Taman Negara Things to Do

I will not tell you how old the jungles located within the National Park. For those who believe in God, millions years, gazillions years really don't make any different/sense. What I am going to tell you is these jungles had long existence before anyone had ever lived and they were since the beginning. Yes, like the beginning that described in Genesis 1 (may be slightly after that).

Although there are some logging activities going on in forests around National Parks, but logging is strictly forbidden in the park. The only people that allowed carrying out agricultural activities and harvesting from jungle products are the orang asli (aboriginal) who lives there. Of course some of these natives make the best guides in the park. I mean who also can be the best host other then the owners of the homes? The National Park is orang asli's home.

In Taman Negara, you do not bring all the drinking waters with you because the mountain is the source of water. Just bring a plastic container and some chlorine pills if you don't feel safe to drink the Kelah's (aka freshwater shark) bath water. I saw lots of kelahs darting pass me as i retrieve water from the stream.

I personally just drink the water from the stream & rivers and they taste cool and sweet. Don't know why.

Lata Berkoh is a spectacular cascade that marks the limit of easynavigability on the river. It is dangerous to swim here because of the strong undercurrents.
While walking along the rocks near to the water, I had a slip and my whole body submerged into the water totally. Fortunately, the water is shallow and I didn't drown myself. However, I was the last to get into the water but the first to get wet totally.

This picture shows the stopping point for the boat. From here, you will see that the water is very clear and brown. This is due to the high iron content in the water. We thought we had reached Lata Berkoh cascade soon but not yet, we still need to trek for 800m before reaching our destination. We didn't know about this as we all thought we had enough of trekking on the previous day. What to do... continue to trek then...

Just upstream of Kuala Tahan, the Tembeling River flows through a gorge of sandstone conglomerate rocks, giving rise to distinct sections of white water rapids. Our guide took the 3 of us to shoot the rapid after exploration of the cave. This is not anything very challenging as you just need to sit inside the boat (no need to paddle) while the guide or the boatman will do his paddling. Just prepare to get drenched. For us, we didn't mind getting wet since we were so dirty after coming out from the cave.

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After conquering the cave, we went to the Orang Asli Settlement on our way back. A donation of RM 5 is required per person if you want to visit the settlement. You will learn how to start a fire and hit a target using a blow pipe. The young children are mostly quite shy. Once they see you, they feel like getting near to you but when you ask them to come to you, they will run away. However, I was quite surprised that almost all the young guys smoke. Many of them just sat around a table and smoke their cigarettes. Hopefully, the donation that we give them do not end up in the pockets of cigarettes seller.

This is really a challenging activity and definitely not for those who are over-sized or who are afraid to be confined in a dark enclosed area. It took us more than 30 minutes to finish the whole passageway. Besides fighting our fears in the dark cave, we also had to be careful of the slippery stones/ ground. Every step that we took had to be very very careful. I followed very closely to our guide. Our torch lights were not powerful enough and most of the time, our guide needed to shine his spotlight on the path we were taking. Sometimes, we had to crawl in a very narrow passage where the bats were just right above our heads. Indeed, inside the cave was very dirty and smelly. However, we weren't bothered by these as we were prepared to get dirty and wet inside. We were more concerned about getting out of the cave in one piece.

This is the starting point of the Canopy Walkway. We were told that under 1 of the ropes, there was a beehive.. Ahem.. what a start. Its okay, that will not discourage us from moving on. Also, we were told to keep a distance of 5m from each other while we were up on the bridge. Did we make it to the end? Read on to find out then...