So when we got back from our jungle walking we went to the park office to enquire about a guide for a big rainforest expedition. We had talked to one woman at a tourist agency who had turned us off a bit about the trek. She said it was extremely difficult and that many really good climbers, climbers who had climbed heavily in the rockies and the Himalayas had been turned back. And now the conditions were really poor b/c it had been raining so much and we’d surely get lots more rain. And the rivers were all swelling and at flood stage b/c of all the rains, so the river crossings could be neck deep. It was definitely true that the rivers were really high. They have all these floating restaurants on the river at kuala tahan and the planks they usually had to walk from the restaurant to the shore were now too short as the water was so high up the bank. And she said with her guides you have to bring or rent your own equipment and go get your own food for the trek. This combined with the fact that the rainforest is definitely not a comfortable place had turned us off a bit.
But we enquired at the park office all the same. They brought out a guide to meet us, named Elmizan. He was quite enthusiastic about it and said he’d help with getting us equipment and figuring out the food. This made us much happier and we decided to go for it. Jenny and a couple of the other gals from our hostel that had gone on the canopy walk with us couldn’t believe we were seriously going to do it.
That night we hopped into a little truck with Elmi to go to the nearest little town to buy food. All they had was a little mini mart that we used. Quite hilarious really. I was glad he was there to help us b/c back home I know how to pack and get food for a backpacking trip, but with asian food…at a mini mart, I had no idea. How many kilos of rice to bring, how much curry sauce, etc, etc. We bought lots of ramen noodles, rice, and canned curry meat dishes. And I of course bought some chocolate for victory chocolates at the end of every day.
Jungle Trek: 100km total (62miles). 55km to the top of Gunung Tahan (mt. tahan) at 2187m (about 7000ft), the highest peak in peninsular malaysia then 45km to the headquarters on the other side
Day 1: (5hrs walking) A fairly easy day physically, but just lots and lots of slogging through mud (usually this whole part is dry in the dry season elmie told us). In fact the whole trip was never too physically demanding for me…definitely tough indeed, but b/c the other two were a bit slower I never really had to push too hard. But the trip was much more mentally challenging for me having to deal with the wetness. In the jungle you sweat so much and then everything is soaked and nothing dries. Even if you have a completely dry shirt and you take it out of a plastic bag, it will get damp, and if you leave that same shirt out overnight during the extreme humidity of the night, it will be soaking and you will be able to wring it out, all that with a dry shirt, now imagine a sweaty shirt. So you basically just take two pairs of clothes. One that is always wet to use in the day, and one for at night to sleep in. So dealing with everything constantly being soaked or damp was difficult for me and also a bit worrying b/c mold starts to grow and can ruin nice equipment like backpacks and such. But after a while, I got used to it and it was near so bad.
The first camp was very nice. Right next to a rushing clear creek. We set up camp, built a fire, and then all went for swims and baths in the river. Apparently as elmie said, it was bee season. So there were thousands of bees everywhere and they particularly loved the sweat on our bodies and clothes. But if you remain calm they won’t sting you. So no stings the first day even though after our swim we walked around and did everything in our camp just in our underwear. It’s so hot and sweaty that it’s easiest to just be in your underwear. No rain that day or night! We had vegetables (weggies to elmie) that night and the next as we had two days before they would spoil. Every night we had rice and a canned thing and every meal we always had milo for hydration. That night we boiled water on the fire, but b/c we just had small pots, it took forever to boil enough water for the 3 of us (we drink lots and hydration is key). After that Kim and Clare decided to drink from the stream which elmie said was ok b/c the water was clear, but I didn’t trust it and I had purifying tablets, so I switched to them. 8 leeches this day…no big deal.
