Exploring Taman Negara (National Park) - Day 1

Tim and I both experienced another jet-lagged night.  We both slept for about 6 hours until we woke up and couldn't get back to sleep.  They say it takes 1 day per hour of time change to get used to it, so we are down 2 days with 10 days to go?  Oy!

The resort we are staying at has a buffet breakfast, so we met the others at 7:30 AM to eat.  It was a really good meal with eggs made-to-order and amazing banana pancakes.  I guess I was too tired to take photos, so I will post photos of tomorrow's breakfast...see...something for you to look forward to in tomorrow's blog!

After breakfast is it was time to prepare for this morning's adventure.  We are taking a boat ride into Taman Negara (National Park).  There are going to be three stops along the way, a giant tree, a fish sanctuary, and a swimming hole for lunch.  This should be fun.  Oh...by the way...Taman Negara translates to National Park.  That is why I put "National Park" in parentheses.

​First we had to make our way down to the river.

Next we were all loaded into boats; 3 of us per boat.

And we are off!  We are sitting on bamboo slats on the floor of a flat bottom long boat powered by a 15 horsepower Yamaha engine.

Here we are entering Taman Negara. The shack back there is where they checked our permits.  I am pointing at the boat that Winslow, Susan, and Kim Mei is in.

I made a nice video of us entering the Park.

Talking about the guy in the front with a stick...here he is:

We were lucky enough to see a Kingfisher bird with a fish in it's beak.  I tried to zoom in so you can see it better.

It was a pretty impressive boat ride.  There was more rapids than I expected.

Wave back to the others.

Fun tree leaning over the river.

After about 30 minutes of motoring up river, we came to our first stop, the Giant Tree.  It is a tualang tree that is about 230 feet tall (21 stories) and almost 10 feet in diameter.  

After the giant tree we continued up river for another 10 minutes and stoped at Kelah Sancturary.  Kelah is considered the "King of the freshwater fish" in Malaysia.  It is know to be very tasty which led to overfishing.  It is hard for the fish to come back on its own because it has a very long lifecycle with slow growth.  It can take over 40 years of the fish to get to 16 pounds.  Because of this, many Kalah Sanctuaries have been built, with one along this river.

From the viewpoint above that sign, we could look down and see hundreds of Kelah fish.

We enjoyed fish watching as our guides and boats waited for us.

OK...we are ready for the next stop on the river tour.

Next we stopped at a small beach on the river.  The guide pointed to a trailhead and told us to walk for about 20 minutes for 1.2 kilometers (0.75 miles) to a swimming place.  After a little up and down we arrive.  According to my iWatch, it was less than 0.5 miles and took us less than 15 minutes to get there.  My wonderful iWatch also told me that I burned 82 calories and my average heart rate was 124 beats per minute.

Why am I telling you all this information by wonderful iWatch told me and kindly sent to my iPhone so I can marvel at my accomplishment of this hike?  Well...it is because when we arrived at this swimming spot I quickly changed into my swimsuit, walk down the steep path to toward the water, jumped off the rocks into the water, and emerged without my iWatch on my wrist.  So, this part of the blog is a tribute to my iWatch that gave me 5 years of data that told me I didn't exercise or walk the recommended step each day.  It also told me my heart rate was higher than it should be if I was in better shape.

Sleep well iWatch and enjoy the eternity you are about to spend "watching" tourist jump into the water above you.  Keep "watch" on the Kelah fish that might nibble moss off of your face.  Mostly, enjoy your rest in one of the oldest, most beautiful rainforest in the world.

Anyway...after getting over the fact that I lost my watch, I, along with Peter, enjoyed chilling out in the pretty much perfect temperature water.

As Peter and I swam, the others sat above and just wondered what it was like to be down there in the water.

We were supposed to eat our packed lunch at the Late Berkoh, but there were bugs flying around, so we decided to walk back to the boat earlier than we were supposed so we could get back to our lodging and eat.

