Kuala Tahan Hotels
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Jungle Fun and Rain in the Rainforest
Entry 8 of 37 | show all | print this entry |
Hey guys :o)
So im actually writting this a couple of days late, internet in the jungle wasn't great! (unsurprisingly...) The second day in the jungle was really fun. I joined up again with the guys from Brasenose and we booked a guide to take us on a 13km trek through the deeper jungle. It was pretty tough going but having the guide was great, he pointed out things that we wouldn't have noticed (like elephant dung, tapir footprints...) and told us about the trees and insects which was cool. The route was hard, lots of up and down slopes, over streams and fallen down trees, dodging tree routes etc! At one point a tree had fallen over the trail we were following so our guide had to hack us a new path through the jungle with his machete! The leeches were not so cool though, because it had been raining theye were everywhere and those things are seriously creepy! They look like worms and sit on the path wriggling around until they sense bodyheat, then they work their way up your shoes until they reach the sock, and then can bite through socks! And once they are attached you have to just wait for them to drink their fill of your blood, which takes 30mins-1 hour, and then eventually they fall off (if you try and pull them off they leave their teeth in ur skin and it can get infected :oS). Yuk! And the worst thing is that they inject an anti-coagulant when they bite so once they drop off the blood doesn't clot and so it bleeds for agessss. I got lucky and only had one bite me (lots of deet sprayed on shoes and trousers tucked into socks, top tip!) but Mark had 7 or 8, they just kept coming!
Anyway, so after about 6 hours walking we had to cross the river which was pretty cool - it was just over knee deep so we waded through. I'd just got across, dried my feet and carefully put my shoes and socks back on when it started to rain... not so hard at first but within a couple of minutes it was torrential. We had around 45 mins walking still to go so we just had to keep going, with every layer of clothing absolutely soaked through, shoes filled with water and the paths turned into streams so it was pretty tough going. Then after around 10 mins walking we heard a really loud crack above our heads, and heard a branch crashing down through the canopy, it was terrifying :oS it landed only about 50m away from us, and if anyone had been underneath it would have been horrific. So that totally creeped me out... meaning the list of fears between us was now standing at snakes (Ben), spiders (Camilla), flying things (Amanda), travelling on open top canoes down rapids in the rain (Kay) and walking in rainforests in thunderstomrs (me). We had most of our bases covered! Anyway, so we had to keep going but it was pretty horrible, and I was so relieved when we finally made it to the end of the trail! Once we got there we then had to get a boat back to the village we were staying in - which would have been fine except it was still raining, and the boat in question was an open canoe :oS in other circumstances the 30min ride back would have been pretty fun, riding the rapids, dodging the rocks... but actually it was just freezing cold!
So the walk was a little grim towards the end, but the day wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't that i had with me for the walk my bag containing my phone, my camera and my ipod. They all got absolutely soaked in water, and im not sure if theye are going to recover :o( The camera is partially working at the mo - it now switches on and i can view photos but not take them. the phone was the wettest adn im not sure its saveable but im gonna try, and the sim card is ok so at worst i can buy a new phone and its not the end of the world. the ipod i didn't think got too wet cos it was in a rubber skin, but there is some water under the screen, im kinda hoping that once it dries it may work again - il be pretty gutted if that doesnt recover as its the only thing i cant replace, and its was my link with being home for the long journeys and lonely moments.
Anyway, other than that the day was fun, and it was really great getting to know Jeremy, Amanda, Camilla, Ben, Mark and Kay - keep in touch guys!
Now straight onto the next entry for the Cameron Highlands - keep reading!
xxx
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