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Let me do my bit to promote Malaysian tourism in conjunction with VMY2007. If you love the smell of lush, tropical rainforests, or simply want to take a break from the stressful, bustling city life, try visiting the National Park.

Instead of taking the 3-hour boat ride from Kuala Tembeling, we drove all the way to Kuala Tahan in 3 cars. We just couldn’t bear leaving our cars behind (and bore ourselves with a 3-hour, hot and humid boat ride).

We checked-in to Mutiara Taman Negara, which was a pretty convenient place to stay because it was smacked right inside the Park itself. The staffs at the reception counter, however, weren’t very hospitable to us, although foreigners were treated with slightly more respect. Yes I’m still mad because they refused to lend us umbrellas.

Nevertheless, we didn’t let them spoil our trip and enjoyed as much as we could. The dormitory was quite comfortable, actually. It was air-conditioned, and mosquito nets were provided as well. But climbing up and down the upper bunker of the double-decker bed was a pain. There were no ladders!

Trekking was easy. The only thing was that leeches were everywhere. It was the rainy season and would you believe it, it rained about an hour after we arrived. We wore extra layers of socks throughout most of the trekking.

The “Canopy Walk” was simply a walk on suspension bridges. It was trickier than I thought - the thick ropes at the sides were useful to keep myself balanced. There must be a separation of about 5 meters between two persons to avoid mishap!

Contrary to what most people say, there were no tigers to be seen. Only trees and mountains and rivers. Heh.

We took a (approx.) 20-minutes boat ride to Lata Berkoh, where there was supposed to be a 4-storey waterfall. (But we didn’t manage to find it in the end.)

Beautiful scenery throughout the journey.

That’s our boatman!

We were somehow quicker than the other boat. I suspect we were running on Shell V-Power.

Nic’s hair blended nicely with the scenic view. That inspired me to switch to wide-angle mode.

I was quite excited about the boat ride in the beginning. After a while I just got tired of snapping pictures.

The river in Lata Berkoh.

This is where we were kids again.

Splashing fun!

Two unidentified males studying whose rock was bigger…

This guy got the royal treatment for lying on a good spot in the river.

Wiping themselves dry and getting changed…

Night trekking was interesting until we reached some ‘viewing platform’ at the end of the trail. The pitch-black darkness and quiet sounds of the jungle was quite an experience to remember. It was very easy to walk as a ‘walking platform’ had been built along the path. Luckily we didn’t hire a guide.

That’s a 60-second exposure to capture the view from the ‘viewing platform’ using my trusty Lumix (time was about 10:30pm - ’twas totally dark!). We were not allowed to make too much noise so at certain times there was deafening silence. Our torchlights were the only sources of light in the pitch-black darkness and it was quite exciting.

There’s a brighter spot in the picture because that was where our torchlights shone most often. There was an animal on an island-like area possibly surrounded by swamp. We guess it was a deer that was looking back at us - its eyes twinkled when reflecting light from our torchlights.

The final day was reserved for caving. To get to Gua Telinga (Ear’s Cave, literally translated), we needed to take a 10-minute boat ride. We went without a guide because it would cost a lot. After about 20 minutes of trekking, we reached the cave.

We wore old shirts and hand gloves because it would be very dirty inside. Why? Bat droppings… Everywhere.

Armed with a torchlight for each person, we carefully entered from the tight entrance. The ceiling was very low, so we needed to bend really low or crawl on fours.

But that was before the difficult part. Deeper inside, it was very dark and some of the passages was so narrow I wonder how a bigger-sized person could go through.

Ropes were in place to assist us. The steep and slippery rocks were tricky.

And throughout the whole expedition we had to put up with the smelly bat droppings… a few foreigners found it too much to bear and made a U-turn to exit at the entrance.

Yong concentrating while Nic prepares to go. Notice the torchlight in Yong’s pocket. At some point in the cave, the passage to the other section of the cave was simply too tight that even being on all fours wasn’t enough. I needed to lie down and slide myself to the other side!

I didn’t notice there were so many bats on top of us until I saw someone taking pictures. Camera flashes were okay but loud screams were no-no… Otherwise you’d become like Bruce Wayne.

Sometimes I could hear the sound of flapping wind near my ears… it was the sound of the bats flying by. Quite scary if you think about it.

There were practically thousands of them there in the cave! I noticed that when we moved from one spot to another, the bats would begin filling up the spot where we were previously.

But bats are blind. That means they sensed our presence by hearing us talk. We continued to talk and talk and talk, even if it was all crap. And all this while we were sitting on slimy surfaces - bat droppings. Yummy.

Notice the low ceiling… and there was actually water beneath us. It was very difficult to crawl through without submerging a foot (or two) into the cold, cold, water. And I don’t even wanna imagine what was in the murky, shallow, cold water.

Notice the tight squeeze? We needed to climb almost vertically upwards. We were going to exit from the other side of the cave (yes there was an entrance, and an exit - but most people would just turn around and exit at the entrance. The passage towards the exit was very tricky!).

After much sweat and hardwork, we finally climbed out of the cave. It was very tiring, but extremely satisfying!

Needless to say, that was the highlight of our trip. We checked-out of Mutiara Taman Negara later that day. The entire 3D2N trip’s expenses came up to about RM275 per person, including accommodation and petrol. Unbelievable? That’s because we didn’t hire any guides for any kind of activity at all.

Footnote: Some pictures are courtesy of Jian, Kiat, and Yong. Cameras include Pana Lumix FX01, Canon Ixus 500, and Olympus U720. The water-proof Olympus was useful during wet shooting!

Related Entries:

• Outdoor Photography
• VMY2007: The Eye on Malaysia