A walk in the Malaysian jungle

After leaving India and arriving in Bangkok I travelled straight to Malaysia where I intended to spend a few weeks relaxing after being ill in Kolkata. I arrived in Kota Baru just over the border form Thailand and found a guest house where I spent a couple of days deciding where to go next. The guys at the guest house recommended the Perethian Islands but after having been in the Andamans recently I settled on Taman Negara national park as I really wanted to spent a while walking and see some of the ancient karst landforms as well as the magnificent forest.


While in Kota Baru I visited the market to pass the time while waiting to catch the train to Jerantut, the closest main town to Taman Negara. Anything is available in the market and I wished I had had a stove so I could buy some fresh ingredients to cook up. There is a vast array of sea food available including trevally, snapper, cuttlefish, prawns, shark and turtle eggs, which go for around 5 ringit each. Theres also a vast range of fruit and vegetables, most of which the average european wouldn't recognise including the ubiquitous durian.

I took the half past six "jungle train" from Kota baru to Jerantut which took around six hours, mainly passing through beautiful forest but also less admirable palm oil plantations. I managed to get a seat by the window and spent the whole six hours watching myriads of butterflies and birds flitting past the window. I was pleased when I caught sight of the first birdwing I had seen since leaving India. The train stopped at all the small villages along the route and I thought how nice it would be to pass through this area without having to rely on the train or buses as I had thought many times before.

On arrival in Jerantut I checked in at a hotel and found out a bit about Taman Negara and that it was possible to take a boat the next morning from Kuala Tembling up the Sungai Tembeling to the park headquarters. The Boat journey took around three and a half hours and from start to finish gave the best scenery I have seen on a trip. Pristine forest cloaked the river banks on either side of the river, occasionally broken by a sandbank on the apex of a bend. I spotted a group of twelve or thirteen otters playing on one of the sandbanks and asked the boat driver to slow a bit as it made for great viewing.


The park headquarters is situated on the left hand side of the river, with a small village and floating restaurants on the other bank. I had travelled up river with Paul, an English guy I had met in Jerantut. We ate some food at one of the restaurants by the river before stocking up with provisions at the village shop for the next few days in the forest. We both had hammocks and agreed to sleep in the campsite over at the headquarters where we could also rent a stove and other bits and pieces for cooking. It turned out the campsite was probably the best place to view the forest's wildlife as certain species have become very tame and the abundance of lights bring down the nocturnal insects.

We woke the following morning to a group of wild pigs grazing the short grass, oblivious to our presence and it was only when I moved my head that they trotted a short distance before resuming their morning meal. The night before I had seen some eyes shining in the tree near my hammock. These turned out to belong to a Slow Loris that had been gorging on confused insects drawn to a nearby light. The night was full of sounds of resident cicadas and crickets amongst the larger species of forest animals.

Taman Negara is a large reserve, with an area of 4,343 square kilometres and is mostly made up of rainforest which is reputed to be the oldest on earth. The park is home to an amazing aray of fauna and flora including Tigers, Sumatran Rhinoceros and the strange looking Tapir. There are many plant species of note in this amazingly diverse area including the Tualung, a tree that can reach over 80 metres in height, supported by giant buttresses and the rafflesia renowned for having the largest flowers in the world. The Rafflesia is an endoparasite, having no stems, leaves or true roots and deriving all sustenance from various species of vines. The putrid smell of the massive flower is usually encountered before sighting the flower, and helps in pollination purposes.

Paul and I left early in the morning and walked 11km to a hide where we were told sightings of tapir and other animals were frequent. Although it was early morning, within ten minutes of leaving we were both soaked with sweat from head to toe. We caught sight of a small cat disappearing into the thick vegetation but couldn't identify it from this fleeting glimpse. The path followed the edge of the river and made for hard going as many small rivulets joined the main flow creating deep root strewn gulleys that needed considerable effort to climb through. I carried a relatively large rucksack as I planned to stay in the forest for a while and do some fishing. At this point I was wondering whether I should have travelled lighter. We saw some massive trees on the first day whose buttresses made perfect places to lean up and rest.

We eventually arrived at the hide and were joined by a few other people wanting to see some wildlife. The hide potentially sleeps twelve and is raised high above the ground giving a view over a clearing where supposedly there is a salt lick although I had my doubts whether the salt was ever replenished. We watched at dusk for any animals and saw one pig and heard some gibbons in the distance. Paul and I cooked a tasty beef curry while everyone else munched on biscuits, having come only for one night. I strung my hammock up from the rafters and went to sleep while some of the guys sat and shone their tiny torches into the darkness for hours hoping to glimpse something walking by. I didn't bother to tell them they were wasting their time and that they should have brought night vision equipment or proper torches!

