Day 24: Jungle Fever

We began a long day of travels with a 3 hour bus ride from KL to Jeratut, the departure point for the Taman Nagara jungle. When signing up for the boat ride into the park, an Indian lady asked Ashwin if he was Indian ("Yes, my dad is"), if he spoke Tamil ("No"), and soon after asked if we were brothers. We should start counting the number of times this happens to us - it's almost becoming a daily occurrence.

The 3 hour boat ride up the river and into the heart of the jungle reminded us of a scene from Rambo (to be honest, neither of us have seen the movie but this is what the guidebook told us). The boat was a 25 foot long, 4 foot wide shamble of wood with a tin roof and a 15 horsepower outboard motor. As we took in the beautiful sights and sounds of the extremely dense jungle surrounding us, we watched as water slowly trickled into the boat through the innumerable cracks in the hull. It was miracle we even made it all the way.

When searching for a hostel in the tiny village across the river from the main jungle entrance, we were given the option of staying in an empty, well maintained 8 person dormitory for $8/night or a small and dingy 4 person dorm with 2 British girls already moved in for $6/night. Solely for economical reasons, we chose the latter option.

After dinner, we crammed into the back of a pickup truck with 12 other people for a night safari tour. Luckily, there was space on the roof of the cab next to the guide (who used an extremely powerful flashlight plugged into the car battery to freeze animals in place) so we sat up top for the rest of the trip. Not even 5 minutes in, the driver slammed on the brakes (we were clutching the luggage rack for dear life) and the guide pointed his light towards the road. In front of us was a 5 meter long boa constrictor crossing the path! Throughout the rest of the night, we saw several brightly colored tropical birds, a few gigantic toads, and a handful of strange looking monkey creatures. We even got to hold a tiny 6 inch snake. The first snake was basically impossible to miss, but each animal after it was completely hidden in the jungle flora. Our guide had the eyes of a hawk and was able to spot a fist-sized bird hidden behind a leaf more than 20 meters away - it was truly impressive.

We went to bed without showering, as we figured the attempt at cleanliness was futile living in a jungle. That now makes 4 days without showering (so you don't think we are completely unhygienic, we had refused to shower in KL because the showers were carpeted and we didn't have shower sandals - gross).