This post might be a bit longer than the others. So if you feel like travel with me to the oldest National park in the World, get yourself a cup of something nice, expect unexpectable & let's go for a jungle trip!
Taman Negara (translation is a National Park) is 130 million year old jungle, nowadays National Park of Malaysia. I chose it as a destination of my next trip. I wanted to experience the real jungle. 3 people joined me- Neha,my colleague(India)&other trainees- Martin(Germany), Aaron(Canada).
Before the trip we made a big fuzz out of it, googling what to take to the jungle & ppl made fun of us, that we wrote down a list of all important things like mosquito repelent, things against leeches, knives...
Our trip was for 3 days & 2 nights.
We set of on Thursday morning - travelled 3 hours with the bus, followed by a 3 hours lasting wooden-boat trip on a wide&dirty Pahang river to the place of our stay - Mutiara Taman Negara Hotel (the only one in the jungle, luxurious place, but we stayed in the hostel rooms, nice too).
We could book different trips there (get a guide, pay&go)
Our first trip was to the
Orang Asli settlement - Aboriginies people of Malaysia. Very interesting. The tribe we visited, have their own jungle janguage (tum=river), live in the jungle, make their living out of wood, hunt animals for food. We were showned how they make a fire.
View a video here! Women there live separate from men and in the tribe (aprox.20ppl) there is a chief, who is "leader" of the group plus a doctor, since they take all the medicin out of the jungle.
We spent there about half an hour and then strong wind started to blow, leaves from high trees started to fall down and sky became dark. We could see lightenings coming, plus thunders make the atmosphere in the jungle pretty "scary"... This was the point of time I started to respect the jungle.
We went home. The rain has started. We had our dinner = things we brought from home.
The next trip we booked was the
Night Jungle Walk. We were praying it stops raining. In the case, it was raining, our walk would be cancled. Our prayers were successfull. We went.
Raincoat(what if it starts to rain again), flash light, long sleaves, long pants (all against leeches), mosquito repellent, mobile phone. Courage.
At 9pm we set off. We plus other 10ppl and our guide. We left behind our comfy hostel site and entered a real jungle. High trees, different plants, all green(black at night:P), On the way we saw sleeping birdies, small, medium& big spiders. When I say big, I mean it! In the middle of the walk it started to rain a bit. The canopy (upper part of the trees with the leaves) managed to contol the rain till a certain point, so we did not get wet too much. But the rain became stronger. In a while it was a typical rainforrestial rain :) The path become muddy. Walking over roots, having flash light that doesnt shine much, raining like hell - in the middle of the oldest rainforrest.
I couldnt help myself I had to share my feelings and I called my mum, all the way from the jungle to the Czech Republic:)
We came home afer 1 hour, wet, muddy, but happy! & slept like babies!
Next day, Friday, was THE JUNGLE DAY!We started our day with a bufet breakfast. Yamiiii!
The plan of the day were two activities - Jungle tracking & Cave exploring.
Jungle tracking was a daily walk in the jungle. During the day the jungle looks different. Different sounds, many trees, flowers, animals, muddy track. My shoes were in a while dirty.
A little movie here. In a group of 10ppl we reached soon a "
Canopy walk way", which is 45 meters lifted walk way, while you are climbing in the trees, watching the forrest, rivers from above. AWESOME feeling:)
See yourself!!!! 
We continued our tracking with climbing a 334m mountain. Some of us gave up, cause it was a steep walk. I did not and decided to sweat my shirt from inside out. The view was worth it. On the way down we met a wild pig & I swang on the liana like a Tarzan :)
We came home all exhausted, hungry, longing for a sleep. I took a shower-aaaaa... so good! & had the best canned Bake Beans ever. Not really time for sleep, cause we continued with Cave Exploring. All 4 of us came to the meeting point with our guide with no temper, sleepy, silent and tired. We were said that this tour is mostly sitting in a boat, looking at the cave, seeing some bats, tracking a while in a jungle, so we thought we gonna get some rest.
BUT.
Now... here comes the adventure of my life...
We took a boat, about 10 minutes, that brought us to the place from where we had to track to the cave. We were about 7 ppl plus our guide. OK, let's go. Some of us had a slight difficulties with the tracking, since the path reminded of muddy ponds that led through many unexpectable roots of the forrest trees. The way to the cave was not easy and my trousers and shoes were resembled soon advertisment on dirt.
Nevertheless, all of us reached the cave. Our guide told us to leave bags we carried in front of the cave, since there might be some tight places in the cave. I took my camera and money. The plan was a boat and relaxed admiring of cave. The reality was: while entering the cave we had to try hard to climb the stones to get in. Right at the beginning two ladies gave up. We continued crawling through a little streem of water. My feet were wet. Mud was gone :) Trying hard not to get wet my camera. There were at least 3 tough points. One just when we entered the cave. I did not expect what has just come and it was kinda shock for me. Second when we were in the middle of the cave and we had to dip our legs till knees in the river. In the river I saw snakes!, and above my head were flying bats. When I lighten up the ceiling of the cave i could see hundreds(!) of bats. The toughest point was, when i had to squeeze in one very narrow cave spot. Creeping through dirt, little space, water... By that time I was calming myself down&hoping i can get out of this place soon. We spent in that cave about 20 minutes. By the time I saw the Sun again, while leaving the cave I felt like this was the adventure of my life&I was grateful&happy I made it. When we came back to the place we left our bags and friends, who did not want to get it, my hands were still shaking . During thesame muddy way back my shoes got dirty again. However by that time I did not care about any kind of insect - mosquitos, leeches. Nothing. I was glad I made it and I was looking forward to the shower and dinner.
As an award for all of us we went for a fancy dinner (bufet style) and ordered a beer. We&our Indian friends, who we met on our Cave trip, had a lot of fun during the dinner & later on while playing cards.
The last interesting advanture was, when at night I woke up&wanted to go to the bathroom, which was next door. At about 5am I opened the door and on the porch, there was a wild pig staring at me. I closed the door immediately. The pig flipped over the dust bin in front of our door. Looked what it can eat and went away, back to the jungle. Just then I was allowed to go to the bathroom.
We left our cool hostel today morning, full of advanture and unforgetable memories.
