Taman Negara #6 - Eeeeh! Leeches!!

As we regrouped before setting off, our guide discovered that a leech has bitten him through his socks. He just casually pulled it off. The girls became paranoia and started checking their legs. First there was a loud scream from one of the girls and she started to jump up and down. Alex who brought along a concentrated salt solution sprayed on it until it dropped off. This was followed by another piercing scream as yet another found she was bitten. Even though the salt solution caused the sucker to drop off, the blood kept oozing out freely. Some of the girls were really freaking out and started checking their body having all kinds of creepy feelings and hysterical screamings at imagination. They started checking one another. Actually, it was kind of amusing. When they settled down again, we set off into the woods again.

This plant has rough hairy leaves which the forest people used to polish their rings.

Blue ferns can be seen growing on the ground, its color standing out from the other green plants and the brown of the earth.

We eventually came back to the Batek village again and saw these Batek children performing a flower dance for me. Wonder where they got that yellow flowers for we did not see it anywhere along the trek.



This boy was peering intensely into the yellow flower. What were his thoughts?

Even the Batek are not immune from modern influence. See some of their huts are covered by the blue plastic sheets to keep off the rain. And this lady is carrying plastic containers.

If not hunting or gathering for food, they just while their time away. Whether this is good or bad depends on one’s outlook of life, I guess. But they seem contented with their life which is more than can be said for many of the city folks.

After a short trek, we came to the river again waiting for our boat to pick us up. Along the way another guy was bitten by a leech, a tiger leech this time which unlike the water leech that bit the girls in the cave; has a painful bite. These suckers that can detect you by vibration (e.g. footsteps) and carbon dioxide given off by nearby hosts and will aggressively pursue you. Our friend found one inside his T-shirt so maybe the girls were not so jumpy after all. We gave that one a salt water bath too and sent on its way to leech heaven.

Our boat came and we took off for our hostel. This boat and its owner is leisurely hanging back waiting to pick up his passengers.

We passed this scene which for some reason reminded me of Brokebreak Mountain.

As we passed by this floating boathouse, the children shouted to catch our attention. Then one after another they dive into the water. Unfortunately I was not quick enough to catch them taking the plunge.

Nearing our destination, we saw this fisherman getting ready to cast his nets. I quickly got my camera ready. I always got a thrill whenever I can catch a fisherman casting his net.

Caught him in the act.

The net dropped forming an arch over the water (like a giant jelly fish) before disappearing under. I hoped he had a good harvest. We are now very hungry having worked up a healthy appetite. It was time to eat.

To be continued...

Taman Negara #5 - Into The Ear Cave.

Before we enter the house of bats, we took a picture as proof in case anyone did not re-emerge from it. The Ear Cave is so named because it is shaped like an ear. Like one too, once you enter it gets progressively narrower till it is just a small channel into the inner ear. But even more like an ear, you went in one direction and came out the other. :-)

Last minute advice – “keep your head low, don’t bump into things though I know all of have thick skulls; talk soft, don’t wake up the dead; it is slippery, watch out for the sharp rocks; if it is too slippery, God gave you a backside for a reason; if it is smelly, hold your breath until you came out the other side; if you are not dirty when you come out, we all know you cheated and double back.”

With those words swarming our heads, we climbed in and plunged into instant darkness. The feeble beams of our tiny torches seemed to be sucked in by the darkness and eaten up. Don’t let some of the pictures fooled you. Only when the camera flashed could we see with any clarity. See the three tiny lights in the picture, they were made by torches – not very bright was it? Immediately in and the low ceiling forced us to bend double to walk like a hunchback.

Sometimes we have to climb down and other times we have to climb up. Luckily, there were ropes strung at strategic points in the cave to help in the climbs.

In the semi-darkness, you could just about see several feet in front of you and the general appearance of the cave wall while further away or deeper caverns are shrouded in complete darkness. I did not know there were bats in this cave even though they are just feet away until I used the camera to illuminate the cave.

Take for example this photo. Even with the flash you could not see beyond the rope.





If you grabbed too far, you may end up with grabbing one of the bats instead which are just inches away. They were around us everywhere except we couldn’t see them – we were like they said “blind as a bat”.

They may just be on top of our head and we would not even realize as this picture showed.

Something spooked the bats, probably our loud voices having woke them up from their slumber and they started flying. They flew in erratically in complete darkness yet managed to avoid slamming into anything. We now have to climb up towards a break in the cave where light and jungle greens were visible.

The path we have to climb is the area through which the bats were flying. We have to just hope that their radar is good enough to avoid crashing into us. “Mayday! Mayday! Bang!!”

Well, there were no flaming hits so we made to the next chamber which is all the way down. The first section was easy enough, just have to make sure we had a secure hold.