During the night we were bothered by the resident jungle rats that were intent on eating all our food. These rats, though extremely annoying are very good looking. They are dark brown with a light beige stomach and a tail at least a foot long enabling them to climb anywhere they please. After hanging my food from string I got some sleep but was soon woken by a rustling and greeted by a rat sticking his head out of my food bag. After a right upper cut and a length of fishing line the problem was solved and suddenly everyone who was stranded on their bunkbeds wanted some line too. For the rest of the night while I was awake I could feel the rats trotting up and down my hammock strings, but left them to it and got some sleep.


The next day Paul and I took a walk to the river for some fishing. It was four km's and didn't take long to reach the old wooden chalets at Kuala Tahan all of which have been abandoned apart from one where a caretaker stays. Its a beautiful place perched above the river on a large bend giving a great view of the surrounding forest. The flower beds and lush lawns are slowly reverting back to forest while the chalets are being taken over by bats and squirrels. We spoke to the caretaker who told us he had personally landed fish of 50kg from the jetty below the gardens. This bit of information gave us confidence but due to the river being in flood I knew it would be hard going catching a fish without decent bait. We collected a can full of worms from the old overgrown flower beds before going down stream to a sand bank where we fished. There were plenty of small fish biting straight away but I had no hooks small enough to secure a few for bait. After an hour, with the sun high in the sky we ditched the fishing and instead swam in the warm flood water.

In the central flow it was possible to get carried down over the small rapids before swimming back to the edge and returning to our sand bank. I sunbathed on a large log caught in mid river and wandered what the Malaysians, passing occasionally in boats, were thinking, seeing us here in the middle of nowhere lounging in the river.

The next night we spent in the hide again and still didn't see any of the shy Tapirs. Paul left the next morning for Singapore and I decided to go further into the forest to look for some of the caves and side streams where better fishing may be found. Chris, a German guy who had arrived the first night joined me for the walk. We walked for half the day and found a cave after around 12-14 km. The Cave was situated around twenty feet up the side of a weathered limestone pinnacle and had a perfect view over the path below. A tricky climb through a large hole in the limestone gave access to the hollow which was more like a giant ledge in the rock than a cave. It was a perfect place to spend the night so we left our things and went in search of a larger cave 6 km away. We saw tapir tracks not far down the path which gave us hope that we might see some animals that night as we were placed in such a good spot.

The cave we found was massive, probably nearly half the size of a football pitch and was hollowed out at the base of a huge limestone pinnacle. There were two entrances, one obviously used by walkers who must often spend the night in the cave while the other was less well used and had vegetation dripping down from above. One corner was full of bats while it appeared most of the floor was soft with compacted bat guano. The cave was pretty spooky by daylight and looked like a most uncomfortable place to spend the night so we were glad we were pitched where we had. We walked back to the original cave where we had left our bags and on the way passed a troop of gibbons that were busy whooping at another troop some distance away. We stopped and listened for ten minutes, seeing a couple of them high up in the branches before walking on again as the light was starting to dwindling.

The cave we were sleeping in had some holes in the ceiling that had been eroded in the limestone which made perfect hanging points for my hammock. Chris slept on the ground with the jungle rats for company, which live in deep holes that disappear into the limestone. After a tasty curry we lay listening to the sounds of the jungle waiting for any animals to pass by on the path directly below us. We heard nothing but cicadas and other insects. Some of the noises at night are incredible and have to be heard to be believed. One species of cicada sounded exactly the same as the alarm clock on my old mobile phone. As you can guess this little pest woke me up many time through the night! As all the insects join chorus the sound becomes very intense and almost deafening before stopping dead and then resuming.


The next morning we woke to the heavy flapping of a group of giant hornbills flying overhead. These birds are incredibly noisy flyers and surprisingly can be heard from quite a distance in the forest. To get a good view of one is another matter though. We walked another fifteen km and visited another cave on route to Kuala Keniam. This cave wasn't as large as the one the day before but had a huge colony of bats, reached by climbing up a steep gully through the rock. When we arrived I saw a couple of bat hawks fly from the cave and quickly vanish. Near the cave was the biggest tree we had seen in the forest, a true giant. As we emerged from the cave a couple of 'trekkers' turned up with their Malaysian guide and seemed pretty surprised to see us so far into the forest without our own guide. We said our hellos and departed for the river.



