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!
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!
The jetty at Kuala Tembeling
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!
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.
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.
The "poor side" - or the "desert"!!! (Pic taken from the "posh side"!!!)
I like this pic. The main means of transportation!
Lone boat
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!
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!
Mushrooms
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!!!
Don't look down if you have a fear of heights!!!!
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!
The view was excellent, tho!
Good advice!
At one point, you had to go upwards!!!!
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!
# posted by imissw @ 2:34 pm 
