After a 30min speed boat ride, followed by a 9hour coach/mini bus journey including a broken down coach, lots of palm oil plantations and a loony mini bus driver that must have been late for his dinner we arrived in Taman Negara National Park. Malaysia's first national park. The first thing that struck me as I got off the bus was that the smell in the air reminded me of the Sheffield Winter Gardens - hot, humid and earthy. We made our way to our hostel that the Lonely Planet described as "Army style barracks with non-existant service". Our expectations were low and we weren't disappointed. We had 2 beds in a 4 bed dorm for 2 pounds each a night. This was the first place on our trip that we thought we should make use of our silk sleeping liner to protect us from beasties. On exploring the washroom I found that there were western toilets with a resident toad and a large green leafy bug along with the geckos but relatively clean so not so bad. I find that I have started entering toilet cubicles with a slow nervousness poking my head in and look around before checking that the toilet and toilet seat is free of anything with legs or suckers. Thankfully frogs and geckos are the worst it has been so far. The hostel is next to the river where the floating restaurants were so off we trundled to get dinner, it took a little while to find one that was open as we had timed our dinner with the breakfast for Ramadan. After an hour of waiting and watching a comedy trio of happy go lucky restaurant staff we tucked into some lovely food.

Andrew is understandably a little concerned about the leeches in the jungle that we have read so much about as he only has ankle socks and the recommendation is big thick socks which i have (smug smile). He asks a local tourist info lady if he should go in to the jungle without big socks and she responds asking if Andrew can be brave. I burst out laughing and Andrew looks a little exasperated. Brilliant!!
That night the crickets have competition from the frogs for the noisiest night singers.

The next day we cross the river by boat taxi for 1 ringet each (20p) to head off into the jungle via the park reception to pay for our entrance fee and camera licenses (3 three jail sentence or MYR100,000 fine if caught without one). The jungle is amazingly dense and the noises are exactly what you expect and can be very noisy. The trees are huge and the buttresses used as the jungle communication system by the Orangi-Asli really make a great noise. We see a few squirrels, butterflies and huge ants on our way to the canopy walkway. It's around 300m in length and gives you a great perspective of the jungle from high up. No wildlife to be seen unfortunately. We then trek up to the a look out point called Bukit Terenaka in stifling heat and humidity. The view out over the canopy is amazing. Like a carpet of moss. We head back to Kuala Tahan and have lunch. Later that day we decide that we didnt really feel we were in the jungle as we didnt see any wildlife not even a leech that were supposedly rife in the park so we hatch a plan with the hostel owner to see more of the park. The hostel owner gives us advice of where to go, what walk to do and books us a boat for the next morning so the lonely planets review of non-existant service seems to be way off.

The next day we're up early for a boat ride at 7am up river to Kuala Tereggan. The boat is a long narrow wooden thing that could fit about 8 people in and it's not long before I get wet as the boat is negotiating some rapids. That's one way to wake up in the morning. At Kuala Teeggan we find an abandoned holiday resort which is a little eerie and head into the jungle for a 3km walk to the Bumbun Kumbang hide. This takes us over an hour and I get a little freaked out by seeing some paw prints of a large animal with claws. After telling Andrew that I think I have seen tracks of Shere Khan he tells me it's not and to get going. So complete with my "spider stick" I continue along the trail to the hide wafting my stick up and down to prevent us from walking into spiders. We approach quietly hoping not to scare off any wildlife nearby only to find the hide full of noisey French folk who'd slept there last night. We have some breakfast and I give out evils to the French for the racket they make. They leave and we sit around for half an hour hoping for something to venture into the little glade the hide overlooks. Nothing turns up so we head off on a 12.5km walk back to Kuala Tahan. It's not long before Andy who is being very brave gets a few leeches on his ankles and I am instructed to remove them. They are smaller then I had imagined after remembering the ones from the film Stand by me. I find quite quickly that stoking the leech with tiger balm causes the leech to detach it's mouth and then you can give a good flick to get them off. The cheeky blighters dont give up that easy and once flicked off make a beeline back our way like a speedy little slinky so it's best not to hang about too long. We get to a stream crossing that the hostel owner had told us about saying we could cross if shin deep but not to cross if shoulder deep. So for me it's thigh deep and again Ray Mears pops into my mind as a jiminy cricket spurring me on. We see Asian Elephant footprints and dung and although this is a little exciting I am secretly hoping we dont see one as we have no one else with us and no weapons to shoo one off if it fancied saying hello. Often on long walks you find the oddest of conversations and so I ask Andy which he would rather come across - an elephant or Shere Khan. We also see millipeeds, centipeeds, ant marches and melees which you have to run through and we disturb some sleeping bats. The walk seemed to be taking a very long time and the mile markers are confusing as it takes 1km in 1 hour then 2km in 30mins. I declare it is the hardest 12.5km walk I have ever done and it takes us around 6hrs including a stop for lunch. Near the end of the walk we found out that the Shere Khan prints we had seen earlier were actually that of the Malaysian Sun Bear which is much smaller then a grisly. Even so I'm not sure I would have liked to have met it. Final leech tally: Andy 18 (9 bites) - Helena 3 (1 bite through my socks!!!)

Helena + Andy

Croc watch = 0