Taman Negara

I arrived at Taman Negara not knowing exactly what to expect. The little river side village had little to offer. Many of the places I could see recommended on Google maps were closed. Foe the duration of my stay I would have lunch at the floating restaurants docked at the river and dinner at the village's only open restaurant. The upside was that all the travellers converged at the same place. I often shared a table with other random travelers. A deafening choir of screeches on the pond nearby would made it seem like the frogs there were screaming for their lifes.

For a small fee, a ferry boat took me to the opposite bank, where a sprawling luxurious resort claimed a piece from the wild rain forrest. Beyond it, a wooden path serpentined through the wilderness. Beyond the walkway, only the existence of trails through the forest were left as a sign of human presence.

It was one of these trails that I followed with a group of travellers and a local guide on a day trip of 8 km. We made our way through the forrest, avoiding termite nests and listening to monkeys and other wild animals singing the forrest soundtrack. It was a relatively relaxed hike until our guide found a pile of poo. It was from an elefant who had passed there a few hours prior. Alarmed, he asked us to proceed carefully and turn back on any sign of danger. We soon found more signs of elephant presence—an area where thin young trees had been ravaged for food and the shape of footprints in the dried mud.

Ou guide was looking very uncomfortable at this point. After using his radio to discuss with someone he decided to stay put and wait for a more experienced guide that was half an hour behind us with another group. It took awhile, but we eventually merged the two groups and kept on pushing forward. The new guide looked confident. Maybe a bit too much for my liking. I realised my gut was not wrong when he made the passing comment that in case the elephant shows up the safest option would be to jump on the muddy river.

We finally made it to our end destination, a nice waterfall where we could bathe and relax. People started removing shoes and socks to get in the water only to find leaches fattening up with their bood. Soon, half of the group had blood streaks running down their ankles from the little fuckers' bites.

Regardless, people got to enjoy the water and the sun. I was quite relaxed until I noticed that the experienced guide was looking nervous. After some chit-chatting he let me know that this waterfall was located at the end of a narrow natural corridor and that if the elephant found the entrance we would have no way out. Fun!

We decided to cut the water and sun bathing short and get out of that natural trap. A couple of long beaten wooden boats were waiting for us by the riverside, one of them with a passenger onboard. He looked out of place with his Hawaiian shirt, fisherman's hat and the smirk of someone who just thought of an inside joke. I would come to learn that that smile was almost always up on his face whenever ladys—or fly honeys like he would call them—were closeby. In this particular instance the smile carried a hint of pride for the large fish laying at his feet. Aparenttly he and the boat driver had been fishing before picking us up.

His name was Irvin, an American guy around my age that would become my travel buddy for the next few weeks. He had paid the boat driver a small fee to be taken up to a village of indigenous people a little further upstream, where the tour would take us next.

The boat's motor roared in its fight against the muddy current, while the driver expertly manoeuvred on the fast shallow waters taking us further upstream before dropping us on the opposite side of the river. The village consisted of small spread out bamboo huts. Raised on wooden feet by half a meter or so on the compacted forrest soil smoothed by many feet. The spaces between huts were left mostly empty except for a few trees, some long row seats, and a few chicken.

The village was very small, maybe a handful of huts. The inhabitants were going about their lives, not engaging much with the group and keeping mostly to themselves. We were shown some of their weapons, and taught some of their hunting methods and afterwards we returned to the boat that brought us back to the main village of Taman Negara.

That night I met with Irvin for dinner plus a few more people from my group tour. He was from the Utah, US and had been slowly travelling through Malaysia for some time. I told him about my plans to go to the Perentian islands he jumped at the opportunity and decided to join me. We agreed to stay in Taman Negara for one more day before leaving.

The next day I went out exploring by myself, inspired by some of the tales of the other travellers I had met. I spent theRead more