Half past eleven, we were on our move on the other side of the river bank. The fee to cross Tembeling river by using the only available public transportation river-crossing boat is RM1 for a one-way direction. Those boats are long and narrow where they can only fit 2 people per row. They operated since early in the morning up to 11pm everyday. You'll pass through an expensive yet very comfortable resort called Mutiara Resort on the other side of the river bank; those who have fat pockets can try staying here. There was a canopy walk bridge outside the resort at the rainforest edge where you need to track deeper into the jungle for 45minutes. The track leading to the canopy walk site is easy despite its location is inside the jungle; this is because the local authority has laid down long convenient walk-pathway structure interconnecting to various jungle trails for the convenience of the tourists. We moved on into the deep along the nice trail, however at 10min past one, we return because it was already late for my Friday prayer. We rushed off back and luckily i arrived just in time at a nearby mosque for the prayer.
At 2:30pm, we had a boat activity called rapid shooting; honestly i didn't understand why they called it as shooting in the first place. The first part which is rapid, i can relate because the boat that we use will go against the river rapids but shooting, mmmm... i have no clue at all. That was until i ride the boat i started to figure out why it is named as such. While we were moving fast through rapids especially against the current flow, the splash of the water from underneath will be so great that it will sort off shoot up at us. This was when the fun started, the whole splash of water to you will end up you getting wet the whole body. But i personally think that the splash purposely made by the guide sitting in front of the boat caused more splash that the natural one underneath the boat bottom. He started splashing waters to our face by putting down his hands in the fast moving river water. This was more looked like he is shooting water on us. Anyway it was fun though. i'd never forget this guide whose name is Lizan (012-9596753), he talked english quite fluently but with over-the-edge-european-style which in the end sounded strange. For just a record, his friend named Hafiz (017-9106122) currently working at NKS travel tour that was the same company that organised rapid shooting & visiting orang asli's village for us.
We stopped by at one of orang asli's village at the end of one-way ride. The village belonged to one particular orang asli called Batek tribe. 3 common tribes currently are the jungle inhabitants close to Kuala Tahan national park are Batek, Sekam-furi and Jakun. during the visit, the guide explained some stories about their life and let one orang asli guy did a demonstration of making fire from basic jungle woods and menyumpit. Honestly speaking i was quite impressed on how he did a fire in less than 5 minutes just by rubbing rigorously rattan wire against meranti wood piece. In total the cost of rapid shooting and visiting orang asli village was RM60 (RM45 for the boat and RM15 for the orang asli).
At night, we have another outdoor in-the-jungle activity called night tracking that costs RM35 per head. Participants were advised to bring along torch lights or headlamps. The purpose was to walk at night along the pathway close to Mutiara resort and observe insects and some small wild animals close to our pathway. It was a 200metre distance where at the end, we arrived at a Hide (aka Bumbum), named as Tahan hide where it allows us to see wild animals from far distant view. Anyway, we did see some far distant raindeers in one group grazing grass in a nearby valley. personally, i won't suggest this activity to those who rate themselves as serious adventurer, in fact i would consider it as lame; walking at nite for less than an hour along a nice pathway close to nearby resort just to see wild animals from far away. No challenging what-so-ever. this would definitely my last experience. Our nite tracking guide was a guy named Jaafar (017-9102733) in his mid 40-ties working for Perhilitan department; i guess he was doing some part time job. We sat down at one of floating restaurants having teh tarik after finishing the activity; he shared some stories of how's life at Kuala Tahan national park. In general, most local folks earn their money from jungle-related activities either doing some simple business like menjual, working as guides, operating travel agent business, running chalets or working for perhilitan department or available resorts. In a way, having national park over here have directly improved the socio-economic level of the local folks.
We went back to our chalet after having long chat with Jaafar. It was fortunate, cause few minutes after that, there as a heavy downpour along with thunders and lightning. Imagine, if we still doing our night track in the jungle! Our heighbour mat salleh, i guess few Germany tourists were not that lucky cause they got caught in the rain while doing an activity called safari night - an activity where you sit on an open four-wheel vehicle, going into palm estate searching for wild animals. i wouldn't advice joining in this activity as there were many complaints already claiming that there was no wild animals found during the ride. Well, i guess those mat saleh were having more challenges due to heavy downpour as oppose to the challenge seeing wild animals.
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