After our short stay in The Cameron Highlands we decided to go even deeper into the jungle and head to Taman Negara. Taman Negara is a 130 million year old tropical rainforest, and getting there took almost a day and involved 3 minibuses. Eventually, after arriving, we checked into our hostel (a chalet in the jungle!) and went in search of food on a floating restaurant. For our stay in the jungle we had decided to do an organised tour again as it was the only way to do it in 3 days (and we were so impressed with the last one!), and our first activity of our stay was a night jungle walk. Although we had a guide this was actually quite scary, and with only a torch to protect us we stumbled through the jungle, coming across a large assortment of nocturnal jungle creatures including the poisonous black scorpion and a HUGE poisonous tarrantula! Being monsoon season in malayisa (and being a rainforest!) it had been raining all day and so the ground was littered with loads of leeches! Even though we were only out for an hour or so (and we kept moving the whole time) debs found 2 on her legs when we got back! Thinking i was free of them i got ready to go into the shower, only for debs to spot a huge one eating my neck! Leeches have an anaesthetic in their bite so you don't feel them feeding, and they also have an anti-coagulant so when you pull them off the wound doesn't stop bleeding for ages!! By the morning it had finally stopped bleeding but the bandages we put on were totally soaked in blood!

The next day we went off into the jungle with our guide, firstly to walk along the longest canopy walkway in the world (40 metres above the ground), and secondly to trek to a couple of viewpoints deep in the jungle. Even though it wasn't that hot (the temperatures were similar to in the Cameron Highlands) the humidity was so high that it made walking really hard and by the time we reached the last viewpoint we were soaked from head to toe in sweat! In the afternoon we went off into the jungle to visit an aborigninal tribe's village (the Orang Asli tribe), but the only way to reach it involved taking a small boat up the river. However, the river had 7 large rapids and so by the time we reached the village (2 hours later!!) we were absolutley soaked! I think we would have stayed drier if we had swam there! The tribe were pretty shy and the women and children hid in their huts most of the time (except when we offered them sweets!), but the men were quite happy to show us some of their traditional methods. We learnt how to make a fire with no matches and also got to use their blowpipes, and the men were very amused with my beard! Having almost dried off it was back into the boat for another soaking! That evening we chilled back at the chalet and watched Apocalypto (quite fitting!) before heading to sleep at a decent time, as the next day we had the prospect of a long boat and bus ride down to the capital, Kuala Lumpar!