Day 2: (7hrs walking) Woke up to complete dampness and put on our wet and muddy and already smelly clothes. Today the trail was much drier which was nice and we climbed up and then down a small mountain. It was steep, but not too bad. The top of the mountain had no trees and the drier air and sun was great. The next campsite was beautiful as well, next to a clear stream and a big river. Bathed in the clear stream and went for a swim in the big one. Again, the same routine as the day before doing everything in camp in our underwear. We began to liken ourselves to Moglie and the jungle book, singing jungle book songs, pretending to be moglie (which in our underwear seemed to make sense) and looking for baloo floating down the river. Elmie of course was the true jungle man. He had once spent a month and a half in the rainforest without leaving with 2 japanese researchers who were doing tiger research. They had to live off the jungle and also not bathe b/c they had to smell like the jungle and not like humans to study the tigers. They actually saw quite a lot of tigers and had a population estimate of 200 in the park. It rained a bit that night, but must have rained a lot higher up b/c the river swelled greatly. 3 leeches today. Stung twice by bees, one on the arm and once perilously close to the crotch. We didn’t sleep too well, b/c our tent was full of itchy sandflies that can get in through the holes in the tents mesh.
Day 3 (6hrs walking, 4 big rivers crossed). Normally you have 8 rivers to cross on this day, but b/c of the rain some of the crossings were dangerous, so we took a harder and less improved trail to avoid some of the crossings. Sometimes it rains so much the night before you can’t do any crossings and then you just have to wait a day, which might mean you run out of food, but then as elmie says, you just survive. I rather enjoyed the river crossings b/c they cooled you off and were a challenge. I never fell in and the highest crossing was just above my belly button, so my stuff stayed pretty dry. Another sweet campsite by a bit clear river. We arrived to the campsite about 10 minutes before it started dumping rain. We got the tent set up and then had the bright idea that it would be fun to go for a swim while it was raining as we figured it’d rain for about an hour like last time. We played in the river for an hour until we were cold. We got out and then it just kept raining and raining and pouring so hard. We sat in the rain for over an hour freezing, hoping it would stop, b/c we had no way to dry off before getting in the tent and the tent was the only dry thing we had (or so we thought). There was this plant with huge leaves that I grabbed to use as an umbrella. Unfortunately elmie later informed me after the fact that it was an itchy plant and geeze, did it burn and sting and itch so bad, and I couldn’t get it off in the river. We eventually were so cold we just decided to get in the tent. We used our soaking towels to attempt to get some of the moisture off us. Once inside the tent we saw that the whole floor was flooded and soaking. The tent was obviously waterproofed asian style. So we wrung out the towels and tried the best we could to mop up the water. The rain finally stopped around 8 or 9 so that we could eat. We didn’t get much sleep that night b/c of more sandflies and b/c of sleeping in a small puddle. Only 4 leeches today and 1 bee sting. We were now in the middle of the rainforest, 3 days walk from any civilization
Day 4 (10 hours walking) (May 27th in Asia…my birthday). Today was a big elevation gain day and by far the hardest. Straight up, and yes literally straight up. They don’t believe in switchbacks here. Just climbing straight up pulling yourself up with roots and rope laid out. It would have been quite exhausting if I was going fast, but we weren’t going too fast. In the first half of the day we were so, so sweaty as it was hot and we were working hard and with the heavy rains the humidity was just insane. But eventually we started getting up higher to shorter trees and the humidity lessened a bit, and then eventually we hit treeline. The air felt AMAZING! It would have been humid still to anyone else, but to me it felt like a burst of dry estes park air. And it was much cooler. And oh, the breeze was so nice as the rainforest is impossibly still. We still had much to climb and first we had to descent along some ridges back into the jungle again before going back up. We finally started on the final ascent which was definitely straight up. There were ropes we used to pull ourselves up and also several ladders. But when we made it to the campsite and it was great. The air felt so dry, we had great views, and the air was chilly. You could see down across the valley to some huge cliffs on the otherside with gigantic waterfalls cascading down. I just felt so good. My birthday chocolate was especially good that day. Kim was feeling quite sick and had a fever, probably from exhaustion and maybe dehydration, so he just stayed in the tent, but I had carried up a chocolate cake for my birthday and enjoyed that by the fire. I really enjoyed this day, especially getting up to the dry. It rained that night, and we got a bit wet, but not too terrible. Only 1 bee sting on my birthday.
