Taman Negara, Part 1

17-July-2010

"Open your shoes, get out the boat, and push!" After only about five minutes of our upriver longboat ride into Taman Negara we were stuck. The fifteen or so passengers looked around a little bewildered, but we all "opened our shoes", rolled up our pants, and jumped over the side of the boat. The water came up to about my knees (which isn't that high, considering my height) and was running fast but very low. After only a few seconds the boat was unstuck, we all jumped back in the boat as fast as we could, and away we went on our 3 hour river trip.

As the boat powered along, we relaxed just inches from the Tembeling River in our low, wooden longboat. We saw monkeys staring curiously at us while jumping from tree to tree, a few species of kingfisher, a possible hornbill, water buffalo, and wild pigs along the way. Like our rivers back home, in some places the native vegetation --the jungle-- existed as a thin strip near the river while palm and rubber plantations stretched out on the floodplains.

Upon arriving at Kuala Tahan, just across the river (a 1 ringit boat ride, about 30 US cents) from the national park, we were amused to arrive at a floating restaurant and walk across a gravel bar to get to our hostel up above. In this town, the majority of the restaurants are literally floating and the tourists are forced to pick their way along the gravel bar to get to or from their accommodation on the hill above. In addition, the hostels and hotels are not connected by roads as much as by a series of unmarked trails overgrown with the ever encroaching forest. This is a very strange design for a town.

After settling in, we "doped up" (as Nick says) with mosquito repellent and spf 50 and went for a walk along one of the many trails in Taman Negara. It did not take us long to experience the joys of Taman Negara's rainforest. About 30 minutes into our walk, Nick felt a strange feeling on his ankle, screamed upon examination, and watched as I removed the newly-attached leech from his leg. What a wimp! We tucked our pants into our socks and avoided the freeloaders for the rest of the hike. At least leech bites are painless and they don't communicate any diseases.

The sounds of the rainforest are truly amazing. A never-ending chorus of clicks, chirps, squeaks and squawks from innumerable birds and insects greeted us with every step. At times the sounds were so loud you could barely hear yourself think. The highlights of the walk included a huge gray butterfly, a blue Selaginella (a fernlike plant for you non-botanists), beautiful fungi, and insects wearing a kaleidoscope of color on their exoskeleton. We also saw a huge tick (slightly larger than an M&M, check out our photo gallery if you dare).

After sweating what felt like gallons of our body fluids we headed back to to the comfort of our air-conditioned guest house-modern conveniences rock! Tonight we head out on a guided night hike on which we hope to see more spectacular insects, and mammals if we are lucky.

They call Taman Negara's forest, Malaysia lungs, a huge intact swath of forest which lives and breathes diversity. Scientists estimate the this forest is over 130 million years old, and has remained unscathed through countless glaciations and geologic events. After our first taste, we are impressed and yearn to experience more of Taman Negara.

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Perhentian Paradise, Part 2

16-July-2010

Our last few days at the Perhintian Islands was spent scuba diving, snorkeling, swimming, reading, watching the nightly lightening storms, and enjoying the views of neighboring islands. We both passed our scuba tests with flying colors and enjoyed a dive to a boat wreck where we saw a school of puffer fish, a huge barracuda, a lion fish, and a few scorpion fish. We tried our best to fully enjoy ourselves and I think we accomplished our goal. Each moment was wasted to its fullest extent.

Yesterday we left the Perhentian Islands and spent the day traveling by boat and bus to reach, Jerantut, the gateway to Teman Negara, Malaysia's premiere jungle national park. This park boasts 100 tigers, 600 elephants, and a variety of other small cats, mammals, and birds. We would have to be some of the luckiest people in the world to see either the tigers or the elephants, but we do expect to see some smaller wildlife.

