Taman Negara

To get to Taman Negara (literally “national park” in the Malay language), you need to take a bus to Jerantut and a minivan from there to Kuala Tahan, the village next to park. Taman Negara is apparently the world’s second oldest forest according to Lonely Planet, although I’m not really sure exactly what that means - surely we can’t claim to know where the second cluster of trees grew in the world, millions of years before the first fish dragged itself on to land. On the minivan I met Lucas, a French hippy and long term traveller who after 9 months travelling India and 5 months working in Malaysia had decided to travel around a little before leaving for Australia. We got on well, and would end up doing almost everything together, such that others assumed we’d been travelling together from the start. As our minivan drove round winding roads in to the jungle, rain began to pour and quickly became torrential. I had planned to go on a guided night hike when we arrived, but was now questioning whether tonight was a good night for it. Perhaps mercifully, the decision was taken out of my hands - we arrived after the park office closed, and you can’t enter the park without getting a park permit from there. Jason, who owned and ran the basic hostel we stayed in, told us the punishment for breaking the rules was 1 million ringgit or 7 years in prison. We decided not to risk it, and headed for dinner on one of the village’s floating restaurants, with precarious boards propped up on rocks to enable you to get to them from land. 

The following day I was itching to get into some nature, having been in cities until this point. Our guide, Koyo, or Mowgli as he’s known to friends for his jungle smarts, led our group (me, Lucas and a German couple) on a fun and varied trek through slippery mud, tree root ladders and lattices, over rocks, some fun rock scrambles which Koyo described as “soldier training”, over streams, and finally over large boulders and directly up a river to a secluded waterfall. The waterfall was a particularly beautiful one, with two levels and lush green all around it. By the time the we got there, we were completely sodden in a combination of sweat and rain, so almost fully clothed stood under the waterfall, climbed up to the second level for a powerful massage under the water there, and found a tiny cave behind the fall where we could sit and look out at the jungle we’d walked through. Whenever I travel it’s always the nature that feels most special, and as I sat under a waterfall I felt in some ways like this journey had finally got started. 

Koyo also showed o ff his Mowgli skills en route by spotting completely camouflaged flying lizards on trees and pointing out which plants worked well for natural soap, glue, plasters, poison darts, sandpaper and making shelters. He also had tricks for removing leeches without their bites itching afterwards, but I was lucky enough not to be leeched. Lucas had one, and Koyo had three. To finish the day we headed back to Kuala Tahan via a boat along the Tembeling river. The boat was long, thin and fast, and water often came flying in over the sides. I couldn’t have got any wetter though, so I just enjoyed the scenery and the refreshing shower. What a lovely place.