Friday, February 20, 2009

does the rainforest have seasons?


The day after our firefly adventure, we left for the rainforest. We also had to join a tour for this one.. more cost efficient and it includes… everything. On the way to the jungle, we stopped at many animal attractions. A deer park, bear feeding, and elephant ride were among the stops, but I do not care to discuss these things. I do not really agree with the practice of housing animals outside of their natural habitat, and am determined to take these things more into consideration the next time I travel.

Anyway, we arrived at Taman Negara and took a boat taxi across the river to our hostel. As we walked past all of the nice bungalows, I thought we might get more than we paid for out of this trip, but I was sadly mistaken. We stayed in an 8-bed room in the hostel part of the hotel with a couple that had followed us from our hostel in KL. Even though our room was…interesting, the rainforest was amazing. We went on a night hike on our first evening, and I must say that we really lucked out with our guide. He was so well informed and made certain that everyone in the group heard/understood/saw whatever he was saying or pointing to. Throughout our time with him he showed us vines that you can drink water from, huge carnivorous flowers, wax that will burn for 3 days, snakes, scorpions, leeches, how to make fire, and the list goes on.


My favorite part of the trip was our canopy walk. They had built this 550m long bridge through the forest canopy.. about 40-50m above the floor. Walking on this 12-inch wide wooden board suspended in the trees was the most incredible experience. I don’t have the greatest balance, so I was stumbling a little – which was both terrifying and thrilling at the same time. It was so gorgeous, being in the trees with the river below. And because we had to be spaced about 10m apart, it was so peaceful..

just you and the forest.






i <3>

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