Malaysia Part III: Taman Negara

Taman Negara is the oldest rain forest in the world. This rain forest has tigers, elephants, black panthers, all kinds of creepy insects like tarantulas, scorpions, ginormous ants and spiders, snakes,everything!!! It was so amazing… We felt like we were in Tarzan the whole time. They kept calling me Jane because I had my umbrella and my hat and my tripod and apparently I was acting like her, not sure what that’s supposed to mean but anyways, I need to watch that movie again!!

Again, as mentioned in my earlier posts, it was FREGEN HOT!!! I can’t even explain how excited we were when we saw that our hostel was an extension of a nice hotel that had an outdoor pool that we could use. When we saw it, it was like if there was shining lights around it from heaven.

We did some hiking there, a 45 meter high canopy walkway, which the trees were still high above us, the trees were MASSIVE… This rain forest is estimated to be 130 MILLION years old…. These trees were insane.. It was so cool. We also got a boat ride through the jungle, which was beautiful, it felt so unreal… That was another “what is my life right now” moment. It was TOO good to be true. I was in the boat with Celia and Emilie, two of my French friends and we just kept saying “Wow!! On vie la belle vie!!!” I can’t really explain how awesome it was to be in a boat going through a 130 million year old jungle…. It felt like we were in Jurassic Park.

We also visited a Tribe that lives in the jungle, they hunt animals in the jungle and build their own huts to live in. It was very interesting to see and made you really think. They showed us how to make fire with just wood, which was quite impressive. They also showed us their weapon, a blow pipe, which we got to try!

Afterwards we were so hot, our guide convinced us to do rapid shooting, which was basically taking the same boat we were in but going through rapids with it and getting SOAKED! Which was actually hilarious and also how I got a huge sunburn on my legs because I couldn’t use my umbrella for this one. #GingerProbs

We also did a night walk in the jungle, because that’s when you have more chances of seeing crazy bugs! We saw mostly spiders, big ones though, we also saw deer, a very colorful bird and a big lizard. OH YEAH, in Malaysia there are lizards EVERYWHERE…. Seriously EVERYWHERE!!! All over the walls anywhere you go. They are harmless and pretty small though. At one point Isabelle and I had to get one out of our hostel room. It was pretty difficult those things are fast!!!

The stars in the sky here were amazing… I could also kind of see the dust of the milky way! I could have watched the stars all damn night.

That night we spoke to guy who worked there as a guide and he was telling us the most amazing stories about people going in the jungle, tigers, elephants and the dangers and survival… It was super interesting. The people living there and working there are soo much more connected to nature than us city people. It’s crazy. People were sooo nice in Taman Negara as well. These ladies gave us left over banana and fish chips, these cute little Muslim girls asked me where I was from and told me I was beautiful, seriously the cutest moment of my life.

Also we would always hear the sound of the Muslim prayer every morning and night which was super cool for me because I’ve only ever heard that in movies and it’s the first time I go in a Muslim country so it felt unreal hearing it being broadcasted from the Mosque.

I feel as though this experience in Taman Negara has impacted me, for example my fear of bugs has definitely diminished! My roommates in Ottawa know, I can’t kill bugs, but in our hostel room I killed at least 7 spiders and a beetle! Go me!!! But seriously, this place showed me how beautiful and remarkable nature really is.

After Taman Negara we headed to Cameron Highlands + Kuala Lumpur once again, a post about those is coming soon!