excellent view, tho.


As we went on, the trail did not go downwards. It climbed a bit more. This was a pic of an interesting warped looking tree root.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Ah... finally, we reached the "real" top of the hill! Altho it's only 344 metres (measely compared to the nearly 4,000 metres of Mount Kinabalu which I did last year), it was a pretty tough hike!

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
The view from the top. One of the peaks is the Tahan Mount, the highest peak in Peninsular Malaysia.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Going down by the other side of the hill was tough. We were glad that we were going down and not coming up by that way cuz it was much steeper.

It was challenging and fun at the same time for me. I really enjoyed it. We were truly inside a very dense jungle – and it felt good! I always enjoy being in the jungle. Although there were a lot of small wasps like creatures which ensured that we did not always stop for long.

There was one point of time when the path forked. I made the call to take the right path. It proved correct cuz I could see fresh trail marks left by another trekker. But then it forked again. I always kept this simple rule – stick to right all the time so as not to get confused if the path leads to a dead end. After a while, the path almost disappeared and it did get a lil scary. But thank God it was the right way.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
It led us to a signpost!

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Altho being 2 km away from the main resort at Kuala Tahan and inside the dense jungle, we still had network service!!!! Cheers to Maxis (Celcom too! Digi? Dream on!!!!).

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
It led to a swimming area – where I did go in in me briefs!!!! But not for long as there were many boats passing that area!!! But the cold water was simply refreshing!


There were lots of lil fishes swimming in the cool clear water!

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Redwood forest?

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Look at the size of that tree root! Was half expecting to see some ewoks around...

Instead, we had "close encounters" with some wild boars, a snake, some monkeys and birds! The wild boar encounter was scary. As I was trekking along, I heard some movement in the brush nearby. I looked to me right and there they were, 2 big adult size boars, just a couple of metres away!!! The boar eye-balled me and and I quietly and meekly looked away and walked on!

After a few steps, we decided to try to take a pic. so we sneaked back as quietly as we could... until the boar snorted loudly and we both turned and ran for our dear lives!!!!

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
When we got back to the resort, we checked out one of the hides overlooking a salt lake.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
This is the view from the Tahan Hide. See the tiny lil salt lake in the small round flat patch in the middle?

Of course people only come here at nite to stake-out and wait for animals to come. Still, it ws nice to just sit there in the quiet and imagine the animals there drinking, quenching their thirst. The salt lake to them is prolly like 100 Plus to us!!!

After going back and having a good meal, we rested. Din do much that nite - it rained a little and we went to watch a short video presentation at the resort - good and informative! On the way way, we could hear the otters crying out by the river bank - and using me maglite, we could see them, first, their red coloured eyes, and then slowly, their shape!

Enough of excitement. We went to sleep - altho it took me a while to finally doze off.

 

Taman Negara - Day #3

Nuthing much on this day. Woke up to find all our stuffs outside were drenched wet in the down-pour early in the morning (heard the rain falling butwas too lazy to go out and bring the stuffs in).

We had to grab the first boat out - and I made sure this time that I din ANY WATER AT ALL!!! Just took a sip from me mate's drink.

When the boat came, everyone else got onto it. We made our way slowly and were told to wait for the next one. OK. Fine.

It turned out REALLY fine! There were only 7 of us left - so me mate and I could take one whole row (meant for 2) all for ourselves!

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Speeding along down the river!

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
View of the bank - the rain earlier left the mist in the distance

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Small rapids - other than that, nuthing of much interest along the way.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
View of the front from my place

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
And the view of the back and our boatman


Tried to get some sleep - with all the space I had, it got quite comfy.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Took the chance to dry off me much worn-out but loyal sandals!!!!

Reached Kuala Tembeling in 2 hours!!!! Was dehydrated then! the drive back to Mentakab was uneventful save for the countles number of durian stalls along the way! We managed to resist temptation - and kept my car odour-free!

Had the famous chicken rice at Mentakab (was thinking bout it all along during the boat ride - and it din disappoint me!).

After lunch, we packed for Charles and went to his school to meet up wif him - he was having choir prac. We chatted for a while - it was interesting to be able to walk into the schoool - very nice school,actually - Wah Lian High School.

That was it - short stop at Bentong was the only break we had and we reached home before dark.


This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?