Compass anyone?
Trip Start
May 15, 2004
1
14
48
Trip End
Aug 20, 2004
Tamra Negara,
Malaysia
Friday, June 18, 2004
The next day - The most memorable experience of the rainforest happened today and it involved getting lost, as we absolutely could not find the trail. It was supposed to be decently marked near the river heading east; we walked up and down that damn trail, trying every sub trail we could find and just ended back up in the same place. It should have been a 45 minute hike to reach the main river, where we were going to toob down to the village. So, after consulting our "worthwhile", err "worthless" map, (we being James and Kate from Canada and Philip from England) we decide to blaze a trail following the river, I mean, if we follow the river, what could go wrong? Now, the important word in that last sentence would be "blaze", because there was no trail, maybe long ago, but not now! So we trounce off in to the rainforest jungle and no real problems other than: our piece of crap map (the main problem), blood-sucking leeches, clouds of angry bees, trees and vines and branches and leaves and bushes and plants and grass with skin-sensing thorns which seem to be attracted to smelly lost hikers, a continuously curving river, more vines that honeycomb together resembling my sisters hair in the early morning (haha), river goo up to our knees, occasional boat drivers refusing to stop and help, running out of water, which led to dehydration, and, yes, I know, finally, the unmistakable color of blood red as it fans out in to the water liked spilt oil from our fresh leech wounds!
Yeah, actually, if you re-read that last, long sentence, that would sum up our two and a half hour trauma (remember, it was supposed to take 45 minutes).
1Riverboat
Well, that and repeated brilliant quotes such as: "it should be just around this next corner" (8 times), "dude, what's that big black thing on the back of your leg" (6 times), "run! they're stinging us!" (3 times, stupid bees!), "ow! dammit! watch out this vine has spikes" (9 times), and "this is unbelievable!" (roughly 197 times). Quite a rough experience, and to top it off, since we were late the guy we were meeting with the toobs left, no one would stop and help us, and they only people that would help us royally ripped us off for a ride, but it was either overpay or be stuck there all day with no water and no ride! But, it was memorable and we rewarded ourselves by ordering the world's largest banana shake for lunch upon our return! 