Oh...some of you might have been wondering what powered these boats.  15 Horsepower Yamaha outboards did.

Finally...back to the lodging just before 1 PM when we were finally ready to unwrap the packed lunch that was provided.  I order the vegetarian option that was an omelet with some very spicy peppers in it.  Tim had turmeric chicken.  Both came with rice and a green vegetable.  We were also provided a few packs of cookies and cake.  It was actually quite good.

After a wonderful break, we met back up at 3 PM for our next tour.  We will take a boat ride upriver to visit a village of indigenous people.  We only went about 10 minutes upriver, pulled over, and walked up the embarkment to Kampung Orang Asli (Original People Village).

Here we learned that there are many Orang Asli in the National Park.  Some of which live close to the river and are compensated by the government to allow tourists to visit. This relationship allows the children of the village to attend school in town (a boat picks them up for school) and help them integrate into modern society if they choose.  There are 2 villages in the park that do this, however, there are about 22 families still living a truly secluded life as they have for 10,000 years as hunter gathers and nomadic.  

We met an orang asli and he demonstrated how to make fire and how to make darts for the dart guns they use for hunting.

We even got to try out our dart gun skills.  Susan actually got the closest to hitting the monkey.

We then asked the villager to show us and his first shot was a direct hit.  I guess it is monkey for dinner tonight!

After the demonstration we visited their shop where they sold small versions of blowguns and darts and were invited to take a photo with a couple of villagers.

We left the village and got back on the boat.  Now comes the part of the tour called "Shoot the Rapid".  We were warned that we were going to get completely wet, so we packed our backpacks and shoes into a garbage bag before heading upriver into the "rapids".

Before hitting the "rapids", our guide took the boat into a little nook in the river.  I asked what was going on and he said that there was a fish.  I noticed fishing line hanging from a tree branch with an obvious fish on it.  He pulled up the line, unhooked the fish, stowed it under the seat, re-baited the hook, and set it free.  I guess this is how he gets his dinner each day.

After gathering dinner, we headed up the river.  After the first splash my camera went into the garbage bag.  This is a shot that Peter got with his newer, waterproof  iPhone 14.

So, the "rapids" weren't very rapid and to get us wet, the driver had to rock the boat left and right.  I assume it is more rapid during the rainy season or maybe after any significant rainfall, but not today.  It was still fun, and the water felt great since it was almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit.  

There was some other boats on the river besides us.

Up river was were the other indigenous village was.  The children were enjoying the water on this hot day.

At the village, the boat turned around and took us back to our lodging.  We all dried off, showered (again), relaxed in the air conditioning, and then decided it was dinner time.  There are a bunch of floating restaurants down on the river and only a 5 minute walk, so we headed there and chose one of the only two restaurants open. 

Waiting for dinner.

I got Tomyum, Tim got chicken. It was pretty good.

We walked back a different way which took us to the center of town, Kuala Tahan.  The center was pretty much this sign, a few tourist businesses, and a bus station.

Usually this would be the end of the day.  Dinner done, time to chill in the room...but, not the case tonight.  We are about to partake in a 4x4 night safari.  A 4x4 pickup truck showed up at our lodging.  We all piled into the bed of the truck that had padded bench seats.  They then drove us around for 1.5 hours while a guy sitting on the roof of the truck shined a very bright light into the trees and along the shoulder of the roads looking for any sign of life.

This is pretty much what we saw for most of the time...just a light being aimed at trees,

We did have a sighting of some kind of owl which I did not get a photo of.  We also saw some kind of monkey the the guide said was a Slow Loris.  Here is the photo I got:

Yeah...I couldn't really see it tonight either.  And lastly we saw some kind of bird or owl or something.  Here is that photo:

There is a bird in there...towards the center.  

After 1.5 hours, we arrived back to our lodging, unloaded, and called it a night.

sOK...that was a LONG day.  As a matter of fact, I couldn't finish this blog that night because I was so exhausted.  I am actually finishing this the next night and I need to start today's blog. So...until tomorrow...