Jungle Sounds

Eeee-ooooahhh, Weeooh, throw-thwip, quee-zip, quee-zip, cree-cree-cree, teller-eep teller eee, creeip, qreek. As the night grows darker, the sounds of the jungle grow louder and wierder. We have never heard such an unusual symphony of noises. The decibel level from the trees and the underbrush are at least five times louder at night than during the day.

"Well John, we came here to escape the noise. Did we succeed?" But the noise of Taman Negara was is to us pure music compared to the continuous honking and beeping we endured in Kuala Lumpur.

To escape that endless drumming of noise took a while. And it took a bit of stubbornness and a lesson learned. It began by catching a mini bus outside the Royal Hotel. The mini-bus driver collected our bus fare and brought us to the full-size bus which would take us to North Central Malaysia. That ride took four hours, including a stop for tea, and dropped at the dock at the Tahan River. When we de-boarded the bus the driver made an announcement that the boat to the park would leave in ten minutes and everyone needed permits and accommodation arrangements before then. A line began forming at the visitor office. But before we could go anywhere, the driver pulled John aside.

"Where is you bus fare," the driver asked. "You and your wife did not pay for this ride."

But of course we had paid and John explained this. "We gave the money to the mini-bus driver. He said he was collecting it."

Then where is your receipt?"

Ah, that is one thing we hadn't thought of. Always request a receipt. As we had none, John continued insisting we had paid, while the bus driver, now red-faced, insisted we hadn't. "Call the mini-bus driver and ask him," John said. John had seen that the bus driver had a cellular phone. What a perfect occasion to use it.

Back and forth the two of them went; John insisting the call be made, the driver refusing until finally it was obvious that John wasn't going to unload his pockets and the phone was dialed. "Uh huh, yeah, uh huh." The driver turned to John, smiled faintly and apologized three times. "I'm very sorry. Yes you did pay. I apologize. You can go."

We found out later why the driver was so reluctant to place the call. He and the mini-bus driver were in together on a scam. The first couple to board the mini-bus gets asked for their bus fare up front. Since there are no whiteness on board, there is no one to vogue for them later. The rush to get the boat in ten minutes helps to push the unsuspecting victim to pay the fare again. Bus driver and mini-bus driver split the boot. Only this time, the bus driver was challenged by someone with nerves seldom frazzled by time schedules. And stubborn can be played by two, John held his ground and won.

The boat of course did not appear in ten minutes. It didn't appear in twenty or even thirty. But when it did appear the crowd at the dock had grown and more than one were needed to carry us all on our three hour ride up the river. In groups of ten we loaded into long, covered, canoe-shaped boat each with an outboard motors hanging off the back. We sat on vinyl cushions which, after the first hour felt thin and after the second felt nonexistent. But the views kept us from complaining. We passed fishing villages; and fisherman in dug-out canoes passed us. They tossing large hand-knotted nets into the river and dragged up others filled with fish. Water buffalo looked at us as we passed. Some grazed on the banks, some took river dips up to their nostrils. Two hours into our journey we passed a sign that said 'Entering Taman Negara Park' and then another hour past that thumped over three sets of rapids before coming to rest at the dock of Nusa Camp.

We left the boat, and checked into our wooden bungalow. I pulled out the food we had packed and lined it up on the table beside the bed. Everything was still dry; We'd had a skillful boatman. Five days worth of jungle hiking food consisted of macaroni and cheese (packaged in Lathrop, California), boxes of crackers (from Woodbridge, New Jersey), a jar of peanut butter (Oakland, California), and dried fruit and prunes (San Jose). In a country half-way around the world, it was good to know I could still buy 'Made in America'.

I packed it all back away and surveyed the room. Rustic but homey. The water in the bungalow bathroom didn't work though. That is it wasn't producing any water. All the mud I could bath in was mine for the asking. It apparently runs that way if it's rained that day. (In the jungle it rains every day). So rinsing off my day in transit didn't appear to be an option. NO matter, we were both tired of sitting around anyway (I barely knew my rear-end was still behind me), and we decided it was time for our first jungle hike. Asai Falls and clear water was only 45 minutes away. We threw the crackers and two water bottles in our day pack and left.

It is true that the jungle is hot. But being told that and experiencing that heat are all together different. Sweat stung our eyes as we walked. It licked at our backs, and tangled with our hair. Puddles of it welled near our noses and dripped in salty-pearls into our mouths. Our 45 minutes stretched to an hour and then beyond that as we stopped to rest and gulp cupfuls of water.

We stopped too to admire the forest. Tropical trees with tall buttressed roots were new to us. We stopped to listen to the loud buzz that seemed to envelope us and the caws, cheeps, hisses, croaks, hums and chirps that chimed in during the symphony. We could identify none of the sounds nor see any of the animals and bugs that made them. One thing is for sure, none of them were made by the giant bird eating spiders - they make no sound.