The second section proved to be more tricky. It was steep but also very smooth and wet and a bit dangerous to try to stand and walked down unless the shoes have a good traction. It is safer to slide down with the buttocks. Four Englishmen were standing here obstructing the traffic, debating on whether to proceed and go back and wondering aloud where this leads to while others just moved round them and continued below. It is kind of strange they way they carried out their conversation as if none of us understand their language. So I volunteered them some information and told them that there is only one way to go – forward. There are still many people coming from the back as we were almost at the head of our party. One of them said to the other “There – there is your answer” and followed us in.

However, we could not proceed far when we had another traffic jam. After sliding down the slippery slope, we have to crouch and crawl through a watery channel. We could not see what was ahead and had to wait until the path was cleared. You can imagine what can happen when this cave became flooded. Incidentally, the Ear Cave is closed during the rainy season for obvious reason.

It seemed the cave got narrower as we went in. This is a slit between two huge boulders and only a medium sized person could squeeze through. One of the participants (not of our group) had to turn back for there is no way his extra large size is going to squeeze through this gap.


There are more tight spots ahead. At the end of the long channel, there is a hole through which you have to push yourself upward with the strength of both your arms. It is not a large hole and our guide told us in an earlier trip, one guy was stuck there for three hours before being rescued. Our guide told us that the cave is getting narrower over the years as the earth movement hemmed the cave in.


But once we pushed yourself through it, sunlight again greeted us and we found that we were at the bottom of a deep narrow ravine. Using our arms and steeping on places of the rocks where there are footholds, we pulled ourselves upward.

“I did it! I am out of the cave!” she seemed to say as she flashed both a beaming smile and the V sign.

Those who have got out helped to pull the others up.

“Look! My front is pretty clean.”

“But my back – well, I did use my buttocks!”

This group of girls said “Hey, we also want our front and back taken.” So I shot their front.

But when they turned their backs to me, they suddenly felt shy and dispersed before I could get a proper shot. Girls!


As we were about to depart, I saw the four Englishmen coming out from another path. I was puzzled and asked them how come. They told me they were tired of waiting for the queue and double back where they came from. I thought – what a pity! So near yet so far. I would have regretted and always wondered what it was I missed, for want of a little patience.

To be continued...

Taman Negara #3 - The Batek Forest People.

Once we dropped our bags in the room, we hurried down to river; everyone raring to go.

The bank where the houses are built consisted of two levels, we were at the highest level. The reason why they are built so high up is that you will amaze by how high the river can rise during the rainy season towards the end of the year when the monsoons starts. It is also the reason why all the restaurants at the river are all not on permanent legs but are floating.

We made our way down this rickety wooden stairs with missing steps which swayed precariously under our combined weight. Over the next few days, we will be climbing up and down this stair several times a day. But we did not break it, we left it for some else to do it. See the single strand of flimsy wire that is supposed to be our guide rail but we still hand on it for support and to some it seems like for life.

One after another, we planted our foot carefully taking care not to tumble down like Jack & Jill and brought the others down in a chain reaction.

Our heart started pounding when through thick foliage and flowering plants, we saw the river where Sungei Tahan joined Sungei Tembeling. It was like we have found our long lost love if you know what I meant. This is what we came for and the view did not disappoint.

There was a wide stretch of sandy beach, and a number of floating restaurants all lining just off the shore greeted us. You do not have to worry about getting a decent meal any time of the day or night.

This restaurant ran by our tour company is the focal point of all our meetings and starting of our activities as well as our meals. A narrow plant is all that connects it to the beach. One wrong step and you will have an early drink.

These are our trusty boats that will take us to all our activities. As all round us are dense tropical jungle that are almost impassable (at least to non-jungle dwellers like us). The main and in many cases only mode of transportation is by the river boats.

This is our first boat ride and you can see the excited expressions. The powerful motor kicked to life and pushing us off to our first adventure.

The river is quite busy with many boats traversing to and fro between destinations. The boats traveled quite fast and sometimes it appeared a bit recklessly. But these are experienced boaters who do not like to take it slow. Amid the sleepy jungle and languid river, the only things roaring to life are the fast boats.

We passed by interesting scenes and I kept my camera busy. I liked this shot which I called ‘waiting’; for it will make an interesting story. The man is waiting for a fish to bite, what is the lady waiting for? Write your own story.

This picture shows how lovely it is taking a boat down the river. Clear blue sky overhead, a wide river, fresh air, dense forest on both banks. Our tour guide took the best seat of the house, at the front of the boat.

As all activities starts at the river bank, boats are busy ferrying passengers to the various points.

We arrived at ours to go to the “Ear Cave” or Gua Telinga.

After a short walk, we reached a Batek forest people village who just happened to camp off this track having moved in recently. They are nomadic people who never stayed long in one place. They lived off the jungle and once the surrounding area is exhausted, it is time to move. A death or sickness in one of their member may also cause them to move as they are highly superstitious people. Our guide is explaining to us the lifestyle of these gentle people who took life each day as they come.

There are only less than a thousand of the Batek (which meant original people in Malay) left and they are mostly concentrated in Taman Negara. They are shy people who kept very much to themselves living a way of life thousand of years old. When we came across them, we felt like we are intruding into their world which is the truth.

To be continued...