Wandering Goat

Travel stuff by Miguel A. Villarreal

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Location: New York, NY

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Downriver

Writing on a handheld device doesn't really allow for narrative flow but I've got two hours on the longboat so I may as well. I just spent two nights at kuala tahan at the entrance to Taman Negara rainforest. The town itself is a depressing collection of filthy shacks and concrete built into muddy riverbank. Its also overcrowded by both locals and tourists. If you're contemplating a rainforest trip in Malaysia I'd advise you to skip the peninsula and head to Borneo, which in retrospect I should have done.

The highlight was a 6 hour jungle hike yesterday that I forced myself into doing. I set off solo without a guide. I've done jungles before and figured this was one I can handle since its fairly touristed. Occasions like this are when its good to travel alone as one is left alone to question one's sanity after several hours of hot humid, muddy, leech infested traumatization rather than to face recriminations from other parties.

The jungle itself was surprisingly decent. Just a K or two outside the park entrance and you're pretty alone with the bird calls and the monkey howls and the heavy distort cicada solos. I saw a few small animals bolt away from me on the trail, probably small deer, and some elephant tracks as well as a few monitor lizards but the predominant organism, aside from the battalions of ants of all shapes and sizes (2 inches some) was the legion of leeches.

I've dealt with these guys before but man, they really still do suck in every sense of the term. I can't think of a creature more apt to induce revulsion, making their brief partnership with 18th c medicine all the more unlikely. The first one I saw yesterday reminded me how much I hated them ~ it was clinging to the edge of a leaf on the trail, totally vertical with its fat little mouth aiming skywards and waving around. It sort of reminds you of an annoying kid in class desperately raising his hand to get the teachers attention.

If successful it will then vault onto your shoe and then somersault its way up to your ankle and start to feed and get fat and nasty. Getting them off is no joy either. I had my Swiss army knife with me so I used the blade to pick them off. It was overkill of course and tweezers would have been ideal but I take great pleasure in bringing a knife into the jungle and using it to really knife things, as its normal use is to open beer bottles. Of course this backfired when I sliced my ankle open which turned my planned 18 k round trip into a 10k hike, which was fine insofar as I was running out of water in any event. Ok battery is dying so I have to end here.
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