One of the root words of the word rain forest caught us before we had finished our hike. The sky fell on us in buckets and even with our mad dashes to escape, we couldn't. "Quick," John said. "Fresh water." He handed me a water bottle and a plate. We stood dripping on our bungalow porch holding our plates up to the metal roof and draining the run off into our bottles. The people who had just moved in next door looked at us with a peculiar eye. "You haven't tried the sink yet have you?" John said.

On our third day in the park, we moved from Camp Nusa to the Taman Negara Resort down river. There were many more hikes from this part of the park and we wanted to spend a few nights living in cool luxury in one of the beautiful air-conditioned (and expensive) chalets. It's not often that we spend US$90 per night on a room (actually never since we began our trip) but, given the heat and the attitude of 'you only live once', we decided to splurge. The chalet was beautiful and including an elaborate buffet breakfast. Walking around in shorts and T-shirts didn't seem to fit the price.

We had sat in a cool room now it was time to walk on top of the world. Or nearly on top; in the Canopy of the jungle trees. We took the Canopy Walk, a quarter mile walkway of swinging bridges installed 90 to 150 feet above the jungle floor. (Decidedly not for anyone afraid of heights). Once we climbed the wooden steps to the top of the first turret, there was no turning back. The walk in the trees is a one way street.

The first several sections were incredible. The leaves, so high up when standing at ground level, were brushing our shoulders here. I started thinking about all the rain forest T.V. documentaries I've seen. There could be rare bugs up here, plant life that held the clue to curing diseases; species of animals seen no where else but in these trees. But, as hard as we looked, we saw none of them. Not even a monkey swung between vines. "Perhaps, those things are all up there," John said pointing up. Indeed we were no where near the top of the canopy. From where we stood, that top looked as far away as this section did from down there.

Down, one place I shouldn't have looked. It was moving, swaying around me. Or was that me that was swaying? A quarter mile of swinging seemed to me to be miles of it. The section of bridge between tree mounts seemed to be getting longer. One required an uphill climb on swinging steps. My interest in monkeys disappeared, full concentrated on the road ahead. That last turret seemed to be moving further away as I approached, but I reached it and finally met the ground again.

Later, in exploring the resort grounds, we saw the monkeys that had been missing from the trees. They were scrambling on the chalet roofs, climbing in open windows, and tugging at drying laundry. Perhaps running off with someone's swim shorts is more entertaining than swinging on vines these days. But John and I were in the mood to see bigger animals. An elephant, a rhinoceros, wild deer or perhaps a tiger. The park is home to all of these, but seeing one requires quiet and lots of patients.

The viewing hides are the places to practice those traits. As the sun was setting we walked to one of the closer hides. We climbed into the tree house and in hushed whispers inquired whether anyone had seen anything yet. Not et, they told us and shuffled their bottoms over on the wooden bench to make room for two more. As the sky darkened, the noise level grew. They were strange sounds; sounds that came at our heads and then arched away; sounds that began as loud piercing cries and dipped suddenly into log guttural hums. I imagined giant mosquitos, car-sized crickets, frogs with tongues that unrolled for miles. When there was barely enough light left to make out the salt lick in the field ahead of us, we saw our first herd of cambar deer. Their eyes were yellow dots in the glow of our flashlights. More dear came to drink at the watering hole and on the second night that we waited at the animal hide we saw a fox. We never did saw any of the elephants or rhinoceros that we were hoping to see. But we were told that the elephants travel in a circular path around the park. So although there are over 600 elephants living in the park, you pretty much have to be in the right place at the right time to see them.

After six days in the park, we packed our bags and boarded the 9:15 a.m. river boat back to Tembeling. We had grown accustomed to the noise of the jungle. It would be a hard thing to substitute for what awaited us back in the city.

The bus ride that took us back to the city hoisted us instantly back to the realities of city travel. As the original bus had broken down, a replacement had been sent to get us. It may have possibly been the oldest, most run-down bus we've ever seen that was still running. John and I were its only passengers and as we rumbled away, jostled from our seats at the first road divot, noted that The shocks were shot. It was going to be a long four hours. Or perhaps even longer than that. The bus driver pulled over four times to let the engine cool before attempting a hill and twice for tea because he kept falling asleep at the wheel. (I kept coughing loudly to keep him awake).

The tour guide (there is always one on board) kept us entertained by telling us about the book he had just written (he had a promotional copy with him) and by discussing Malaysian environmental policy as well as the upcoming U.S. presidential elections. I periodically brought up the head-tilting posture of the driver and the tour guide's conversation momentarily shifted before returning to us again.

After four and a half hours of coughing, bouncing and book translation, the bus dumped us near the Colosseum Hotel. It was recommended by the tour guide but any place would have suited me at that point. But the hotel was full. So was the YMCA near the railway station, so was the Twin Happiness. So what did two worn-out, tire-of-traveling travellers do? We booked a ticket on the 10:35 p.m. train to Bangkok, caught a cab to the Sogo mall for dinner, then took a mini-bus back to the train station just in time to climb on board another moving vehicle. What were we thinking?