Looking Back, Moving Forward

On the night of leaving to the States where I'll redraft the first version of our book, I'll leave you with a recount of my experience in Taman Negara - the Malaysian rain forest trek... Thanks to AJ who wrote it, but as I whole heartedly agree with what he said, I am reprinting it here. See you on the other side.

I recently returned from a backpacking trip to Taman Negara, in northern Malaysia. It is reputed to be the oldest rainforest in the world at 130 million years old. It was one of my most difficult backpacks to date and quite an experience, especially with the leeches. On this trip, we hiked about 20 kilometers over three days starting from Kuala Tahan. After checking our backpacks in at the ranger station and inventorying our gear, we were in a boat and heading downriver to the Rentis Tenor trailhead.

We hiked trough an Orang Asli village and past a returning empty-handed hunter with his blowgun. Then, we took a short one-kilometer spur to the 80-meter Gua Telinga cave, seeing small bats, a snake, and a large toad. Our lunch in the creek bed consisted of ramen noodles and tea. There were a few stream crossings but the ground was mostly hard and littered with large dead tree and plant leaves, but nothing too difficult, and few animal sightings. It was a dry first day on the ground, but we were all soaked through our clothes from the seemingly 100% humidity and our own sweat. We heard plenty of gibbons off to our left and birds high up in the canopy before reaching our first campsite about six kilometers in, according to the trail sign (which I think are marked as the crow flies and not as the trail meanders up, down, over and around creek and river beds).

It wasn’t until reaching the first campsite that we found the leaches had started making themselves at home on our legs. After doing a thorough search between our boots and socks, and our socks and our ankles, and our pants and our legs, I had counted 4 leaches attached and removed. Jason found 3. AJ had the most with 6 and we removed them with a lighter and got the bleeding to stop eventually on all of our open wounds. It was very difficult to remove them, and once removed, it was difficult to kill the wiggling worms as they tried to approach our bodies again. Rubbing a boot over them on the ground didn’t do the trick and even cutting them in half with a sharp stick, they still seemed to keep on wriggling. Not long after removing these, we set up our tents and hung our wet clothes. Again, we noticed that each of us had acquired new friends (perhaps some of the same returning) and removed them again. It didn’t take long to figure out that they were hanging out in the leaves, so we cleared patches of ground of leaves and stood or sat in the middle. At least this way, you could watch the dirt patches around you and see them advancing at sometimes an amazing rate.

At sunset, there was an amazing chorus of cicadas alerting the entire jungle that it was now night. I have never hear cicadas make this amazing sound as the males and females sent different calls through the night, sounding as if the bug itself was flying over head and all around you, like banshee spirits haunting from every direction. It was very eerie and amazing at the same time. As quickly as they had started, fifteen minutes later and the sounds of cicadas gave way to crickets and frogs and the sky overhead flickered with lightning from distant storm, almost every five seconds.

We were all pretty exhausted and we prepared our bags for weather and turned in for the night. About an hour later, the skies unleashed a very powerful downpour that gave true meaning to the word rainforest. It rained for almost six hours and the guides told us that that was the first true rain in almost three weeks. It certainly cooled down the night and allowed for a bit of sleep after the cracking thunder, which sounded like it was 100 meters away at times, subsided.

We woke up to find AJ's and my backpack, placed under my rain fly, had been inundated by rain and most of our clothes and the pack were now wet. The guides gave us an extra hour in the morning to allow for our tents to dry out, but there was no way that our clothes were going to dry without direct sunlight and perhaps a good breeze, of which we had neither. So we packed up our camp and our gear and off we headed for another short hike (ten kilometers) through the jungle. About an hour in, we came to our first small river crossing. There was a log you could step on to get you out over the deep part, but you still sank into the feeder stream enough to have the water run into a boot before being able to leap across to the bank. What we failed to realize however is that after crossing the stream, we immediately turned left to cross the small river. And there was no log to step on. We grabbed onto the rope and waded into just below waste-high water and crossed the ten-meter wide waterway. We now all had water in our boots and our socks and trousers were thoroughly soaked.

But there was plenty more hiking and river/stream crossings to do before the day was out. We stopped for lunch (Ramen noodles again) next to a stream crossing where we all de-leeched (we stopped counting how many we had removed as every time we stopped, a couple blood-suckers made their way to the soles of our boots and started the climb to the warmth and safety under our clothes. I laid out some of my clothes to dry in the sun on the rocks and a makeshift hanger and took a quick swim. We saw signs of elephants all around us but no signs of the elephants themselves. Not long after resuming our hike, we were wet again, and then we had a few more river crossings to make. It made for a very long day and our energy was sapped by time we reached camp. We stopped a few times along the way for a break (and oftentimes to pump water) but it didn’t take long after restarting to feel drained of energy again. Especially since AJ's water filter needed a lube job and was difficult to pump even if the water was crystal clear (which it wasn’t).