Day 5 (6 hours walking): We climbed up the first peak which was about 2000m and then descended back into the really mucky and tiresome upper jungle before making the final ascent for gunung tahan. Both Kim and Clare were feeling quite sick and were going quite slow so elmie stayed with them and he said I should just go for the summit b/c he could tell it was quite difficult for me to go so slow. I made it up to the summit about 1pm malay time which is 11pm May 27th, still my birthday in mountain standard time, so that was pretty cool! Waited a for a while and eventually the whole crew made it up. We had lunch on the summit and poor clare just curled up in a sleeping bag b/c she was so cold. The views were nice when we saw them, but fog and clouds often enshrouded us.. It was only an hour down to the next campsite, which was another awesome campsite. Dry and cool air and great views of the two big mountains. There were also some other Malayan tourists there that were climbing the mountain from the other side (we saw a few other groups during our 7 days, but never any other westerners). It rained that night, but just a long drizzle, so we stayed dry, and we had managed to dry out a bit of stuff before that.
Day 6: (7 hours walking): Long steep descent back into the jungle. A lot of just scrambling down roots and sliding down mud. Saw a pit viper today which was pretty cool. Frustratingly slow pace, but I was impressed clare was able to make it down, she did a good job. The campsite was at a crystal clear stream perfect for a swim. The afternoon and night was gorgeous with clear skies. We had a big fire and a big feast b/c we could eat all the food we had left. We stayed for a long time by the fire just enjoying the night and our last night in the jungle. But about 5am it started pouring and of course we got wet. It didn’t stop until we had been walking for a little bit the next day.
Day 7 (4 hours walking): Started the morning walking in the rain. Today was the easiest day as it was mostly downhill, but not too streep and then flat on good trail. Went by a couple of cool waterfalls. We had 4 big river crossings today that were pretty high because of the rain. One was a bit nerve wracking b/c you had to put your bag on your shoulder as it was chest deep, and hold onto a rope b/c just a few feet down was a big rapid. But I made it across safely carrying my bag and then realized that elmie would have carried my stuff for me b/c he did it for clare and kim, but I guess that made me feel tougher. After the last river crossing elmie said it was only 10 more minutes to the end, and I was actually kind of sad as I had been enjoying my time in the jungle. We made it to one final river crossing, but it had a bridge and then we were back to civilization and buildings. We sat around a bit trying to dry out and finishing up paperwork before taking a truck to gua musang. We got there around 4 and we had to wait until 10pm to catch the jungle night train. We all had a big meal and I bought some icecream and chocolate milk! The other two were very exhausted, but I decided to go for a walk around the town. It is an extremely conservative muslim town, so everyone is wearing the proper gowns and headgear, but everyone was so incredibly friendly. My favorite town here so far. Everyone on the street was talk to me and even the people on scooters driving by would yell out a hello. The town was also in a gorgeous location with the jungle on its fringes and big karst mountains all around. We caught the night train to jerantut and arrived a bit after 1am
Day 8 (10 mins walking): Elmie put us up for free at a friends hotel that was nice (had ac and a tv). I wasn’t feeling too tired so I watched will smith’s i-robot on tv. We all slept in until 9 and then after getting some more good food, caught the 1pm bus back to kuala tehan. I immediately took all my stuff out at the hostel to dry out and just sat around and read.
Kim and Clare wanted to go back to the city so they took the next bus back to Jerantut. I still wanted to do the night safari, so I stayed another night in Kuala Tahan. The night safari was definitely worth it as we saw 4 leopard cats (a beautiful little cat not much bigger than a house cat and with nice spots like a leopard), a Malayan civet cat, and 3 paradise tree snakes of various sizes.
