Taman Negara - Malaysia Best Rainforest

FIRST DAY

Morning

Han Ching and I gathered at the Crown Mutiara Hotel sharp at 8.30 am. We saw a few foreigners who were heading the same destination too. Met one old couple that was quite friendly to us. Subsequently, we met them on numerous occasions on our journey even tough they stayed at different camp. The bus we rode was a mini coach able to accommodate 20 passengers. Our tour guide was Miss Zila. Though she was our tour guide, her job was mainly accompanying us to the Kuala Tembeling jetty. The trip to Kuala Tembeling took about 3 hours.

Afternoon

Reached Kuala Tembeling at 12 pm. I was required to register our camera and get my entry permit to Taman Negara. We then found our tour agency Nusa Holiday Village. There you’ll find a few tour agencies like NKS and Mutiara too. We had our lunch at the jetty before our boat arrived at 2.30pm. The boat trip is my first experience and I really enjoyed it. The cool breeze together with the lushes of greenery landscape was certainly captivating scenery. We reached Kuala Tahan interchange after 2.5 hours to jump into our next boat to Nusa Village which is just 15 minutes away. As we waited for our boat, we took the chance to ease ourselves at a camp site offered by the NKS agency. After that, we’re told to hitch a ride to the other side of the river to Crown Mutiara Hotel opposite the river because there was a delay in our boat.

Well, I must praise Crown Mutiara for their initiative to build a 5 stars hotel in a jungle. It was so picturesque. Try imagining it. Bukit Merah Lake Town Resort in the Amazon Jungle. For a cost of RM 1 to and fro pass the river is certainly well-spent. After that, we hopped into boat and reached Nusa Village at 6.30pm. We checked into our ‘A’ Frame Chalet. It was a simple room but enough to house our stuff. We met our very own personal tour guide named Asri at the café. Tell you what… He looks like the WWE star Shawn Michael! A little about him. He was an orang asli (aborigine) there but left his village to work for Nusa 10 years ago. Then he started to learn English seven years ago from visiting tourists. He had no proper education background but the way he spoke the language is something to shout out. I and Han Ching really respect him. Even some of the phrases he said were new to us. I just admit he do speak good English to a certain extent. Salute!

Night

After dinner, we prepared ourselves for night walk with 2 Australian tourists and one weird guy from don’t know where. Asri was very informative in telling us the things inside jungle. We were taught how to see spiders in jungle by putting torchlight on our forehead. The spider’s eyes will glow. Then he asked us to switch off our torchlight and all the sudden the ground was glowing. The glow came from fungus that lives on the dead leaves. New thing to us certainly! During the walk he showed us that firefly worm that lives inside water and illuminate inside the water too. No need go Kuala Selangor already. Then we were enchanted with the jungle orchestra music (cricket, owl, birds and etc). Suddenly Asri heard a sound. We were terrified whether it’s a tiger looming around. He told us that he saw sun bears (heard of polar bear, teddy bear or Winnie the Pooh but sun bear never heard before) before. But we came out from the jungle unscathed. Soon, we have our bath. It was freezing cold! After we set up the mosquito net we soon dozed into slumber.

SECOND DAY

Morning

We had our breakfast. Nice western-eastern blend meal. Watermelon drinks… I must tell that during my stay here I have eaten one whole watermelon. Every meal contains watermelon either as fruit or juice. We boated our way to Canopy Jetty to experience the infamous hanging bridge. It was a nice experience that the bridge stretches very long. There was one part of the bridge that stood 65 meters long and another part stood 40 meters high. After that, we embarked on a track to Teresik Hill. During the course, Asri explained to us how joss stick was produced from meranti tree, Sarsi-flavored root, Tongkat Ali plant (jungle Viagra), and wild boar footprint. It was a tiring journey uphill.

Advice on trekking:

Plan your second step before you take your first step.

Being a good pacesetter is important so that the person behind won’t feel too tired.

Wear shoes and not sandals!

