Malaysia: Taman Negara Rainforest

After our trip to Hong Kong, we flew into Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia. The next morning we took a bus for 3 hours north towards Taman Negara, which is the world's oldest rainforest, estimated at 130 million years old! The bus brought us to Kuala Trembling Jetty, where we stopped for a short lunch break and then took a boat for 3 more hours into the rainforest!

Our first taste of Malaysian food...a combination of Chinese and Indian foods with a lot of noodle and curry dishes.

Outside this window were a group of wild chickens. We felt kind of guilty eating chicken for lunch as we watched them running around!

3 Hour Boat Ride to the Rainforest

After lunch we walked down to the jetty, where there were many long boats equipped with motors waiting to take people to Taman Negara. We boarded our boat and thus our journey upstream on the Tembeling River began.

We were thrilled when we came across some water buffalo!

At about 4pm, we knew we had finally made it to the rainforest when we saw a group of floating restaurants on the river.

Mutiara Resort

We stayed at the only resort that is actually in the rainforest's national park, however we could only afford the hostel facilities. The resort was beautiful, with all sorts of animals and insects wandering around!

Resort lobby

Many of the guests stayed in chalets that were scattered throughout the resort.

Our hostel room slept 8 people, but we lucked out and were the only ones in our room! The bathroom was next door to our room with freezing cold showers. At least we had AC, though.

Wild Monkeys

Every evening, tons of wild monkeys would wander around the resort.

We encountered these 2 monkeys eating an orange they found in a guest's bag on one of the chalet porches. Check out the video!

We took a ton of pictures of the adorable monkeys. Here are some of our best shots.

The monkeys were not shy at all...they even tried to steal our bag!


Notice the baby holding on underneath.

More Pics Around the Resort

In addition to monkeys, we also came across some beautiful flowers, insects, and a huge Monitor Lizard.

This Monitor Lizard was about the size of our dog Dixie! It really looked like a dinosaur compared to the 1 inch lizards we're used to in Florida!

Night Jungle Walk

We went on a night jungle walk with a guide through the rainforest. It was kind of creepy, but fun. We all had flashlights and the guide definitely knew his way around, so we felt pretty safe. We saw a scorpion, snake, walking stick, gecko, a bee hive covered with hundreds of bees, huge ants, plus a few other insects and spiders.

Frank was the one who spotted this snake during the walk.

Local Village

On the other side of the river across from the rainforest's national park was a local village. We took a boat taxi their every day to eat at one of the floating restaurants.

In order to get to the floating restaurant, we had to walk across a wooden plank.
We signed up for a package that included all of our meals at this restaurant on the river.

This Malaysian man had just come back from fishing in the river. He was so proud!

Local Village School

We walked around the local village one afternoon and came across their school.

We were surprised to see they were learning English. It seemed like they were also learning Arabic, which is to the left of the English.

Canopy Walk

The canopy walkway is the world’s longest hanging bridge at 500 meters (.3 miles), strung up to 131 feet high above the forest floor. Here's a video of Frank on the canopy walk:

Climbing up to the highest bridge on this wobbly ladder.

Jungle Trekking up to Bukit Teresek

We did a trek for a couple of hours up to Bukit Teresek, which is a lookout point over the rainforest. The weather was extremely hot, but we enjoyed it.

This was a root that was once wrapped around a tree.

The view of the rainforest from Bukit Teresek

Unfortunately, Frank got a leech on his leg during the jungle trek! A man we were with had some salt and they used that to get it off.

River Rapids

We also took a boat down the river to shoot seven rapids. It was actually really fun, but we all got completely soaked! Plus, that brown river water doesn't seem the cleanest.

This is our group soaked after the rapids. We loved the people in our group and even hung out with them when we weren't doing planned activities. The couple next to us is from Italy, next to them is a couple in their 60's from Ireland who have been backpacking around Australia and Asia for a year, and the guy on the end is Korean, who actually lives only a couple hours away from us!

Orang Asli Village

One of the highlights of our experience in the rainforest was getting to visit the aboriginal people.

Orang Asli simply means original people in the Malay language and refers to the aboriginal tribes who were the first human occupants in Malaysia. Our guide was really informative and told us some interesting info about them:

• The Taman Negara rainforest has about 2,000 aboriginal people, all of which are nomads and move their location often.
• There are a total of 7 villages throughout the jungle, each with their own chief. The chief is chosen by the man with the kindest heart.
• The children do not go to school.
• They lead very simple lives. Their homes are made of palm leaves which takes about 1/2 a day to build and can keep out water for about a year.
• A doctor sent by the government visits each village about once a month, but the aboriginal people rely completely on the rainforest for medicine.
• When a man and woman want to get married, the woman spends a day building a hut by herself that has no open areas. Then the man and woman spend the night together in the hut and the next day announce they are married. They do not have a wedding or celebration.
• When someone dies, the men wrap the person up and tie them to the top of a tree so they are closer to heaven.
• The government built houses for the tribes, but after a few days of living in them, they returned back to living in the rainforest.

