Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Welcome to the Jungle
In order to get to Taman Negara, you have to take another 3-hour boat ride from Jerantut to Kuala Tehan. This is only the beginning:
... and for the next 3 hours, you see this (on a 16-people long boat):
What's interesting about Taman Negara is that you can do the touristy 2nights/3days casual lodging or the hard-core 7-9days hiking/backpacking to the center of the jungle. There's no in-between. Of course, I didn't have 7-9 days nor the spare cash to hire a private guide, so I was on the usual package deal.
Canopy walk - my expectation was deceived, and I didn't get to see any monkeys. But it was still nice to walk on top of canopies that sometimes went as high as 45m off the ground. You are surrounded by the sound of tropical insects and exotic birds.
Excuisite view from the top
I wonder how old this tree is... since it has no tree rings. I had forgotten that tropical areas don't have seasons, hence, no tree rings. Just one of those interesting realizations you have when traveling (that there are places in the world where it is 38-degrees C year-round).
Our guide carved a piece of a root and gave it to me - he told me that Americans use it for drinks. Sure enough, it was a piece of sarsaparilla (the herb used in root beer). It was fascinating to think that so many natural secrets could be hiding here in this jungle.
Donkit Ali - natural viagra of the forest. The Orang Asli men told us tongue in cheek that it gives you "three legs" when you drink it in the morning before going hunting. Someone told me that it translates as "Ali's leg."
Orang Asli Settlement
One theme of my travels was to see something "exotic" and "out of the ordinary" - I didn't really mean it to be a minority tribe tour, but there was an opportunity to meet the Orang Asli tribes in Taman Negara. Eh... I have mixed feelings, because touring minority villages has become all too commercialized. It's such a strange feeling to have people peer into your living room (which is a blue plastic tarp hanging from a clothesline) and flashing their cameras.
The settlement that we visited had about 30 people. Each settlement has a chief, who is the strongest hunter and the wisest medicine man. His wife automatically becomes the medicine woman of the tribe as well. When women in the tribe are about to give birth, the pregnant woman, the chief and his wife go to a private area in the forest to deliver the baby. They are midwives of the tribe as well.
The chief demonstrates how to make a poison blowdart.
We saw a peculiar-looking mailbox made out of grass. In fact, the guide told us that it was a miniature model of an Orang Asli burial site. When someone in the tribe dies, the men carry the body to a sacred site that nobody knows and hoist the body into the trees so that the birds can eat the body - very much a circle of life/return to nature concept. The Orang Asli people are very spiritual (in both an animistic and ancestor worship way), so they will pick up and go if they feel that the spirits are angry or in disagreement with their settlement (e.g. - if someone in the tribe is ill for a long time, they will attribute it to the spirits telling them a message).
Hunting is a way of life for the Orang Asli. The blowdart is one of their main ways of hunting, using the potent poison from Ipoh trees. They have to immediately cut off the animal part hit by the dart so that the meat is not affected. They say that monkeys runaway quickly, so they have to cut off an entire arm.
And they let silly tourists try too...
A couple of guys from our group tried to hit the target, but missed. So I gave it a try, and bam! Yup, maybe I should become a blowdart hunter. The chief gave me a dart as a souvenier (without the poison, of course).
The poison is on the first 2cm of the dart. The poison is melted in the fire and painted on the tip.
It's important to know how to make fire in the wild, so the Orang Asli gave us a demonstration.
Now, the funny thing is, the guy giving us the demonstration came with a hand-made cigarette in his mouth... and takes a lighter out of his breast pocket, lights his ciggie, and says, "I make fire now." He did the demonstration with rubbing sticks and huffing and puffing, eventually creating a flame, but we weren't truly convinced that they did this all the time.
Just Chillin' in the Jungle
One of the things we did at Taman Negara was riding the long wooden boats to 'shoot the rapids,' which is kind of like white water rafting, only in wooden boats. Unfortunately, it was dry season, so the ride wasn't very long, but we still had fun in the water. (Actually, it was a good thing that it was dry season, because wet season = leeches).
Natural face paints
I met this Zimbabwean girl, who is now living in the UK. It was interesting to hear her experience and perspective of being a white woman growing up and living in Zimbabwe.
Sometimes traveling is as interesting as the mixed company you get. A couple of blokes from Australia, a pair of young German girls, a sweet New Zealand couple, a Muslim pair (we didn't see much of the girl), and a retired couple from the British Royal Air Force.
It was especially interesting to listen to the old British couple, who were in Malaysia during Merdeka. What struck me about their opinion is that they didn't feel that Malaysia had necessarily become more peaceful after independence. Muslim Malays, Hindus, and the Chinese had existed as separate communities, and upon merdeka, they had been artificially lassoed into a single state that had to find common threads of unity. It's not an easy answer, because the demand for independence from the British (and the Japanese during WWII) had been enough to offset this uncomfortable unity. But I'll save this debate for another day.
Wild life
This is what I looked forward to the most - the prospect of spotting exotic critters that are out of this world. But I guess it takes years of training and tremendous luck in order to really see the amazing leopards, tapirs, and other cool wildlife.
Nocturnal Bug Watch
The stick insect. I missed the shot of the leaf insect (a lot more elaborate and fascinating), but these creatures are only active by night and tend to be hidden cleverly in the woods during the day. And as always, the female is bigger than the male. This one is obviously a male.
Scorpion - ooo... ahh... Being a scorpio myself didn't really help much - they are just darn scary. But then again, we kept on disturbing them by tantalizing them with twigs (they hide underneath logs and go after small moving objects at the entrance of the holes. So keep that in mind when you next step into a rain forest).
We saw some spiders and timber ants (the largest ant I have ever seen - their bite can break through skin, and when contested with another ant, they will fight to death). Other than that not much. Although one night, a girl and I crept quietly to a hide (kind of like a salt lick) and we saw a mother-offspring pair of eyes. We couldn't figure out if they were tapirs or wild boars.
We had more luck on the boat ride back to Jerantut.
Water buffalos! - eh, we saw a whole bunch of them actually (and I saw plenty while I was in Borneo).
Unfortunately, I cannot show the other animals we saw (monitor lizard, river otters, monkeys, kingfishers) because my camera couldn't capture them. It was an enjoyable boat ride, much like a treasure hunt.
This looks like a nice photo, but what you don't see is the chain on the leg of this elephant. She is a working elephant for some touristy deed or lumber project. It's sort of sad in a way.
Some monkeys I was able to capture on camera :) Orang Asli kids playing in the river.
After thought: Compared to the adventures I had in Vietnam, my time in Malaysia seemed to pass much slower. Much like the long wooden boats gliding on the green green water. When I returned to KL, a pretty nice event was waiting for me (I'm still kicking myself that I lost the photos). I still need to make it out to the pristine Malaysian beaches (Palau Tioman, Palau Perhentian) - I will be back.
Enjoy Niger!
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