Thursday, May 19, 2005

taman negara - 04

[020505]

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morning sun streaming into Gua Kepayang Besar: for an idea of scale, look for e Irish & Finn guys posing in e first two photos.

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packing up everything including all trash & clearing out, after a breakfast of coffee/milo in stream/bath water & toast.

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leaving by e other entrance that leads to e stream. Gua Kepayang Besar is large enough for e elephants that sometimes wander in there. during one rainy season e cave was flooded & e guide had to swim out of this place together with two Dutch tourists....if you believe what e guide says =P he's quite a character....a Cantonese Muslim who has learnt about stem cells & e scientific names of various plants from Google, who learnt to speak Thai during e years he spent hiding in Thailand while on e run from e authorities - he has supposedly been involved in e heroin trade & mafia, spent two years in Amsterdam, been sent to jail, deported from the Netherlands, been in & out of drug rehab four times, & been a guide in Taman Negara for 9 years.

walked out into e morning chorus of gibbon calls & birdsong. thunder had been heard e previous evening, e blanket of leaf litter was damp, & e ground seemed muddier. came across a hornet's nest along e trail, a wood scorpion in a log that we sat on when we stopped for a break, & a few leeches. further on, e Finn offended a bee & got stung on his head & another guy discovered his first kiss from a leech, & so we stopped for another break, only for one of e French to get stung on e armpit by another irritated bee. April-May is bee season & they were out humming in full force today, settling on our arms, fingers, neck, faces, ears, legs (for those who didn't wear long pants) & armpits (for those in sleeveless shirts) to join e butterflies in licking up e salt in our sweat. this is one of e best ways to get e beautiful butterflies & cute fat bees to stay still & capture macro shots of them =)

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~2m muddy drop on e right & e little stream crossing leading to bee central - a tiny bee-infested islet where we stopped to cook lunch. for some reason one bee-weary Frenchman was very nervous about catwalking across e logs, even though e water was at most knee-deep. sat down to soak our feet & wash off whatever e rats hadn't licked up off e plates in e stream. a while later e Irish shouted for e cat to get him his camera from his backpack pocket so that he could photograph his new pet leech having lunch on him.

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cooked tom yam (cat poison!) flavour maggi mee with e third dose of assorted vege in streamwater soup, which we ate while trying not to swallow any bees by accident. at any one time e cat had a bee parked on each finger plus a ring of tom yam-loving bees on e edge of its plate, & e cat attracts e least bees in e group....unlike e Irish & French guys who became bee airports - e Irishman appeared to walk around in a noisy buzzing cloud =P his cap was hidden beneath a layer of bees & he had to figure out how to pick it up as e bees hadn't left any space for his fingers to hold it. likewise for his backpack....dragging it over to e fire didn't help much - these bees seem immune to smoke & e backpack remained blanketed with bees.

after feeding lunch leftovers to e fish in e stream, e guide said that we were ahead of time & could hang around till 1pm, which elicited a violent protest from e Frenchman who was obviously more than tormented by e bees =P & so we continued on, climbing over many more fallen logs & crossing many more streams, at one point walking along in one. along e way we found a dead tarantula, & e Frenchman somehow tore his pants during one of e stream crossings.

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catwalking across e longest log 'bridge' along this trail. a few muddy sections after Bumbun Kumbang, & then we were crossing e last stream of this trek - another ex-bridge where e planks that weren't rotting were missing - & suddenly we emerged from e forest trail onto concrete pavement....e transition was kinda sudden & took e cat by surprise....to be walking on hard ground again (e floors of e caves had wall-to-wall soft guano carpeting). found toilets that had taps with running water in e ruins of Kuala Terenggan Lodge. e place has been abandoned for 4 years according to e guide.

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end of e trail at e abandoned Kuala Terenggan Lodge. once upon a time guests at e lodge lounged on rattan armchairs on e verandah, enjoying e view of Sungai Tembeling & boats getting stuck at e rapids below.

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sign that greets those who chose to start trekking from Kuala Terenggan. covered all 5 of these places on this trip.

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where e boat propeller was damaged yesterday: e deceptively calm rapids that were strong enough to suck e boat back towards e rocks on e right. on e left is e little channel that we pulled e boat through to get upriver.

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loading onto e boat at Kuala Terenggan for e return journey to Kuala Tahan.

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pulling away from Kuala Terenggan.

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