A view of the village from the river.

The people have very dark skin and coarse hair.

One of the homes made from palm leaves.

Frank got to try to make fire by rubbing a piece of routon on a piece of old wood.

We also got to practice using a bamboo blowdart, which they use to hunt for birds and little monkeys. The end of the blowdart has poison on it that knocks an animal out for 20 minutes. If the hunter is not able to find the animal within the 20 minutes, then the animal wakes up unharmed.

Next Stop: Perhension Islands

After a couple of days of roughing it in the rainforest, we headed to the north-east coast of Malaysia to a beach on the Perhension Islands...

Hong Kong

After our vacation to China, we came back to Korea for a week before heading out for a 2 week vacation to Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore...May seemed to be our travel month! Our trip began with spending a couple of days in Hong Kong. We opted to stay in a hostel considering Hong Kong is so expensive, plus our hostel was located in a building that housed local residents as well. More than 70% of HK residents live in buildings that are half commercial and half residential like the one we stayed in. We found it a lot different than the 1 story huton neighborhoods in mainland China.

USA Hostel:

Our room was so small we could practically touch both walls at the same time!

This is the narrow hallway leading to our room.

Right outside our room was the outdoor walkway which had apartments and small businesses centered around a courtyard on the lower level. Unfortunately, our building was under construction, so the courtyard was blocked with bamboo scaffolding.

This is the outside of our building, called "Mirador Mansion." It was in the perfect location, right on the famous shopping street, Nathan Road!

The bamboo scaffolding really fascinated us. We saw it all over the city, even on skyscrapers.
Star Ferry to Hong Kong Island:

Hong Kong is made up of several small islands, with Kowloon and Hong Kong Islands being the largest. We stayed on Kowloon Island and were only about a 5 minute walk to Victoria Harbor, which separates the two islands.

While we were enjoying the views of Hong Kong island in the distance, we ran into a class that was on a field trip...we were asked to pose for a few of their pics!

The huge clock tower on Kowloon Island.

It's really popular to take the Star Ferry from Kowloon to HK Island. The boat ride only took about 5 minutes, but it was fun. The alternative is to take a subway that runs under the harbor which we took for the way back.
Open-Top Shuttle Bus:

After arriving on HK Island, we rode on an open-top shuttle bus around the city for a while. We could really see a lot of British influence as we looked around, such as advertisements for Afternoon High Tea, trolleys, double-decker buses, cathedrals, etc. (Hong Kong was under British colonial rule for 156 years up until 1997, when it became ruled by China.) It was actually a nice change from the "Asian" scenery we've become so accustomed to.

A couple of the trolleys going through the city.
Victoria Peak

For a good view of the skyline and harbor, we went to Victoria Peak, which is a mountain on HK island. We took a tram up to the peak that has been running since 1888!


This is the view from Victoria Peak, you can see Kowloon Island in the distance.


We found a completely opposite view on the other side of the Peak.

We sat at a coffee shop for a while enjoying the great view.
Serenade Chinese Restaurant:

We read about this great dim sum restaurant before we came to Hong Kong, so we made sure to go there for lunch. It was located right on Victoria Harbor.

We ordered several different kinds of dumplings and some cute rabbit shaped marshmallows.

Shopping:

We spent the rest of the day walking around many of the outdoor markets that were selling fake designer purses, clothes, food, shoes, electronics, etc.

We ended up along a street that had all electronic stores and Frank got the camera he's been wanting for a while now...the Nikon D60. It was around the same price as in the States, but came with a camera bag, 3 batteries, a 4gig disc, and a tripod!

The Symphony of Lights Laser Show:

At 8pm, we went to a 20 minute laser light show on the water overlooking the buildings on HK island. It was set to music and narrated in English. It's actually in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the longest laser show performed nightly. Frank was able to get some great shots with his new camera!

Avenue of the Stars:

Along the Victoria Harbor waterfront is Avenue of the Stars, which is the HK version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. We didn't recognize many of the actors, but we did find Jackie Chan and a statue of Bruce Lee!

Overall, we really enjoyed our visit to Hong Kong! Next stop: Malaysia...