Day 88: Taman Negara – Day 2
We had two full days at Taman Negara, so we decided to split up all the possible activities so we didn’t do too much in one day. Since we were feeling fresh and well rested, we decided to do a little day-trekking. Taman Negara is very proud of their canopy walk – which they claim is the “longest canopy walk in the world”. Igor read reviews from people complaining that the canopy walk can get very crowded, so we decided to get up early and be the first ones out the gate. The hotel manager told us it opened at 9AM, so we were sitting out front at 8:45AM. Turns out it opens at 9AM on Fridays only, and 9:30AM every other day, however, when the park staff showed up at a quarter past, they let us up as soon as they finished their morning rounds.
It’s a beautiful day in the jungle – view of the Kuala Tahan village across the river
Encoraging words as we venture into the jungle toward the canopy walk
The path to the canopy walk is a boardwalk, but Igor is taking no chances! Trying to prevent getting leeched with girl’s hair-ties
First ones on the Taman Negara Canopy Walk @ 9:15AM
Not the most exciting moment on our trip, but who doesn’t enjoy a good canopy walk? It was very nice.
The canopy walk only took about 15min to complete, so at 9:30AM, we needed something to do. The manager at the hotel had recommended we do the hike up Bukit Terisek as the path up is the same way as the canopy walk, so even though we had only brought one bottle of water, we decided to go for it.
Reaching the summit of Bukit Terisek – no problem!
Rockin’ our long hair-cuts on the hilltop
View of the jungle from the top of Bukit Terisek
Once at the top, we had to decide how to get down – should we return the way we came? A bit boring, but we hadn’t really planned to do a large hike after the canopy walk. Or, should we continue down the trail and see if it was a loop? We had a map with us – unfortunately it was a map of the entire Taman Negara Park. Given that it is the largest park in Malaysia (at 2500 square KM, its name literally translates to “*The* National Park”), our little 2KM trail was a very tiny section and hard to read. In the end we decided it was very early in the day to just turn back – surely the path is a loop! – so we continued down the trail on the other side of the hill.
Heading down Bukit Terisek, our fancy boardwalk is suddenly in terrible condition or nonexistent
The walk down the hill is very steep, and we keep going forward simply because we don’t want to climb back up. However, while the path for the first half of our morning trek was extremely well maintained and well-marked, the second part of the path was falling apart and we had not seen a single sign since we left the summit of Terisek. Lindsay was starting to get really nervous – it was now mid-day, we were over halfway through our meager water supply and had no idea how long this loop would be. We finally reached a river, which we were pretty sure we remembered running along the left side of the hotel. Surely if we followed it, we would eventually run into the hotel!
If the trail had only been better marked (or if we had enough spare water for the whole day) we would have kept going, however the path split about 50 meters along the river without any signs indicating which way was which. Lindsay put her foot down (as Inna has recently sent us an email warning us, “Don’t do anything stupid.”) and insisted we turn back while we still could. It would suck climbing Bukit Terisek again, but at least we knew we would get back to the hotel within 2 hours.
Lindsay crying because we don’t have enough water to safely continue. Hiking back up Bukit Terisek
This jungle doesn’t even have any animals! Just bugs.
Igor chasing all the butterflies
Returning to the hotel exhausted, and very disappointed. When we looked at the park map later, we realized we were on the right trail and turned back when we were ¾ of the way back! Argh!
We decided to hide out from the jungle heat for the rest of the day, and chill in our resort AC. We booked a Night Walk for the evening, and headed across the river for dinner at one of the floating restaurants in the village. As we were finishing dinner, rain clouds started to roll in, and since we didn’t feel like walking in the rain, we postponed our night walk for another day. Whatever – we earned the right to be a bit lazy.
Crossing the river for a cheap, delicious dinner before the storm hit