STOP PRESS! I am a senior citizen in Malaysia! Yippee I get discounts! I know, I know I’m very nearly one in the UK but, I’m taking the little win early, hahaha! We found this out the second time we were sent to the queue for senior citizens at Kuala Lumpur to buy bus tickets.
The bus to Taman Negara, was comfy with wide seats, we sat at the front and my seat had nothing but the windscreen ahead. The down side was there were no seatbelts. The buses are high and have soft suspension. The driver sits lower than the passengers.
Bloody Hell! The driver was tailgating, breaking often and sharply, talking on hands free all the time and not driving to the standards of the road at all. My foot was hitting an imaginary brake and any really hard braking would definitely have had me out of my seat! The 3 hour ride seemed endless and exhausting. I was so glad to get off at the end.
We had one night in a little nondescript town of Jerantut.
The following morning we had a ‘Grab’ breakfast (like Uber Eats I guess), it was a bit of a mystery what it would be like when it arrived but it was OK. Neither of us have done anything like that before.
We had to catch a boat to the village we were going to stay in. The Boat ride was three hours and not quite as tranquil as I had imagined. The noise of the motor drowned out all sound as it whisked us up the River Temberling. The river itself is muddy looking with all the sand and silt suspended in it but apparently it’s unpolluted. Sand dunes had developed in some places and clearly it was quite shallow. At odd intervals there were bottles suspended presumably over fishing pots. Also plenty of people fishing.
We also saw kingfisher and water buffalo on the banks.
Arriving at Kuala Tahan the village we were to stay at, we had a quick lunch on a floating restaurant before calling the hotel to collect us.
Our ride arrived and my overall impression was Miss Truchbull from Roald Dahl’s ‘Matilda’. Grumbing at us about messaging via booking.com, this Dutch woman gives us a fierce hand shake and we set off to our very expensive hotel (About £70 a night) but it was also half board. I won’t tell you the name of the place but Tatjana later found a translation that gave the partial name as Scary Hall! Oh Dear what have we done!
It was a pretty place and it should have been a wonderful experience in the national park but, I came down with a horrible cold.
We got one walk in the accessible part (you need guides to go deeper) and Tatjana didn’t feel this part was that old. Taman Negara Rain Forest is famously estimated to be more than 130 million years old. I’m inclined to agree with Tatjana as there were no really old trees but I guess further in there are. We followed the rickety board walk, dressed in our cheeky little number including leech socks!
As we left most of the people behind we began to see a few animals. We could hear a loud call that I knew to be a primate ( later we found out this was a white handed Gibbon after my rendition to a guide!) Also there were a range of clicks and trills and one sound that was like a disc cutter, Tatjana took a bit of convincing it wasn’t man made. It was a Cicada.
We were came off the board walk and down to a stream. We could hear in the canopy above a lot of movement as a group of primates gambolled about. I got the distinct impression they were watching us too. I don’t know what they were but they had really long tails and probably were Long tailed Macaques. We saw a bronze lizard too, a sun skink, me thinks! Later we realise another troop of primates were above and a chap with a super camera confirmed it was dusky leaf monkey with white around it’s eyes giving a really cute appearance. See the link below.
https://images.app.goo.gl/kXYPaPzfH7DCHSVG9
We heard a number of birds too that we identified via the Merlin app but now I need a Merlin app that identifies insects and frogs.
After our walk the cold really took over and I went to bed.
The Travelling Bee 