From the Cameron Highlands I took a van for a couple hours in order to catch the jungle train that runs to Jarantut. In the van I met a Korean girl named Jung and it was like meeting someone from home. After her initial confusement of meeting a white girl in Malaysia who speaks (bad) Korean we reminisced of back "home": the kimchi, soju, the saunas. The train we were supposed to catch was over an hour late and once we boarded and started moving I could understand why. I think my Dad running could have kept up with or even beat this train in the 4 hours it took. Judging from it's condition the train probably has a few years on my Dad though. No air con on this ride. It was muggy, we were barely going fast enough to create a breeze inside. I went to the toilet and found a seat that emptied straight down on to the tracks below. The train went straight through the jungle so the scenery was great the entire time. After the train we had another bus to catch and finally after 11 hours of travel time we made it to the rainy Taman Negara main camp. Jung and I found a somewhat clean hostel and checked in for the night. (Traveling now, I've once again realized that clean is definitely a relative term. That goes for clothes, hostels, bathrooms and myself.)
The next morning Jung and I took off on our separate ways. I wanted to sleep in the jungle for the night so I found someone to take me up river towards a hide a one hour hike from the river. Asri, a local who had lived in the jungle his entire life, was my boat driver. He planned to pick me up the next morning. After lending me his rubber shoes (to go through the mud), his powerful flashlight (to spot animals at night), and giving me some advice to survive the night, he was gone and it was just me and the jungle. On the way there I couldn't believe the insects I saw! Ants as big as my pinky finger, never-ending trails of termites that chattered creepily, butterflies that kept landing on me. The trail signs were less than accruate and I managed to get lost for a bit. Then I felt a weird itchy feeling on my foot, pulled off Asri's rubber shoe and found three leeches attached to my sock. I pulled them off with a leaf and kept walking. I realized that the weird worm-looking things that walk like a slinky that I saw earlier were actually leeches. Creepy looking things, standing straight up feeling around for their next bloody meal. When I made it to the hut I was drenched in sweat. I pulled off my shoes and another leech from my now bloody socks. My feet bled for the next couple hours.
AsriThe hut was simple wooden room on 20 feet stilts with wooden bunk beds, no mattresses. It was quite literally in the middle of the jungle and for a while I was the only one around. Eventually four others showed up. We heated baked beans for dinner and when it got dark we looked around for animals. Once it got dark we sat in front of the long rectangular window opening and watched the fire flies flashing in the starry sky with occasional flashes of lightening brightening the sky. The sound of the jungle at night was really something-- so many different animals and insects making their own unique noises and blending together perfectly. It rained that night and I slept well.
Hut in the jungle.
Early the next morning the sounds were equally harmonious but altogether different although I can't desribe how. On the way back to the boat I fell in the mud, slippery from the rain, backpack and all. I met back up with Asri and he took me back to Nusa Camp, a small place right along the river, where I was the only guest for the day. We took the river boat to the Canopy Walkway, 10 wobbly bridges that are suspended 25 meters above the jungle floor, and afterwards swam in the river. I was planning on leaving the next morning but without too much effort Asri convinced me to stay one more day in the jungle.
Orang Asli village. See the small hut on the left? That's where I slept my last night in Taman Negara.
