Tropical Rainforest - warts and all!

Hello again everyone, we've got a fair bit to update you on, as the internet was so expensive in Taman Negara! We've just arrived in Kuala Lumpar today and are getting ready for some city sight seeing again (it will be so nice not to have to be climbing up and down loads of hills for a while)!

THURSDAY 14th June

Today was fairly boring, as we ended up spending almost the entire day on one bus or another! At 10.00 we left our guesthouse in a minibus and at lunchtime had a stop for some food and changed minibuses. We then got taken to Jerantut, where we had to wait for a coach to arrive and to also fill out applications for National Park entry permits and camera licences. By around 18.30 we finally made it to the edge of the Taman Negara National Park! We then had to find some accommodation, unfortunately our first choice was fully booked, but we managed to get a place at Teresek View Motel instead, which we'd also been looking at as an option. Once we were settled in, we went out for dinner and also met up with someone, who was able to provide us with our permits so that we could enter the park each day. After that we made our way back to the motel and crashed!

FRIDAY 15th June

We got up really early this morning, so that we could start our walk without being in the most intense heat of the day. However, when we came to get breakfast we found that nowhere opened before around 07.30-08.00! So we didn't manage to get the cool start we'd hoped for! We finally got over to the National Park and informed the Park Ranger of our route and then headed off for a bit of trekking. Stupidly we'd decided to walk up a hill, even though we were already so worn out from all our walking in the Cameron Highlands! However, it wasn't too bad and we didn't have to do too much scrambling! The views from the top were certainly worth the hike. So after making it to the summit of Bukit Teresek, we decided to do the Canopy Walk. Don't ask me what possessed me to actually actively suggest this, when I'm petrified of heights, all I can say is it seemed like a good idea from the ground, when I couldn't see what we'd be walking on! After a bit more walking we arrived at the Canopy Walk and it was blooming scary! We were around 40 metres above the ground and were swinging around in cargo nets that had ladders laid down in the bottom of them, with a plank of wood to stop you falling through the gaps. It certainly didn't seem to be the most stable of structures, but somehow I made it round, I think I did it rather quickly, as I had to wait for a while for Steve to finish!
Once we'd finished walking and were completely drenched in sweat, we decided to treat ourselves to lunch at the National Park's Resort Restaurant. It was quite nice, and we sat and chatted there for a while, before heading back across the river to our more modest accommodation! We spent the afternoon recuperating a bit and eventually ambled out to one of the floating restaurants for dinner and then turned in for another early night.

SATURDAY 16th June

We weren't up quite so early today, but we were up and about and went to the Park Ranger to buy a map to find a route we could walk. We had wanted to go to Lata Berkoh (a waterfall), but unfortunately it was a four hour walk there and another four back, so we wouldn't have time to walk it and the river would have been too high to cross, due to the downpour of rain we had last night. We could have got a boat either there or back, but they would only go if there were four people and we didn't know anyone else, plus it was expensive. So in the end we decided to walk to Gua Telinga (a cave). The walk was probably the easiest we've had so far, there was only one uphill bit, and although it lasted a long-time, the gradient wasn't too steep. We saw some HUGE insects, like ants and millipedes and also some wasps building a nest and wild pheasant-type birds. After a couple of hours we reached the cave. We had a look inside, but I decided I didn't want to go in, as it was far too small and far too full of bats (considering I'm slightly claustrophobic and scared of bats, this was a pretty sensible decision), so I turned around to get out, but managed to slip over and ended up being wedged, quite painfully, between two rocks, with my left leg in a pond of gross water full of bat poo and wee! After a lot of help from Steve and a lot of struggling, I managed to get out and then sit myself down on a little bench outside of the cave. This is where things took a horrible turn for the worse, beware if you have a nervous disposition! I went to take my boot and sock off to get the water out and noticed a weird black splodge on the front of my ankle, I was going to brush it off, but Steve realised it was a leech! So we frantically started to check ourselves for anymore, I didn't seem to have any, but Steve found 2 small ones. After trying to lift them off with twigs, unsuccessfully, Steve remembered something from TV and whipped out his lighter and then gently scorched them to make them let go of our flesh and then we were able to use my tweezers to pluck them off - it was totally gross! I then took my sock off to tend my wound and ended up ripping another leech off that we hadn't noticed as it was so small (the other one I had was pretty large by the time we took it off) and I also then found out that I hadn't been eaten by just 2 leeches, I had in total 6 leech bites! Steve had 3 and later on said he was jealous he didn't have as many bites as me - weird or what?! So after cleaning up the cuts, my ones wouldn't stop bleeding either, we were back in our boots and getting ready to move on, when a tour group of people turned up. Steve followed them through the cave system, so that he wasn't in there alone in case of an accident or anything. He really liked it, apparently it was very small in places so you had to scramble along and could even reach out and touch the bats if you'd wanted to. It was also pretty wet and he'd ended up having to wade through knee-high water full of bat poo and wee - stinky stuff we can assure you! Once he'd finished in the cave, he came back round to the entrance, where I was waiting and we headed back. We made pretty good time, despite the frequent stops we made for leech checks (we found a couple on our boots occasionally, making bee-lines for our socks, but we managed to get the pesky things off)! So after another couple of hours we were being taken back across the river and headed straight for the motel so that we could have showers!

