After
2 nights in Melaka we headed back North towards Taman Negara National
Park, a couple of hours North East of Kuala Lumpur. All the buses
from Melaka to Jerantut, the nearest town to Taman Negara, were fully
booked so we took a punt and got on a bus to K.L. From where we were
able to get on a bus to Jerantut after waiting for a while on the
reserve list hoping that some pre-booked passengers wouldn't turn up.
Jerantut
has very little going on, so after one night we made our way to a
village on the edge of the National Park by bus followed by a scenic
boat trip along the river. On arrival we scurried to shore and into
the village to beat our fellow tourists to the most reasonable of the
overpriced rooms available, and managed to find a place that wasn't
bad (except for being right next to a Mosque and its rather loud 5am
call to prayer).
After
a short rest we took a boat across the river, passed through a fancy
looking resort and explored a little of the National Park. Our last
experience of jungle had been in Nepal where the undergrowth was so
dense that we had to fight our way through it; this was a completely
different kettle of fish. Make no mistake, this was full-on dense
jungle with towering trees, twisting vines and all sorts of sounds from unseen
animals in every direction, but passing through the jungle was a
perfectly constructed and well maintained wooden walkway elevated 6
inches above the floor and about 3 feet wide with occasional signs
pointing the way to the various different routes. This meant that
exploring the jungle was as easy as walking along a sidewalk.
After
about 40 minutes or so we reached part of the river where is was
possible to swim. Despite being a hot and humid day the water was
freezing so we limited our water activities to paddling shin-deep
before lying in the shade for a while and then making our way back to
the village before nightfall.
That
evening we went on a night safari. This consisted of sitting in the
back of a truck whilst a young boy sat on top of the cab and pointed
a powerful spotlight into the trees in the hope of seeing wildlife.
Apparently in Texas this is known as “Friday night”. Our initial
excitement was perked by the early spots of two barn owls and a
leopard cat (which looked suspiciously like a cat cat to me).
However
that was where the wildlife sightings ended, and our interest slowly
turned from scanning the darkness for movement to chatting amongst
ourselves. It was a pretty disappointing experience.
The
following day we crossed the river again, albeit with a little more
difficulty this time as the overnight rain had caused the water-level
to rise with the result of making it difficult to access the floating
restaurants along the river from which we could get a boat to take us
to the other side. This time we headed to the canopy walkway; Taman
Negara is home to the longest canopy walkway in the world at 450m
long. It basically consists of multiple aluminium ladders covered
with planks of wood and suspended between the trees up to 40m above
the ground. It was quite good fun to walk along the very narrow and
wobbly walkway and enjoy being amongst the jungle canopy. We had
hoped to see some wildlife while we were up there, but we had no such
luck this time. Even so, it was a fun experience and came to an end
far too quickly.
After
the walkway we made our way up to a lookout point where we enjoyed a
nice view over the jungle as we recovered from the climb before
returning to the village.
Taman
Negara is a pretty nice National Park with really impressive jungle.
However, with its posh resorts and well constructed paths it was just
a little tame for my liking. I'm sure that we would have enjoyed one
of the 2-3 day treks that go deeper into the jungle and offer a
better chance of seeing some exciting wildlife, however we
unfortunately didn't have time to do so as we were due to fly to
Indonesia just a couple of days later. So we headed back to Jerantut
for another night and squeezed in a trip to Pizza Hut at Monique's
request before heading back to K.L.
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