The only way to get to Taman Negara is to take a boat up the Sungai Temering
Malaysian place names are fairly uninspired. From Kuala Lumpur – Muddy Confluence – I went to National Park; yes, Taman Negara literally means 'Park National', a whoppingly original name for a National Park, don't you think? I wondered if I'd soon be crossing River Sungai on my way up Mt Gunung on beautiful Pulau Island...
The bus journey from KL to the jetty at Kuala Temering was fairly uneventful; I slept through most of it, thankfully. The only way to get into Taman Negara is by a three-hour boat trip up the Sungai Temering, as there are no roads, a pretty far-sighted move by the environmental department, one of the few nods in the direction of conservation that you'll see in Malaysia. On arrival I sorted out the business of a permit and booking nights in the relevant huts – wading through reams of bureaucratically nonsensical paperwork in the process – rented a cooker and pot, and packed my bag. For some reason it felt heavier than normal, by a long way; I've been on walks much longer than six days, and I swear I didn't need this much junk. Perhaps packing two long novels (Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy and Nicholas Evans' The Horse Whisperer), a computer and lots of food was the reason, but I needed my recreation out there in the jungle...
Kuala Tahan, home to Park HQ, with Wan's Floating Restaurant on the left
I dined at Wan's Floating Restaurant, recommended to me by an American called John whom I'd befriended in Melaka. Indeed, it proved to be the hotspot of Kuala Tahan (the home to Park HQ and the fancy Taman Negara Resort, the Malaysian answer to Kakadu's Jabiru) and before long I was surrounded by warbling Germans, Dutch, Indians and locals. I chatted to Wan for a bit, but something in me didn't want conversation; it was time I buggered off into the jungle for a bit of solitude among the flora and fauna. Sod the people; I wanted Mother Nature.
And I got her. Because central Peninsula Malaysia has been free of such excitements as seismic activity, ice ages or man's never-ending quest for wood, Taman Negara contains the oldest tropical jungle1 in the world, some 130 million years old, and it looks like it. After 130 million years the trees, vines, shrubs and bush bastards have evolved into something quite, quite different, and a whole lot nastier.
1 Although Taman Negara is properly referred to as a rainforest – as in tropical rainforest, semi-tropical rainforest and temperate rainforest – I think 'jungle' sums it up better. The word jungle is defined in the dictionary as 'thick, tropical forest', and so it applies perfectly to Taman Negara. It's probably less scientific than rainforest, but I want to emphasise how different this place is to the other rainforests I've explored. Taman Negara truly is a jungle.