Lunch

After conquering the hill we soon went back to our camp. Our entire journey involved boat or river bus to bring us everywhere. Feel a bit embarrassed cause since we were the only tourists that took package tour, only 4 of us filled a 16 seat boat every time! Really worth my RM 417! I must praise them for being very professional even tough serving a small group only. Because other tourists tend to go free and easy. Lunch was nice. Oh yes, besides watermelons, eggs too form a daily supplements during our stay there. Cheese omelet, onion omelet, their in-house Nusa omelet and scrambled eggs can be found in our breakfast, lunch and dinner sets. We took a quick nap. At 3.30 pm we went for rapid shooting or shoot the rapid. We were told to wear slippers and prepared to get wet. It’s just a simple boat ride where we were splashed by water from the river. Really heart-pounding. Reached a deserted Kuala Trenggan resort. It was closed because it situated very far away. Such a waste.

Night

After dinner, it was really boring because no activity. We played card game. We had played nearly all types of card that we know and we even create one new card game. We called it “Memory”. There was a lot of sand fly that bit our leg that night. Rained. Nice to sleep…..

THIRD DAY

Morning

Head to Abai waterfall. 1.5 hour journey. The road was quite slippery. Reached Asri’s friend house. His name is the most hilarious name I ever heard. “SOFA”. Well, he’s a worker there gathering some sort of oil from keruing tree. From what I heard, it’s a very precious substance used for bitumen and coating for woods. Together Asri and Sofa brought to Abai waterfall. The journey was adventurous considering the fact we pass thru river of our chest height. River crossing was a bit taxing and dangerous as the current was strong from yesterday’s downpour. It was muddy too and it hindered our view of the stone we’ll be stepping. Luckily with the help of Sofa, we reached there safely.

Advice on river crossing:

Step on rock underneath the water because rock above the water is very slippery with moss.

The waterfall was very beautiful. I think it was called Abai because it was abandoned in Malay translation. The stream was very cool and refreshing but a bit rough. Then we got on our way back to the camp with Sofa our new guide. Conversation with him was very pleasurable as he told me how he works and lives there a few months before he go back to his hometown at Endau Rompin for one month holiday. His monthly income is a mere RM 1200.

Afternoon

At around 3 pm we soon board our ay to Telinga Cave. Once we reached the jetty we walked for around 30 minute thru a path filled with shoes-pulling mud. We were careful of every step we took because muddy soil is a good hunting ground for leeches! With a few meters away we bypass one tour guide rushing out to seek help from the Orang Asli village nearby. Actually there was a lady who felled off during the cave exploration. Luckily Han Ching brought bandage and we gladly gave it to him. Afterward, we saw one group of Taiwan tourist coming out with one kid wearing an arm sling. In my heart I say “Wow, not so bad is it?” Then we saw the lady with her bloodied head being dressed by our bandage. Once we reached in front of the cave we were told to be care with our head not to hit to rock above us as the cave is very small. We bent and squeezed our way into the cave. It was quite dark. Inside, we saw a lot bats. Some gigantic toads too. It was my first experience inside a cave. Luckily we survived with our arms and legs intact.

Night

As usual, after dinner there is no activity. Actually, if you are looking for somewhere like mamak or tea at night I would suggest you stay at Kuala Tahan area as there are 3 stalls plus one “Starbuck” like stall at Mutiara Hotel. Luckily, we have Astro here and guess what? They watched EPL too! They are very enthusiastic. I saw Peter Crouch notched up his first goal of his career for Liverpool. During this period, I exercised my knowledge of football to Han Ching. Soon, another games of cards before we went back to pack for our early departure tomorrow.

LAST DAY

Morning

Woke up early. Had our last breakfast there. Bid farewell to the friendly staff there. Took our river bus to Kuala Tembeling. It took 2 hours since we were going downstream this time around. Then we took the same coach back to KL. Same tour guide, same driver but different numbers of people in the bus. This time it was below 10 people. So I must praise my trip because we paid the money for one seat in the bus and boat but we had the whole bus and boat instead. Conclusion, the trip is for those who like adventure and certainly Mother Nature. I can’t say it’s no fun because you must understand that you find different type of entertainment at different places you go. As for the staying, if you are rich I would suggest you go Mutiara Hotel but if you want economical yet good facilities I would give Nusa Village. Thumbs up! Last but not least, I must consider myself very lucky because Taman Negara around this month is monsoon season but our activities were never hampered by rain. Thank God!

Well, for those who would like to view some of the movies when I was there, feel free to youtube it here: