Leaving the ‘Muddy Confluence’
Well that’s what ‘Kuala Lumpur’ means in Malay and I’m not making it up. It was named that because of 2 rivers that come together in the center of town. Anyway I’ve left the ‘Muddy Confluence’ aka KL and am currently heading north into the jungle of Taman Negara National Park.
I first took a 4-hour bus ride from KL to a small town on the river and I’m now on a 3-hour boat ride into the park. Remote? Yes.
The bus was full of ‘Top Shelf’ tourists as I like to call them…mostly all of them having stayed at the posh Istana Hotel where the bus left from. They’re all on package tours with the park, with $100 – $200/night rooms and scheduled times for guided nature walks each day. I’m the only backpacker chump who came up from Chinatown to crash their bus and I’m staying in the park dorm for $12/night (which is a bit pricey for my budget but hey), and I’ll be doing my own days trips from there.
I chose to raid the top shelf holiday bus because their hotel was much closer to where I was staying than the local bus station and I figured it’d be a much nicer bus which it was.
It feels good to be out of the city, sitting here on the open boat, taking in the jungle views. Don’t know exactly how long I’ll be staying in the park – it will depend on whether or not I can book a 7-day trek to the summit of Gunung Tahan, which, at 2187 meters (over 7,000 feet), is the highest point in Peninsular Malaysia. Will have more details on that later today. The jungle in this park is claimed to be the oldest in the world, having existed as it is for the past 130 million years. It was never affected by any glacial melt or volcanic activity as many other forests have. I think they have some really big bugs here too. Yeah, I am ready for some pristine primary rainforest experience.
3-hour boat ride into the park
Taman Negara National Park, Kuala Tahan
This shit cracks me up (durian fruit tree above)
Add comment June 21st, 2002