We reached camp eventually (16.4 kilometers, again, according to the sign) and I collapsed onto the borrowed Therma-Rest while AJ scurried to get my clothes hung up and the tent set up and take advantage of the last twenty minutes of sunlight that might in some way dry out some of my soakage; It didn’t work - our bags would still be five kilos heavier the next day. By time I had recouped some of my energy, the sun had gone down below the trees and a swarm of bees had descended onto the camp en masse, attracted by the sweet (?) smell of sweat and bug repellent on our clothing. AJ retired to the hot and airless tent to avoid being stung and waited for night to settle, hoping that that would drive the bees away. He gave up after realizing that he needed air and went for a swim in the river while I updated my journal of today's events. Then we all had dinner. The cicadas serenaded us again as AJ and I turned in early while Jason went out for a night hike with the guides. We didn’t get much sleep in the hot tent and the rains threatened but did not come back for a second round. This meant that we had to keep the rain fly on and melt, just in case it did unleash another torrential downpour upon us.

So no sleep, swarming bees, a poor appetite for food with no saliva to swallow it, a heavier backpack than when I started, and another hot and muggy day was what we had to start with for our hardest uphill climb of the trip. Not long after we ran out of camp with our packs loosely straddled to us to lose the bees, we started our one-kilometer ascent for one of two hills along our last eight-kilometer hike to the river and a boat transfer back to the park headquarters. Over an hour later, all of us had made it to the top, panting, and trying our best to eat something, anything, to give us energy. AJ gave me his last orange vitamin tablet and an instant mango-mandarin green tea to sweeten my drinks so I could push down the trail mix bars that would give me a little boost in energy between gulps of water to wash them down my dry throat. At this point I wondered if I would ever salivate again.

So one more hill to go up and a lot of small stream crossings and we were at the river. But every time we stopped, be it to pump water or wait for me to catch my breath, we all had to de-leech again, but quite frankly I couldn't care anymore. This trip was slowly sapping me of all reserves I had. At one stop, I just crashed, sweat pouring down my already sweat soaked clothes, heaving great gulps of air all the while washing down any kind of sugar I could find with the filtered water in my bottles. Mud was caking my shoes and pants. I had torn my pants at the crotch while trying to wrestle myself over a large fallen tree (of which there were many) and my leather Ozzie hat was soaked. At these times I just sank into a pathetic heap on any leech-free surface I could find and just stare, breathing. Always breathing.

I don’t remember going up the second hill, instead I remember many smaller ones. Up and down, up and down. Up would send needles of pain in my blood blisters I was developing on my heel. Down would put pressure on my toe nails, two of which were already dead. AJ was leading at this point and was not stopping for anything. He was on a mission to see the river and dive in. Running through cobwebs and pushing his way through and under prickly vines, he carried on and gathered more blood on his skin and hands while I plodded on behind him simply trying to keep my sanity until we got to the river. I stopped once again to catch my breath and I noticed our guide Zani getting impatient with me. Still he said nothing and kept his cool and when I asked how far he said ten minutes. They would be the longest ten minutes of my life. Down the last hill, through a bamboo forest, more rain forest, through an open field of grass, and yet another forest and finally... we had reached the river and the boat. AJ, Jason and Joe had not arrived much sooner so there was no time for AJ to swim. It was into the boat and off to lunch at a restaurant.

The ride down the river on the boat was excellent. Reaching over the side of the boat, the water was cool and I splashed it up and down my arms to cool off. It was at this point hard to stay awake. Exhaustion had finally overcome me and I felt myself drifting off, but never enough to fall asleep. Ten minutes later and we disembarked at the floating restaurant. We were sweaty, smelly, and still had leeches on us, but we were determined to get a cold drink or two and a hot meal inside of us, unfortunately for the other clean, well-dressed tourists in the restaurant. One of them came up to AJ and let him know that one of his friends had decided to divert as he pointed to a leech that had left his boot and was heading for me. He apologized, smashed it into the floor, and had another drink of his fresh orange juice, while I continued sucking down my banana shake. It truly was one of the best experiences in my life, that shake. Cold, sweet, liquid. Then I realized trips like this are a bitch, but they do make you notice the truly exceptional you usually take for granted. There would be more joyous moments like that. The first shower. Sitting on an actual toilet. Lying on a dry cool bed. Wearing dry fresh clothes. We re-hydrated and then took a taxi into Jerantut where we would take another rest in a local hotel before catching the 3AM train back to Singapore the next morning. We had a sleeper car, so we could lay down (and try to sleep) all the way home.

Our bags and boots smelled terrible (my boots are now B.O.ots) and there are tears to mend in clothing and equipment alike. My watch died and I have scratches on my camera. My Ozzie hat might have seen the last of its trips and I had to make a trip to the hospital myself to have my feet checked out. They were covered in wounds, spots, blisters and two dead toenails (that are now black). It was quite the experience, but in the end I am truly a city boy. I loved going to the movies the next day and drinking frozen margarita's at the Mexican later in the week. But an experience like that can only enrich and I will make sure Simon, Maya, Alix, Karl and Sally will feel some of it when I go in for redrafting.