Glutton for Self Punishment

Day 6 (05/04/08): Taman Negara National Park

"Millions of leeches, leeches for me

Millions of leeches, leeches for free!"

Had a reasonable sleep in, and woke to find I was the only person in the bunk. I considered having a shower, but realised if I was about to head into the jungle, whats the point? I went down to a floating restaurant and had a traditional Malay breakfast called roti canai. Ita unlevened bread with curry dipping sauce. However, I got mine with eggs and onions, so it was more a bready omellete with curry dipping sauce - brilliant!

My plan for the day was to head out into the Jungle, and spend a night in one of the hides. To do this you need to bring your own food and supplies, so I went to a little floating shop. Unfortunately, they didn't really have much in the way of tramping food, and so I had to settle on some mini cookies, a can of baked beans and obviously some water - I got 3 litres, thinking it would be plenty! On a tip from some other travellers, I got some vegetable fried rice to go and put this in my pack as well.

Took a boat across the river to the Park Headquarters to book my hide for the night. I had the option of going to close hides, only about 1-2 hours away, but decided I may as well do this properly and booked myself into Bumbun Kumbung hide, which was listed as an 11km walk, taking about 5-6 hours. I rented a foam sleeping mat, and popped back across the river to rent a powerful spotlight torch - a must for staying in the hide and left some non-essential items in a locker. At about midday I headed off into the jungle!

Like all tourist places, the provided map beared little to no resemblance to reality, however the paths were fairly easy to follow, with little yellow markers attached to trees. Most of the intersections were sign-posted, so it was fairly easy to find your way. There wasn't a lot of wildlife to see in the Jungle, but us humans make so much noise when we walk that most of the animals run away far before we get close to them. I did however often hear animals scurrying away in the bushes, and some of them sounded quite large, but never managed to see any. The trees, vines and plants were all very impressive though. As the jungle is so dense, all the trees are in an arms race to be the tallest, and as such some of the trees are staggeringly tall.

I realised I had left quite late, and so walked pretty fast to try and make up time. This was alright for the first few hours, however the second half was quite rough; muddy and lots of steep climbs. Coupled with this was the completely de-moralising distance signs. These signs just seemed to sh0w random numbers, and on several occasions, the number actually increased from the previous sign! This really messed with your mind and was quite frustrating. After walking for over an hour from a 7km to go sign, and figuring I must have made some good distance, the next sign read 10km! Completely de-moralising.

While the distance to walk wasn't a huge amount, and the climbs weren't too bad, this would have been an easy walk in New Zealand. However in the equatorial rainforest with all the associated heat and humidity, it was pretty tough. After about an hour, everything I was wearing was completely and utterly soaking wet with sweat, right down to my underwear! So when it started to rain after three hours, I didn't really care, as I was wet anyway, and rainwater is a lot nicer than the sweat/sunblock/insect repellent cocktail I was covered in.

Everyone had told me about the leeches in the park, and they are mentioned in the guidebooks as well. As it had been very dry, I was reasonably lucky and hadn't found any leeches, although I did have some blood on a sock. The leeches in Malaysia don't live in the water, they stay on the ground plants and attach themselves to you as you walk past or brush the leaves. Some even fall out of trees onto you. Towards the end though, I got closer to the river, and combined with the rain, I got hit by a few leeches, mostly around the ankles. Although I did find a small one on my stomach, which I can only assumed climbed all the way up my pants and under my shirt. You can't rip the leeches off, they are strongly attached, and pulling them off only rips them and they leave their teeth in you. Instead a quick squirt from your insect repellent and the leech detaches and you can flick her off. The leeches have an anti-coagulant in them, so the wounds don't stop bleeding, and whenever you flick a leech off, your finger gets covered in blood. The leeches were anything from 0.5cm long, to about 4cm long. They were very skinny, like long little worms, but after sucking your blood, they grew pretty fat.

Finally, after nearly five hours of trudging through the jungle in the heat I made it to the hide. My shoes were completely soaking as I had to cross a knee deep river at the end. But at least I had made it! There was only one other person there, a German guy who had already spent the last two nights in the jungle. The hide was pretty basic, a large room raised up high on stilts with a number of wooden bunks and a viewing window overlooking a water hole. It had a very basic toilet and miracle of all miracles, a rainwater shower! This shower was a lifesaver, and I could wash off all the sweat, blood, mud and dirt that the rainforest had gifted to me over the last few hours. Although my leech wounds kept bleeding, even though it was now several hours since the leech. Damn those anti-coagulants!

I settled down, ate my fried rice using a slice of cucumber as a makeshift utensil and watched the day transform to night and listen to the sounds of the night jungle. The powerful spotlight I had rented was very good, and was able to direct a beam all the way across to the watering hole. Unfortunately, we didn't see anything at all, and my bunk mate said he hadn't seen anything the previous two nights either. Oh well, the atmosphere of the jungle was cool enough. I had a terrible sleep on the hard wooden bunk with no pillow, but just lying in the jungle, in the absolute pitch dark, listening to the sounds, made the whole thing worthwhile.