Taman Negara, Pahang

Rachel was assigned to audit Mutiara Taman Negara Resort last week. Being in the "Visit Malaysia" spirit, I took a day off on Friday and embarked on my first journey to Taman Negara National Park, Pahang.

Rachel arranged my transportation with Ping Anchorage, which consists of a 3-hour bus ride from Crowne Plaza hotel to the Kuala Tembeling jetty, and a subsequent 3-hour boat ride from the jetty to reach Taman Negara at Kuala Tahan. The bus rolled out from Crowne Plaza's lobby at 9.00am sharp and took the Lebuhraya Bertingkat highway to reach Karak Highway. It stopped briefly at Lanchang at 10.30am, before resuming the journey 10 minutes later via the East Coast expressway to reach Jerantut town.

[Do click on each of the images for a blow-up view!]

We reached Kuala Tembeling at 12.30pm. I jumped off the bus excitedly and ran towards one of the boats at the jetty but ended up being told that the earliest boat ride for the day was at 2.30pm. Dejectedly, I crawled into the Mutiara Resort office at the jetty to register myself, paid RM1 for the entry permit to Taman Negara, and a RM5 fee for bringing my camera. I then slouched on one of the waiting chairs and sulked, staring into blank space to pass time.

Come 2.30pm, my name was called and I hopped into the boat (which was essentially a very long sampan with wooden flooring). The first few minutes of the boat ride was exciting, but after a while it was downright boring. The persistent roaring motor, the mundane water plus the hard wooden flooring which necrotises arse-cheeks made me grumpy and restless. I fell asleep, and woke up to a moderately heavy rain. Damn!

I reached Taman Negara at about 5.00pm. Taman Negara was gazetted in year 1938, it has become Malaysia's premier national park and the largest primary forest in the country, spanning across Kelantan, Terengganu, and Pahang.

Mutiara Taman Negara Resort is the only resort at the entry point of Taman Negara. There are however more resorts scattered around Kuala Tahan. One of them is Nusa Holiday Village, which is just 5 minutes boat ride away from Taman Negara.

Located in close proximity to Kuala Tahan, Taman Negara is reputably older than Congo and the Amazon rainforests, dating back about 135 million years old and house a diverse flora and fauna.

If you wished to save your butt-cheek from a 3-hour painstaking boat ride, you could take a right turn at the Jerantut town junction (instead of left to Kuala Tembeling), and take a 1-hour drive to this Jerantut jetty, which is just opposite Taman Negara.

One of the first things you notice when you walk up from the jetty is the Mutiara Resort front office. This is akin to the lobby of other hotels, where checking-in and out takes place. You also send your laundry here.

The one and only restaurant in Taman Negara is the Mutiara Restaurant, located closest to the jetty. The restaurant serves buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner, priced at RM40, RM45, and RM50 respectively. It also serves ala carte dishes and has a bar serving alcoholic beverages. You could opt for cheaper food by taking a RM0.50 boat ride to the floating restaurants across the river.

The air-conditioned chalet I was staying in (pictured above) costs RM450 per night. Open the door of the wooden hut-like structure and a comfy queen-sized bed greets you with all the wooden-ish furnitures. It is really a basic accommodation with a slight tendency towards the luxury side. Surrounded by woody furnitures and covered with attap roofings, the chalet never really lets you forget you're still in the jungle!

One of the rare things you don't get to enjoy in other resorts is that you get to sleep in close proximity with monkeys and wildboars. They loom around the chalet as though they were your pets. The monkeys would knock on your door and laugh at you when you come out expecting someone on your doorsteps.

The wildboars linger around the front garden and in the bushes behind our chalet, always giving out some weird rustling sound while they're doing their business. These are cocky creatures, they would distance themselves when you approach them to snap photos.

Unspoilt and undisturbed, Taman Negara is a very very very relaxing place to be for those seeking a respite from the concrete jungle of the city. And there are plenty of exciting activities to participate in too!

But since it was already late evening when I reach Taman Negara on Friday, Rachel showed me around and together we explored the nooks and corners of the resort that she didn't dare to explore by herself earlier in the week, before heading for dinner at Mutiara Restaurant. Needless to say, we had buffet. I was too famished to snap a photo of my dinner plate, but I included the empty plates that I devoured for the night in the pic above. We had an in-house Scrabble board game and watched Astro before heading back to our chalet. No prize for guessing what happened later that night!

Pictured above is the bar serving all sorts of alcoholic beverages in the restaurant. I noticed they have a selection of hard liquors, like Henessy V.S.O.P., Henessy Cordon Bleu and the likes, but most are empty bottles!

