Jungle Adventure

Day 7 (06/04/08): Taman Negara National Park

Woke up with the sunrise and ate my can of baked beans using a makeshift spoon cut from the styrifoam container of my fried rice. Washed the baked beans down with some mini-cookies. Breakfast of champions! Myself and Utz, (the German guy I had shared the hide with), decided we would walk back together along the river-side trail. We had both done the inland trail to get to the hide, and so the river trail would be something different. Things however, never go to plan...

Due to the awful maps, we couldn't find the path to the start of the river trail, we know roughly were it should be, but had no luck in finding it, and we were both determined to not go back down the same inland route again. Eventually we settled on what we thought was the path, and started down it. It quite quickly thinned out, and we would follow it for brief sections as it disappeared and re-appeared. Eventually it disappeared completely, however we were both brave adventurers and figured that if we followed the local river we would eventually run into either the path or the large main river. Off we went, blazing our own path into the jungle!

We bashed our way through the thick jungle for several hours, going up and down, always following the river. It was pretty tough going, sometimes taking us minutes just to move a few meters through the thick undergrowth of the equatorial rainforest. We would pause occaisonally to flick the leeches off our shoes, or remove the ones that were attached to us. After about two hours, we had lost our way from the river. I took out my compass and using the bad map, we knew which direction we had to go in. I kept checking the compass, because it was scary just how easy it was to lose your sense of direction. The forest was so thick it was hard to see the sky, and with no landmarks it was very easy to end up walking back the way you came, or even in circles. With the compass, we kept on a reasonably straight line, hopefully heading in the direction of the river.

Almost all the plants in the jungle are spiky, covered in nasty barbs, spikes and hooks, just waiting to tear out skin and fabric. Utz and I both got thoroughly ripped up, our legs and arms completely covered in scratches. My shirt had several holes ripped in it, as well as my hat. At one point, I slipped in the mud, and a particularly nasty plant, with hundreds of tiny fish-hooks along thin vines ripped my hat off and gave me a bad scratch by my eye. Sweat-diluted blood covered the side of my face. Climbing up and down the steep banks is very hard. The ground is all muddy clay, which is very slippery. You can try hold onto plants, but as most of them are spiky, you have to be very careful about which ones you instinctively reach for as you slip. Other trees, which look very solid are so rotten, that the slightest touch causes them to break apart. We climbed over some giant logs that crumbled beneath us.

For a lot of the time we tried to follow the animal trails, as some of the plants had already been cleared. The elephants paths were the best, as the large elephants footprints made good stairs in the muddy hillsides. We still slipped our way up and down, and got completely covered in mud, spider webs, dirt, blood and the spiky pieces of plant, which would break off and stay in you as a tiny splinter.

Eventually we managed to find a small stream, and since we were so dirty, jumped straight into it and all the mud and followed it downstream, on the theory that it should eventually link to the river, and if we followed that downstream, we would reach the main river. Walking down the stream was slightly easier in parts, being a bit more free of the thick plants and undergrowth. However we still had lots of climbing to do, often over fallen trees and bushes that blocked the stream. Climbing over one of these I slipped, and fell onto a particularly nasty spiky tree trunk. I got a big series of parallel cuts down my thigh.

The mud in the stream was pretty deep, but eventually we made it to the river. We tried walking down the river, but it got deep pretty quickly. I fell into my waist several times, and the bottom of my pack got wet. I ahd safely stowed my camera in a waterproof dive bag, at the top of my pack, so it should be safe. Deciding that walking down the river was not smart, we climbed up the near vertical clay bank (an ordeal in itself) and procedeed to follow the river along the bank. At this stage, we were so cut up from the spiky plants, that the odd leech didn't bother us at all, and it was a non-event each time we found one draining our blood.

Eventually after climbing through another muddy stream, and up yet another steep bank, we happened upon a trail, and a yellow marker in the trees. Joy of all joys! I never thought I would be so happy to find a yellow square nailed to a tree! We had found our way back to the trail! We had been bashing our way through the jungle, streams and river for about three and a half hours! In celebration we recovered our safely stowed cameras and took photos of each other, covered in mud, blood, sweat, dirt, spikes, thorns and leeches. We had done it!

After a short walk we made it to a camping ground that was shown on the map. Although it must have been abandonded, as all the huts were desolate, with broken furniture strewn around and grass growing up through the planks. We found a sign saying the hide was 45mins away, it had taken us close to fours hours in the jungle! We found another tiny path, and being the brave adventures, followed that down to a small native village. However the locals aren't very keen on tourists, and so we turned back. From where we were, it was about a 5 hour trek back to the main village along the river. It was now past midday, and we both had little water left, let alone the will to keep walking. We knew boats often dropped people off here, so we went down to the jetty on the main river. It was beautiful and warm in the sun, and we stripped off our dirty clothes and dried them in the sun. A quick swim in the river, and we both felt a lot better.

We saw several boats going upstream, but very few going downstream. We waved at couple, but the boats just waved back! Eventually the third boat stopped and would take us back to Kuala Tahan for RM30, a bit of a ripoff, but we were in no position to negotiate! The boat was pretty small and had a local family on board. The boat ride was very nice, going down the river, through a few rapids, that splashed us and got us quite wet!

We made it back, and the first thing Utz and I did was go to a restaurant and order a big meal and lots to drink. Utz acutally ate two meals! We swapped email address and said that whenever I get to Berlin, him and I will go on another crazy adventure somwhere. Since arriving at the restaurant, my ankle had got really sore and swollen. I don't remember doing anything to it in the jungle, so I'm not sure what happened.

I limped up the hill and checked into a slightly nicer backpacker place, and had a nice cold shower and spent a good hour washing the mud, blood and dirt out of my clothes. I washed my socks in the basin 6 times, and yet still the water was dark brown. I decided they were never getting cleaner and gave up! The rest of the evening was spent relaxing, writing in my journal and reading my book. I tried counting the number of scratches and cuts on myself, but gave up. There were also a number of leech marks down inside my shoes, obviously the little bastards had crawled down my shoes, had a meal and then crawled out again. Tomorrow I head back to Jerantut, then the train to the North of Malaysia to go to the Perhentian Islands. Relaxing in a hammock for a few days sounds pretty good right now.