A Cultural Insight
Trip Start
Dec 26, 2005
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14
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Trip End
Jan 25, 2009
Taman Negara,
Malaysia
Friday, January 6, 2006
I proceeded to organise my things, including checking to see whether my bag and clothes had dried a little since washing them last night. No luck. They were still soaking wet. Luckily, the inside of my bag wasn't that bad because of the way I had hung it up on the village's clothesline.
It is a weird feeling washing your teeth in the river. I couldn't be bothered having a full shower. I would wait until I got back to Kuala Tahan's jetty this afternoon for my well earnt cold shower.
Along provided us with breakfast of two minute noodles, bread and milo
Along Demonstrating the Blow Pipe
. Our group had some discussion about the pronounciation of milo... I seemed to have convinced the others that milo should be pronounced with a long í'sound rather than an é sound.After breakfast our group were treated to a cultural demonstration by the village tribe. The demonstration included the making of fire using sticks, bamboo and resin? They also gave us an overview of their weapons including the blow pipe and the poison that can kill a human in less than 3 minutes.
At about 10am, we trekked for 45 minutes to the world's highest and longest canopy walk. It was an amazing experience seeing the forest from the highs of the canopy walk. It was actually quite refreshing seeing the forest from the sky rather than the muddy floors below. The canopy walk incorporated ladders that we had to climb to get to the next level. As I noted to Emi, it was an interesting feeling climbing a ladder in the skies of such an ancient rainforest. I am told that this forest is up to 130 million years old... pretty impressive.
Even though this trek was physically demanding, I loved it. It was great to experience the 'real'Taman Negara with a great group of people and energetic guide
Making Fire
. Integrating a cultural element made it so much more special, educational and rewarding. It definitely beats hopping from one city to the next. As other RTW travellers will attest, most cities start to look the same after a while. The true essence of a country is in its remote/rural areas: look at Australia for example.At the conclusion of the trek, we arrived back at the resort where we had a round of Tiger beer... no doubt this was the best part of the whole experience!
We boarded a short boat back to where we began at Kuala Tahan and I had about 5 hours there until the coach back to Jerantut. Kuala Tahan's facilites were basic but I found a cold shower, and rinsed my shoes of all the mud but they absolutely stink at the moment as does my bag and clothing.