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Perhentian Islands, Paradise

11 July 2010

The Perhentian Islands are as advertised. The white sand beaches, turquoise water, verdant forests, and diverse marine life provide a relaxed and stimulating atmosphere. We have spent the last few days here exploring offshore coral reefs, learning to scuba dive, walking along the beach, searching out the monitor lizard that frequents the area near our beach hut, and shooing geckos out of our bed. Enough said.

Despite this rigorous schedule, we find the time to eat delicious and spicy Malaysian food and read on the beach. We are staying at Mama’s Chalet’s on Perhentian Besar, home to the worst bathrooms but a large selection of excellent Malay dishes that we are slowing working our way though as this week ebbs on. The most notable dish to date was a mango curry that Nick ate for dinner on Saturday night. This dish was the perfect combination of sweet, spicy, and savory. It would have been plate licking material, if that type of behavior was culturally acceptable.

While we are not eating or disagreeing about which day of the week it is (somehow we have already managed to lose track of time), we are learning to scuba dive. This is a very rewarding process that is difficult and amazing at the same time. We spent about four hours today learning to control our movement while submerged and breathing bottled air. I really enjoyed sitting on the bottom of the ocean and found it very relaxing. However, it made Nick a little uneasy, being a land animal who prefers alpine air to compressed air. We have spent the majority of the time so far learning safety skills and procedures, which our instructor insists that he has never used in all of his years as a diver. Tomorrow, we will make our first “real” dive and hope to have some exciting sightings to report. However, judging from the off shore snorkeling so far, this should be no problem. In addition to reef fish (we found Nemo), we have seen black tipped reef sharks (harmless but about 3 feet long), sting rays, squid, and lots of coral.

We have four more days here before we move on to Taman Negara National Park for some jungle action. By then our blood pressure should be dangerously low.

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Kota Bharu

8 July 2010

Kota Bharu (KB) is an interesting city. It is a stronghold of Malay culture situated at the NE corner of Malaysia just south of the Thai border. Infamously, KB is the heart of conservative Islam in what amounts to an already very Muslim country. It is governed regionally by an Islamist party (the PAL, which seeks to combine religious beliefs with other matters of governance) and Islamic law is stuck to pretty strictly. For example, Muslim women who are caught not wearing headscarves can be fined or even jailed. Luckily for us, these laws to not apply to tourists.

Other notable things about KB include the people’s admiration of birdsong. The residents of the city keep birds and join together for bird singing contests weekly (unfortunately we were there on the wrong day to witness a contest). So much do the people love birdsong that they broadcast chirps and squawks from buildings across the city.

Our day in KB started after a 15-hour epic train journey from Kuala Lumpur. We arrived weary and hungry and immediately sought out a recommended Indian restaurant close to our hostel. The restaurant was not immediately appealing, but we decided to try our luck nonetheless. What arrived shortly after ordering was sublime. Served on a banana leaf, we sampled spicy curry chicken, fried rice with pineapple, vegetable curry, savory, marinated pineapple and crispy, fried flatbread-yum! All of this cost about $6. As a side note, the food here in Malaysia is very cheap. Meals for both of us combined have ranged from between 4 and 13 dollars. Rejuvenated we walked to a local produce/meat market (I think I can still conjure up that smell), and a beautiful museum, Istana Jahar, which is devoted to local Kelantan culture.

After a rest at the hostel we headed to the famous night market. The market is situated in a large square and the food stalls are located in the center. Outside the food stalls are tables, and these are flanked by merchants selling drinks to each of their sections of tables. The drink merchants also provide entertainment to the locals in the form of TV or movies on screens located at their booths-not at all a bad setup. The food stalls served a variety of noodle and rice dishes, as well as many different skewer based meats – most of which were unrecognizable to us, and a variation of a crepe called a murtabak. While we had heard that this market specialized in blue rice- it was nowhere to be found. After scoping the available food I settled on a meal of chicken murtabak and delicious chicken and beef on bamboo skewers while Rachel enjoyed a banana murtabak.

From KB it is on to the Perhentian Islands, jewels in the emerald sea home to snorkeling, sun, scuba, and relaxation.

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