Taman Negara

Kuala Tahan is a horrible little town. The accommodation is poor and expensive and the five floating restaurants on the bank of the river must surely be competing to see who can produce the most revolting food. It's one redeeming feature is it's location on the edge of Taman Negara National Park: home to the oldest rain forest in the world.

View of Kuala Tahan and the horrible floating restaurants.

While we didn't like the town, which was a shame after such a long journey to reach it, we absolutely loved trekking in the rain forest. Around 40% of flora and fauna in the world can be found in Taman Negara, as well as more than 25% of insect species. The sheer size and density of the plant life was incredible.

This tree is MASSIVE.

We shunned the offer of an [expensive] guided tour and set off alone to explore one of the more accessible treks up to a jungle canopy walkway and down a mountain past some nasty leeches.

The walk along the canopy was not for the faint hearted, it was high, narrow and wobbly. As we shuffled from tree to tree, grasping at the thin ropes, we occasionally got brave enough to look down at the dense undergrowth, or up at the towering emergent trees.

From the canopy we continued up to the top of a small mountain (800m) and then started our descent down the other side. While the way up was a popular tourist path with a man-made walkway, the way down was much more natural and saw us climbing over felled trees, slipping in muddy bogs and being attacked by leeches. 

Descent into the jungle.

Leeches are horrible things that look like very fast, agile slugs. They stick to your legs and suck your blood and are really difficult to remove. Ric found six around his ankles while I only managed four. 

In addition to leeches we saw some fantastic wildlife in the jungle. This tapir was snoozing just a meter away from our path:

Tapir

I've never seen a tapir before, let alone a wild one, so it was a fantastic spot. It looks like a pig crossed with an elephant and coloured like a panda, such a weird looking beast. 

Also a short distance from our path was this poisonous viper which we would have walked straight past had a local guide not pointed it out to us. After seeing him we were much more wary of where we put our feet:

We saw monkeys jumping from tree to tree above us and a monitor lizard run straight across the path in front of us. I thought we would have had to go much further into the jungle to see so much wildlife but we were really lucky.

The trek took about four hours in total and was very easy, even in the intense humidity. 

We Stayed At...
Tahan Guest House: one of the cheapest places in town at 40ringit (£8) and also one of the nicest, set back away from the town in a quiet garden, rooms have balconies and en suite bathrooms. 
How To Get To...
Taman Negara: We travelled from Melaka to Kuala Lumpur (3hrs, 13ringit) and then changed onto a bus heading to Jerantut (4hrs, 18ringit), where we spent the night. The next day we took a local minibus to Tembeling Jetty (20 mins, 5ringit) and from there we took a boat upriver to Kuala Tahan (2.5hrs, 35ringit).