Last night Frankie picked us up as promised and delivered us to the bus terminal. He is such a cool little guy and after leaving us there to wait for the bus, he rushed back five minutes later to give us his email address...bless him!!

Our bus departed at 23:45 and we travelled through the night to Kuala Lumpur, arriving at 04:30 this morning. The bus journeys are much better and quicker here, but it was a bit douggie fresh with the air con pumping out!! Just as Frankie was there to look after us in Penang, good ol' Bob was wating for us in KL, strolling the streets at half past four. It was Bob's job to gather weary travellers off the streets as they got off the buses and invite them back to Wheeler's Guesthouse just down the road. Tired, cold and stranded in downtown Chinatown, his offer was hard to resist and even with us just needing a place to rest for a couple of hours before transfering on to the jungle, he was very accommodating. So much so in fact that after dumping off our heavy bags, he took us for brekkie across the road and helped arrange a trip in to the jungle to suit us...that's all before taking us back to the guesthouse for a lay down and whacking on a DVD to fill the final hour or so! The film was Nacho Libre starring Jack Black, which was actually very amusing!

Taman Negara National Park was apparently theeeee place to go and after checking it all out, Bob walked us down to the booking office and got us all sorted and on a coach heading for the jungle by 08:00! Taman Negara is Malaysia's premier national park and the largest in the country covering over 4343 square kilometres (434,300 hectares) of primary forest, spanning across three states Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang - and is situated in the centre of the Peninsula Malaysia. It is also reputed to be the oldest jungle, the best kept tropical rainforest and one of the great natural wonders of the world. (www.taman-negara-nks.com)

The bus arrived at Jerantut (the launching pad for the national park) at 12:15 and after munching some rice for a change and obtaining a permit for the cameras, we were back on a bus taking us the short distance to Kuala Tembeling jetty. From there a riverboat took us 3-hours up the magnificent Tembeling River and deep in to the Taman Negara jungle.

At around 17:00 our amazing boat journay came to an end, hopping off at a tiny local village named Kuala Tahan. We had bought a package in KL that comprised of 3-days (2-nights) stay, a night jungle walk, jungle trek, canopy walk, rapid shooting, visit to an aboriginal village and all meals, so just as our feet were on dry land, we were being quickly shown to our quarters. Well that's not strictly true. It was a floating restaurant by the riverbank and once we had grabbed 40-winks and freshened up a bit, we back down there having our dinner...not a nice experience!! So far we'd been doing all right with the food (bit sick of rice), but this set meal was bordering on inedible so, after picking at a few grains of rice before leaving it all on the table, we had to order ourselves some chicken nuggets and chips!!!! For the rest of our stay the chef let us choose from the menu!!

We watched an 'exciting' video on the park before our guide, another with a good old Malaysian name; Herman, took us for our night jungle walk. Well the torches may be heavy, but they're pretty impressive. With his batteries on their way down, Herman had to use our torches to point out the bugs and point out the bugs he did...somehow he spotted large stick insects up in the trees, giant ants (and we mean giant - pushing 2-inches), large spiders, a sleeping bul bul in the leaves (a kiwi type bird), a huge moth, termites in their thousands and a scorpion. He also showed us some funky trees and plants, before viewing samba deer drinking from a salt lake as we watched on from a jungle hide...pretty cool ay?!!

We had a feeling we were gonna' love this place!!

Day 24 (Thursday 9th November 2006)

Our hut was a few minutes by four-wheel drive from the floating restaurant in a place called Park Lodge. It was pretty good for a jungle hut with a shower, toilet and fan and we had a nice early brekkie in their guest area, before making our way back down to meet our mate Herman.

Planned for us before lunch was a stroll along the star attraction, the canopy walk, before a jungle trek up Teresek Hill. The 45m-high and 510m long walkway is the longest canopy walk in the world and despite our fear of heights, it was a breathtaking experience! We then trudged up neighboring Teresek hill, where from the top we enjoyed panoramic views of Mt Tahan and the tree canopy covering the hills and verdant valleys.

Along the way up the ever-vigilant Hermanator pointed out a lantern fly (little dude on tree with a pertruding stick with a bright red ball on the end...according to Herman used as bait to lure unsuspecting victims) and a cicada (the culprit of that inescapable jungle hum)! Driving us back on his wooden riverboat, he made a couple of stops for us to watch Macaques or "Macaca" as he called them, as well as a charming little kingfisher perched on a branch.

After lunch (which we chose) Herman collected us for our ride through the river rapids and visit to a local aboriginal village. With nothing more than a rickety old wooden boat, Herman showed off his multitude of talents by skilfully negotiating all seven of the rapids. Before the ride, Marc thought he'd do the gentlemanly thing and sit at the front, taking what he thought would be the majority of the splash. However, every time the water crashed up against the boat, it seemed to miss Marc and drench poor Sarah...very funny!!

Afterwards Herman led a bone-dry Marc and a drowned Sarah up the riverbank to visit the aboriginal Oang Asli village. 'Oang Asli' means "original people" in Malay and the resident Batek Tribe live a nomadic lifestyle in the jungle of Tamam Negara. It was a surreal moment and although it was great to satisfy our own curiosity, you couldn't help but feel you were invading these people's lives and treating them like some kind of amusing tourist attraction. Herman told us that they do well from the money they get from it, as we could well see from the Ralph Lauren t-shirts, tents and modern torch lights...so that made us feel a little more at ease.

The chief, a funny little dude, made fire (similar to the way Ray Mear's teaches) in little over a minute, as well as making a dart for a blow pipe. We were honoured to watch a master at work and marvelled at his craftmanship. Before we left he demonstrated the art of hunting with a blow pipe by hitting a dangling green frog (cuddly toy of course) suspended from a branch, which must have been a good 20-feet away (he can shoot a lot further)...he hit it every time!! Marc thought he'd get up and give it go. His feeble attempt gave the whole tribe something to chuckle about for the rest of the day!!

After that truly amazing experience and unforgettable day, we returned to the floating restaurant for tea. It was there that we met an English couple, Pete and Jodie, who were on a similar world ticket with sta travel. We had already decided to stay a further night, so when they invited us to join them on a 11km jungle hike the next day to a hide, we jumped at the chance. With a big day ahead of us we decided not to bother with the optional night safari (ride through the jungle in a 4-wheel drive at night)...after all, tomorrow we would be sleeping out there!