Trekking the Jungle of Taman Negara, Malaysia
During my three months of travel in Southeast Asia in 1998, I spent two weeks in Malaysia. The highlight of that stay was Taman Negara, a vast national park full of dense, high-canopy jungle and interesting wildlife. Monkeys, gibbons, hornbills, monitor lizards, mouse deer, tapirs, and leopard cats are among the wildlife that hikers can see there. Tigers also inhabit the park, although sightings are extremely rare.
The two-hour boat trip to the park headquarters at Kuala Tahan was scenic. Along the way, I saw two giant monitor lizards sunning themselves on rocks in the river.
On my first trek, my companions and I didn’t see any unusual wildlife. We heard the hooting of white-handed gibbons all around us, but couldn’t see them. One form of wildlife was abundant—leeches—and they were aggressive! They jumped from the trees above us and chased us down the trail, surprisingly fast for their small size! This is not an exaggeration. Google it—they really do jump from trees and chase their prey. I constantly dabbed them with rubbing alcohol to make them fall from my clothes, only to have them replaced by more within minutes. At one point, seven blood-engorged, inch-long leeches were attached to my body.
On the second day of the trek, as we searched for a shallow place to cross a creek, we smelled campfire smoke and saw small shelters made of branches and leaves. We continued walking through the jungle and suddenly encountered a Batek woman, topless, ears pierced with animal bones. She disappeared and returned with her husband and kids. One of my companions became flustered and bowed deeply to him, which I found amusing. We said “bumbun kunban,” the name of our destination (a bumbun is a tree hut used to observe wildlife). The Batek man understood and kindly guided us to a shallow section of the creek where we could cross. He and his family were camping in the small shelters, presumably so they could hunt and gather in the area.
The Batek people, like other Orang Asli people of Malaysia, are nomadic hunter-gatherers who hunt with poisoned blow-darts. According to Wikipedia, they are a peaceful people who share everything and have no concept of private ownership of land.
On my second trek, I hiked with two German women and a Malay man from Borneo. He had been tracking a leopard cat in the area and was eager to show it to us. We took a boat to a riverside camp and then hiked a few kilometers to a bumbun. From there, we left the trail and bushwhacked until we found the cat’s tracks. We followed the tracks to a spot where the man was convinced the cat would appear. We waited all night, and although the cat never came, the atmosphere was surreal. The jungle was alive with a symphony of unfamiliar sounds. Luminous insects flitted around us, and bioluminescent fungi glowed on the forest floor. We navigated through the darkness by memorizing the patterns of their light.
The next morning, we hiked back to the river camp. The two women decided to return to Kuala Tahan by boat, but I decided to continue hiking. I saw many wild monkeys crashing through the trees. My heart jumped when a herd of wild pigs suddenly took flight from the nearby bushes. All went well for the first few hours, until my pants ripped as I tried to cross a fallen tree. Before long, my pants were reduced to dangling scraps of cloth. I returned to the river camp, borrowed a pair of pants from a guide who worked there, and took a boat back to Kuala Tahan.
I later met some other tourists who did see a leopard cat.
Near the end of my stay, I took a night walk through the jungle near Kuala Tahan. I saw lots of monkeys, but decided to turn back because bats were swooping close by my head in the narrow green tunnel of the jungle. Suddenly, I came across a mouse deer walking along the path toward me. Adult mouse deer are only about one foot tall. Whenever I turned my flashlight off, it started to walk away, but whenever I turned the light back on, it froze and stared into the light—”a mouse deer in headlights,” so to speak.
Click here to see an image of a full-grown mouse deer.
The next day, I took a train to Singapore, a city so clean and high-tech that it made American cities look primitive. What a contrast from Taman Negara!