There is nothing like walking through a massive jungle to make you feel insignificant in the world. A totally protected area of 4,343 square kilometres, Taman Negara is one of the world's oldest tropical rain forests. As we walk through the defeaning hum of the cicadas amongst cackles, snorts, barks and rustlings I know that I am surrounded by life but I can't see anything. I have a constant sense of unease and never quite feel relaxed. We climbed staircases that evolved from layers of roots and slithered past snake-like trees (and probably tree-like snakes) that twist around larger trees. Roots hang from every direction in spirals, loops and knots. The largest tree I've ever seen has a trunk like a neck when you smile and bring your jaw forward.

Canopy Walk

We arrived in Kuala Tahan on a sunny afternoon and only just made it to one of the many floating restaurants before the heavens opened and attacked the corrogated iron roof with a vengeance. People ran for cover everywhere and anywhere and those who made it undercover five minutes too late looked as if they were dredged up from the river. Even an hour after the rains had stopped, water taxis still delivered the sopping wet to the restaurant dock.

Forty to fifty metres above ground, a rope walkway made up of a combination of ladders, ropes and cables towers above the jungle. Except for a rather large squirrel, we did not see any wildlife from the dizzing height, but this may be because we were concentrating so much on our footing on the swaying rope bridges. In the afternoon we cooled ourselves off in the river.

A short boatride upriver from Kuala Tahan, we visited an aboriginal tribe - the only people that are allowed to live and hunt in the large area of Taman Negara. It seemed ironic that cigarettes dangled from their mouths as they showed us how to make fire using palms and bambo while their bic lighters visibly poked out of the pockets of their blue jeans; but at the same time it was refreshing to see that they were not putting on a show and that many traditions of the tribe still thrive even with modern influence. Although their fires are not always lit from scratch, their traditional hunting practises still remain to be a way of life. We were shown how blowpipes are constructed and a few of the youths demonstrated how to make the poison darts that are used to maim monkeys and other small animals that reside in tall trees. The bamboo darts are placed in the opening of the long blowpipe and once you carefully aim for your target, you simply take a deep breath and blow. The darts move surprisingly quick.

A gift from the locals

Curious about the green cigarette that hung on the lips of the woman making dinner, Brett asked our guide what it was she was smoking. The woman disappeared into the small opening in her palm hut and returned with palm leaves and tobacco. She then called over an eight year old boy to come and roll the tobacco into the palm leaf as a cigarette for Brett. Eyes watering and shaking a little from the unfiltered cigarette but not wanting to seem ungrateful, Brett decided after a few puffs that he'd had enough, he passed it on to someone else. I'm not really sure how I feel about participating in a sightseeing expedition that involves people going about their daily routine, but the money brought into the village as a result of it benefits them directly.

Leeches are a hot dinner topic and it seems that everyone who wanders into the jungle (except us) returns with several leeches sucking the lifeblood out of them. One of the guys from our hostel came back with bloodstains all over his white shirt. He lifted it to reveal several bleeding hickeys on his belly. Brett and I prepped ourselves for another jungle trek, this time spraying our shoes and ankles with deet. For the first twenty minutes I was paranoid and kept scanning the ground for the little suckers that supposedly inch along ready to catapult themselves onto the unlucky. We saw none.

entrance to the bat cave

Our destination this time was Gua Timbeling, a cave that you can walk through for eighty metres and end up on the other side. I was expecting a giant spacious cavern similar to the Batu Caves in Kuala Lumpur but what we were faced with was a tiny opening in the rock with bats flying in and out. I decided then and there that I was not going in. Brett crept in to see where the guiding rope would lead us. He made two attempts but aborted the mission when several bats narrowly dodged him on their way out. Since I claimed I wasn't afraid of the bats, but only the cramped, dark space, Brett suggested I go in to investigate. As my eyes adjusted, I could see that the rope led into a larger cavern that had a bit of light. I decided to try and go through to the next cavern and when I did I was faced with tons of bats flying around and hanging from the very low cave ceiling. To cntinue, we had to crawl under the sleeping bats for about six metres and through a fracture in the rock that led to another cavern. We crawled through cavern after cavern, the next always a bit darker, more cramped and containing more and more bats. At one point we looked up and thousands of bats were hanging in their fitful sleep from every surface imaginable. A scream is never a good idea at a time like this, but unfortunately one escaped and the cavern instantly clouded with flying bats many managing to slip past us in the very narrow exit that we occupied. The guiding rope ended unexpectedly in a giant cavern with a perilous looking exit high above us. Instead of braving the slimy vertical wall to the tiny circle of light above, we retraced our steps until we bumped into a guide who told us that we missed the exit. On closer inspection, we found another rope that indicated we exit through a crack suitable only for small children. We somehow shimmied out of the cave through the fissure and in the light discovered that a layer of bat droppings covered us from head to toe. Eww! Wanting nothing more than a dip in the river, we stinkily staggered back to our hostel instead where shampoo and clean clothes awaited.

Back at the hostel we ran into a fellow who had planned a two day jungle trek on his own where he would be sleeping in a cave. We had originally planned on spending the night in one of the bunks in the jungle to get a taste for the jungle at night, but changed our minds in favour of our bat cave adventure. It proved to be the best decision of the trip as Steve had gotten lost in the dense jungle twice and seen no animals except for the millions of rats that had free reign of the bunker and crawled over him all night as he tried to sleep.

On our last day in the jungle it rained the whole day and this suited me fine as I had no intention of putting on my bat pants again. We lazed around the hostel watching the owner's two little girls play in the rain and torment a poor kitten. We sat in the floating restaurants drinking tea and watching graceful fisherman cast their nets into the brown river from their narrow dugout boats. In the morning we woke up early to Islam's morning prayer and ran for the bus in the lashing rain. After two days of downpour complimented with some bad planning and indecision, we ended up in Thailand in search of the beach.

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