Saturday morning, we went for jungle trekking + canopy walk after a hearty breakfast. Look at the fatty beef bacon man, really fuel the 3-hour jungle trek up Bukit Terisek.

Our tour guide, Mr. Along, was showing us all sorts of plants and trees in the jungle. He was holding the gigantic leaves known as elephant's ear in the photo above, purportedly used by the aborigines as paper and food wrappings.

He then proceeded to show us the usage of damar (resins) produced by the meranti tree. The locals burn it to produce smoke which could repel mozzies, and the latex produced from the heat were used to glue sharp objects to their blowpipes.

A small plant which leaves give out a fluorescent bluish-green hue when exposed to sunlight.

The small flower known as one-night-stand. Haha...

This is the Liyana tree, curvy and gnarled.

The first 30 minutes of the jungle trekking was introduction to some interesting flora of the rainforest. We then headed up to the Terisek Hill for its scenic view.

The trek up the hill was as good as the Summit Trail of Mount Kinabalu - some sections really steep and challenging, requiring careful footsteps and good physical fitness to catch up with Along. We were supposedly able to enjoy a panoramic view of Mount Tahan, but unfortunately there were mists covering the summit. Nevertheless, the view was good! Having had a tad too much of drinking water while resting, I pee-ed in the 135 million year-old rainforest TWICE! I got caught by a Korean tourist the second time so you may notice a wet streak of urine across my pants in some of the photos. Hehe...

We then descended down the hill, which was equally challenging, and headed for the canopy walk. The Canopy Walkway is touted as "The Longest Hanging Bridge In The World". The whole length of the bridge is over 400 metres, but we only managed to do half of the distance as the remaining sections of the bridge was closed for maintenance. It was a great experience as you could have an eagle's view of the rainforest, as some stretch was really really high. So high to a point you see human's head the size of small ants underneath you! Traversing the bridge is a wobbly affair, and at any one time, only one person is allowed on the bridge and separated from the second person about 10 metres away.

The whole jungle outing took about 3 hours and costed us RM35 per person. We headed back to our chalet to wash up before ordering two beef burgers for lunch in the Mutiara Restaurant. The burgers were gooood, priced at RM15 and came with an egg and fries. The patty was thick but a bit overdone. A glass of apple juice (costs RM14) to down the oily burger and fries was heavenly!

Next up, after lunch, we decided to head into the jungle again on our own! This time, the destination is Lubok Simpon, about 600m from the resort and a place ideal for skinny-dipping (so we thought). Since our intention was skinny-dipping, we wore sandals. And it proved to be a very grave mistake in this trail (the same trail to Gunung Tahan, 55km).

The whole trail leading to Lubok Simpon was muddy and slippery, interspersed with sections full of small leeches. I got a few in on my toes and managed to flip them off a few nanoseconds before they try to sink their teethless suckers into my skin. Rachel on the other hand, got two fat leeches hidden in between her toe webs, and only discover them later in the day during shower. And we decided not to jump into the water of Lubok Simpon, as the water appeared stagnant. We didn't want the risk of parasite infestation!

I wanted to join the trip to the Gua Telinga cave exploration, but Rachel wasn't impressed with crawling on bat's dropping on narrow slippery rocks. She said it's like crawling into a shit hole, so I had to nap with her in bed. We woke up to a serene drizzle, and enjoyed the view on the chalet's veranda.

This place really, was a mesmerising, relaxing haven for those who want to unwind and uncoil from all the stresses in life. And besides Jungle Trekking/Canopy Walk and Cave Exploration, there were other fun activities too, such as Nite Jungle Walk (RM30/person), Picnic Trip to Lata Berkoh (RM160/boat of minimum 4 pax), Rapids Shooting (RM40/person), White Water Rafting (RM65/person), Nite Safari (RM40/person), Visit to Orang Asli Settlement (RM50/person), and a trip to an Evening Market (RM30/person, Wednesday only).

My time here was limited. My wallet was of limited thickness too. Therefore I head to the restaurant again for my final buffet dinner of the trip. I downed all sorts of finely prepared cuisines, and went to sleep. The next morning, I downed another round of buffet breakfast before having a 3-hour butt-necrotising boat ride back to Kuala Tembeling.

I would like to thank Pn. Nasa, the accountant of Mutiara Taman Negara for sponsoring my accommodation and providing me unconditional free flow meals at the Mutiara Restaurant simply because I was a "friend" to Rachel, who was auditing the resort. It is time like this you appreciate the friendliness and love of people that is scarce in the concrete jungle. This trip was simply shiok!