Favorite quotes by Elmie. “If we have to stay an extra day or get stuck in the jungle we will run out of food, and then we just have to survive”
“If you come across a tiger, either you die, or the tiger dies” hmm…in my case I knew who would die as I don’t think I could kill a tiger…but in the end that was a joke b/c he said he had seen lots of tigers and never killed a one.
June 1: took the early morning bus back to Jerantut where I met back up with Kim and Clare. We decided to pay a few extra ringitt for a shared aircon room to help dry out. And we just spent the day in jerantut getting our washing done as our clothes were so smelly and doing some internet and such. We had a rootbeer float party to celebrate my birthday, their 2 year anniversary (same day as my birthday) and climbing the mountain. In kota bahru we had gone by an A&W, and I had looked at it with a watery mouth as it was so hot out, but american fast foods here are more expensive than they are back home. They saw me look at it, and they didn't know what it was nor what a rootbeer float is. I guess that's a very american thing, summer day going to the park to play some baseball then going to the A&W drive up and ordering chili cheese fries, coney dogs, hamburgers, and rootbeer floats, and your food gets brought to you by people on roller skates (or at least back home in montrose they used to). Anyways, Kim and Clare had never had any, so I decided I'd introduce them to the tasty cool treat.
The rainforest trek was one of the most mentally challenging things I’ve done (and fairly physically challenging as well), but it was definitely worth it. I mean, what a great experience to be in the middle of a huge pristine rainforest, climbing a mountain, just us. Not many people can say they’ve truly been in the rainforest like we have. And it is definitely an experience I will never forget. And minus worrying about a few things like my backpack becoming really moldy, I became quite used to the jungle dampness and it didn’t bother me much. And the jungle is for sure a beautiful and mysterious place. The funny thing is we all noted how much trouble we had sleeping as soon as we got back to civilization even though we had beds instead of 1cm thick pads. Something about the jungle noises to put you to sleep. But yea, a great experience to never forget! And it definitely makes me appreciate the cold, dry, wonderful air of Colorado even more. How often during the trek I dreamed I was camping there where everything dries out instantly.
June 2: Bussed from Jerantut to Temerloh. Then from there to Kuantan. I had some time there and it's a large city so I checked out a couple of the shopping centers there to see if I could pick up some things that I had lost/broke in the rainforest. And hit the huge food market as well. The city was actually quite nice with a colonial mixed with asian feel. There was a cool riverwalk along a gigantic river that I strolled around waiting for the bus. Kuantan also had a huge beautiful mosque with a large green grassy field in front of it, with a nice breeze. I hadn't been in the city for a while, and usually I don't like cities, but I liked this one. I think partly because out here in asia you can be so long in places where you can't get any modern conveniences that it's nice to get to a place where you can. And I think sometimes the modernity reminds me of home, which I often like. In the US you're never really far from a place where you can easily pick up items you may need (sunscreen, shampoo, a backpack, shoes, etc), so I particularly like to avoid cities there. Like if I were to devise a tour for a visitor, it would hardly include any cities, just the wilds, but the difference is even in small places like Estes Park, McCall, Moab, Jackson hole, there are always big supermarkets and hardware stores and such. So far malaysian cities (and we're not talking about the monstrosity cities like kuala lumpur, bangkok, manila, singapore as those are on a whole other level, but the smaller cities) are my favorite of the countries I've been to. Most the Philippine cities are just really dirty, smelly, full of homeless and beggars. I didn't go to many thai cities b/c the islands are kind of far from them and you avoid them through transit, but the ones I did go to are difficult to navigate b/c the streets are confusing and nothing is written in arabic, but all in thai symbols, so you don't even know what a certain store or place is. The malaysian cities are easy to walk, very clean, very friendly people, quite modern, everyone speaks good english, and even somewhat planned out (this could be due to old british colonialism) so there are parks and playgrounds and green space. I really liked Kuantan though and almost thought about staying, partly b/c of the huge beautiful grass field with the breeze in front of the stunning mosque. I just wanted to go out there and toss the frisbee or football around, but alas I had none of those, nor a partner, so I moved on to cherating and cherating beach.
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