We reached Kuala Keniam just after noon and were greeted by more beautiful wooden chalets that were being swallowed by the encroaching jungle. These had obviously been abandoned for a longer period than the ones we had seen down stream and were in a severe state of decay. The area would have been beautiful in its day. As much light reached the ground the vegetation was low and lush, attracting many butterflies and birds. Graphiums, other large swallowtails, beautiful hairstreaks and the occasional southern birdwing with its huge yellow and black wings flitted all over the area occasionally stopping for a drink of nectar at some Lanata or one of the old hibiscus flowers.



Chris had decided to go back to headquarters as his time was running out to get back to Germany so I deceided to join him before returning and continuing upstream to Kuala Perkai for some fishing. We sat down at the river under a big fig tree, that was continuously dropping ripe orange and red figs at our feet, and waited for a boat. A fish kept chasing fry into the shallows but evaded me when I tried to catch it. On our bank were some huge tracks made by a Gaur that had come for a drink and wallow in the cool river water. We sat for a couple of hours and slowly realised we must have missed any boats going down stream as they all passed us going the wrong way! On the far bank of the bend we sat on a huge sand bank where we could see a tiny speed boat parked up. The owner soon appeared and we waved him over to our side. As our Malay wasn't so good we made do with the sandy bank to help arrange what we wanted and after much scribbling in the sand we were off down stream.


The size of the small blue boat didn't fill us with confidence as it was just big enough for all of us and having seen some of the large rapids downstream we wondered what our fate might be. It didn't help when our friend the boat driver Raul shouted to me and asked with a big grin all over his face, whether I could swim. I smiled back and proceeded to wrap my camera up while Chris looked decidedly unhappy! We skipped down the river with the outboard purring behind us. It was great to see the forest we had walked through from a different perspective and we saw how far we had walked. The first rapid approaced and Raul picked his line carefully through the white water and we continued on without incident. After about half an hour the engine spluttered to a stop as the petrol was finished. The boat drifted silently down the river while we tipped the large tank on its side to make use of the last few drops. The engine roared back into life and we continued for another ten minutes before pulling up at a small jetty where four young boys were fishing. Raul jumped out and returned shortly with a coke bottle full of fuel, we were on our way again.


The trip took around an hour and a half and as we went Raul pointed out all the good fishing spots to me. They looked perfect for holding large Malaysian Mahseer. Lower down the river I had seen many fish traps placed in the margins of the river. These consisted of large cages built from stout sticks with a door on one end. As a big fish swims in it triggers a release mechanism and the door falls shut, trapping the fish. Judging by the size of these traps they are designed for large fish such as catfish and mahseer. At one shallow section of the river we passed three guys wading in the fast water created by the rock strewn river bed. It looked as if they may be swept away at any moment but they were sure footed due to many years of practice. Here they carefully threw their cast nets for fish that was obviously very sought after.

Back at park headquarters I said goodbye to Chris and loaded up with some more food and then set off back upstream with Raul after picking up some more petrol from the floating fuel station. It made for slower going heading up river and the rapids tended to shake the little boat much more than before, but Raul was obviously experienced and had passed this way all his life. I got dropped at Kuala Keniam and tried to tell Raul I might require his services in a weeks time. He went back across the river and joined his four rubber tapping friends that were staying for four months tapping the surrounding rubber trees in the plantation some five km away on the far bank.

I set my hammock up on the verandah of one of the abandoned chalets where I had a lovely view of the river and cooked an evening meal of curry and rice. For the evening I fished down at the river using some dates I had and the fallen figs as bait. I didn't have any bites and after a few hours retired to my hammock for some sleep after removing the leeches from my legs. Up until this point I had had around 150 leeches trying to get at my blood, but luckily quite a few were removed before they had a chance of doing too much damage. As I was dozing off a huge tree perhaps two hundred metres away crashed to the ground, for no particular reason apart from being old and top heavy. It was an awesome noise breaking the quiet of the night and silenced most of the jungle folk for a few minutes before the chorus started again.


When I woke the next morning I noticed a small bird sitting in its nest, not more than two metres from me in the vegetation below the verandah. She didn't seem too bothered by me during my stay and stared at me as much as I stared back.

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