SUNDAY 17th June

We were both so tired today that we didn't have an early start at all! Our boots were still soggy from yesterday, so we didn't want to go trekking again and so decided to do Rapid Shooting. However, this would commence at 15.00, so we ended up spending the morning in the room reading our books and generally lazing around! We went out for lunch and afterwards it was nearly time for Rapid Shooting. It was quite good fun, although not as white-knuckle as I was expecting. We were taken down the river in a little long tail boat and driven through the slightly rougher waters and basically spent an hour getting drenched (especially me, as I was at the back of the boat). We didn't go as far as normal, as due to torrential rain in the night, the river became too dangerous and so we had to turn back, but it was cool none-the-less and we had a giggle.
When we got back to the room and showered to remove all the river water, we then sat and read some more and then were informed that we had to move rooms, as they were installing air-conditioning units in all the rooms on our floor, so we got upgraded to an air-conditioned room at no extra cost for our last night! Once we were moved we got our bags packed up and then went out for dinner and returned our park entry licences, as we would be leaving first thing in the morning.

MONDAY 18th June

It was a very early start this morning, we were up at 06.00 so that we could catch the 07.30 bus to Jerantut. When we arrived a man kindly asked where we were going and told us the different buses we could use to get to Kuala Lumpar and what time they left and also showed us where to buy tickets. A young woman overheard our talking and told us she was using the same buses as us to get to Kuala Lumpar and that we could follow her and she would show us what buses to catch etc. Our first bus took us to Termoloh and from there we used another to get to Kuala Lumpar, luckily all the buses left within half an hour of us arriving at each place so that by 14.00 we were in Kuala Lumpar and getting checked into our hostel! We've spent the afternoon having a little wander around the market and craft centre and that's about it really!

That's all for now, we'll be in Kuala Lumpar for a couple of days and then in Melaka for a day, so the next time you hear from us, we'll probably be in Singapore and coming to the end of our stay in South East Asia! We can't believe we're almost finished here, it'll mean we've been away for three months already and only have a month and a half to go - crazy stuff! Anyway, we hope everyone is well, keep commenting, missing you all!

Claggy - Very glad you're not too jealous of our trip and your new job sounds wicked, I can't wait to hear more about it when we're back. So glad you're enjoying it loads, take care and speak to you soon(ish)!

Nan and Grandad - Thanks for the comment you left us. Steve has been slipping over as well, but he seems to have a knack to stay on his feet more than me! We'll try and stop snorkeling in the mud, you certainly can't see as much that way! We're back to intense heat and humidity again, so we're looking forward to being in more temperate New Zealand in about 8 days time!