Taman Nagara literally mean National Park. Quite an original and descriptive name for the huge expanse of untouched jungle in the middle of peninsular Malaysia.
The original plan was to hike up Gunan Tahan, the highest mountain on peninsular Malaysia and apparently one of the top ten treks in the world. We spent a day getting to the western park entrance at Sungai Relau via a series of buses, taxis and finally some guy who we paid a few ringgit to drive us the last 10 km in his car. We arrived at the park headquarters excited and ready to get trekking to our first campsite. Then the park officials told us the park was closed from the western entrance and that no one could be admitted. The reason for this was that a university group from from Kuala Lumpur had hiked the mountain and were on their way back when a girl in their party got lost in the jungle. That had been 16 days ago from the day we arrived and they still had not found her! Nearly two hundred park rangers, guides and military were scouring the western side of the park looking for her. We were disappointed that we had to change our plans but much more sympathetic for the girl out in the jungle, who, I assumed, was dead...
We arranged a ride to the southern entrance of the park at Kuala Tahan for later in the evening and entertained ourselves by doing a few kilometers of trekking near the park entrance and swimming in the river.
The ride over was fun as our driver was a local guide who told us many stories about some of the things he'd seen in the jungle including tigers, king cobras, elephants and the rare Sumatran rhino. This got us pretty excited for doing a few day excursion.
We arrived at Kuala Tahan at about midnight and were lucky to run into a local guide who was running a three day trek leaving the following morning. We signed up right away and then crashed for the night.
The next morning after a quick breakfast and a long political discussion with a Malay man who was incredibly well informed about the state of the world financial markets, we set off up river in a small wooden boat. The ride was quite scenic and relaxing.
(Here I am swinging on a vine)
After about an hour and a half in the boat the trek began. We started slowly and our guide, whose name was Man, stopped often to inform us of the various medicinal uses of the flora that grew in the jungle. Essentially if you were to suffer from erectile dysfunction or lack of sufficient libido, EVERY SINGLE PLANT in the jungle would make you horny and perform better in the sac. Or at least it seemed to be the case from what Man said. We later learned that Man, or so he said, had slept with over three thousand women, most of them Thai prostitutes, though to his credit he said he never paid for any of them... I'm still not sure how to interpret that. So we came to the conclusion that Man was just a sexaholic and he was always horny and just assumed all the jungle plants he ate made him that way.
The first night we slept in a huge cave, it was truly massive, the photos do not clearly capture the size of it. It was quite a nice experience though the my sleep was less than great because of the uncomfortable surface we were sleeping on.
We spent the evening at the cave eating some pretty good curry that Man made and then went on a night time wildlife walk where we saw a large scorpion and not much else.The next day we did some more trekking and stopped for a few hours at a nice stream that we could swim in while Man made us lunch. It was a nice afternoon and a well needed dip into some clean water.
We spent that night in an animal blind near a salt lick. Apparently animals like to go to salt licks near blinds, but just not while we were around. Mostly we spent the evening talking about everything from relativity theory to homosexuality. Man had little to say about relativity theory but when the talk turned to homosexuality he explained that although he was not gay, men had raped him while he was in prison as a young man, but, he laughed, "I get revenge on them. Later I fuck their assholes, hahahah." I failed to see the humour in the situation but it was probably a case of 'you had to be there.' Then a serious look crossed Man's face and he said, "No, I not gay. But sometimes I see macho men and I want to screw their assholes." We all nodded somberly and I hoped beyond hope that a Sumatran rhino would stumble out of bush and break the awkwardness.
The next day we had a short hike back to the river where we waited for the boat to come and pick us up. It had rained the night before and the trail had been full of leaches. Everyone of us had at least twenty leaches on our legs over the course of the half hour hike. At the river I was desperate for a swim and saw that there was a swinging rope just next to the dock. I asked Man if it was very deep and he assured me that it was. Happily I swung off the rope trying to get as much height as I could before I landed on a rock in the waist deep water. Lucky the only thing that was hurt was my pride... and my back.
On the boat ride we learned that the girl who was lost in the jungle was found! I think we were all relieved to hear it. I really thought she had died alone and scared in the jungle and that thought had made me pretty sad, so learning she made it out safe put me in a good mood.
We got off the boat early and did a canopy walk on these dangling walkways before walking a few kilometers back to Kuala Tahan. There was a boat heading down stream so we caught that for a nice three hour boat ride to the town of Jerantut where we expected to catch a bus. We ended up taking a cab as we got a fairly good rate from a nice Malay man who had questionable eyesight and an even more questionable vehicle. It got a flat tire about a half hour into our drive.
All in all, our time in Taman Nagara was a rich and rewarding experience which taught me that going on a jungle trek is not all about seeing rare animals and strange plant life; it is also about being uncomfortable and getting full of leaches.
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