Travelling to Kuala Tahan national park

It was 12th April 2012, we started off our journey by car at 11pm. I spent some time after work to pack up every thing into my car; lucky that it is a MPV-type vehicle, so i don't have trouble too just sumbat everything inside including few boxes of stuffs that i never look into them properly. Well, as long as everything i need is inside like medicines, outdoor gears and camping-related items, a simple of campak and sumbat inside the car will do the job. We intend to go off as early as possible so that we can reach Kuala Tahan town while local folks are still awake. However, since we took time to stop by at giant to shop last minute and have our dinner; worried that there won't be anything to eat once we arrive at Kuala Tahan, at last we were official on the move at 11pm.

Journey by car from KL to Taman Negara Kuala Tahan took roughly 4 hours; starting from 11pm and arrived at 3am. The route from Jerantut to Kuala Tahan town is bengkang bengkok and hilly. not to mention here that right after we passed Jerantut & heading towards Kuala Tahan, the only single route accessing the place was filled up with thick morning mist, thus worsened our visibility to less than 10 metres. because of this trouble & apart of struggling like crazy to wake up and being driving alert, there were so many cows preventing us from driving fast. those animals were like welcoming us along the road, and few considered idiots still cat-walked crossing the road while we were flashing high beam towards them. memang nak kena langgar betol la korang niii.

We passed by an area called Gajah Mati; there were some rumours saying that some night drivers encountered elephant crossing the roads ahead of them and some saw elephants in a group. they claimed those were not actually living elephants but ghost instead. Anyway our journey passing the road was good. Nothing happened & we never saw anything strange.

When we arrived at Kuala Tahan town, it was obvious that it was already a dead town; everybody was in deep sleep. Looks like we have to find this chalet that my girlfren have made arrangement earlier over the phone by ourselves. The chalet manager has obviously turned off his phone but anyway have left a message that he purposedly unlock one chalet in particular reserved for us with keys inside. Well, i can only say 'memang mangkuk la engko Azli! kata 24jam orang hidup kat bandar. Haram satu ekor pon takde, semur dah tidoo'. Anyway, after 1 hour crusing around every corner of the town, we finally found this Aki chalet. But before go on further, let me give you a good advice on Aki chalet. Never ever ever ever take this shit chalet. It was full of bug, kutu and pijat katil. menggaruk2 satu malam aku tido kat tempat barua nih! Dah la mahal!



As the room chalet is equipped with all basic facilities plus an old aircond but still works, we didn't stay awake long enough. You know what happened next, we doze off in no time. zzzzzzzzzzz
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Taman Negara Kuala Tahan 3days 3nights

this weekend was quite tight. My girlfren and i had a good time going outing to Kuala Tahan National Park. Personally, this place is like a ghostly inviting place to me; i had couple of unforgettable memories in relation to this place since i was teenager and the last one was last year where i've joined in the Tahan mountain expedition. So by re-visiting this place, there were times when some past mental images flash into my mind momentarily. Well, in this posting i won't bring up any past stories, in fact what i'll do for the next coming postings would be about sharing my experience staying 3days 3 nights at Taman Negara Kuala Tahan.

Thank you to my girlfren for her effort to do some research for the last few weeks before we went off to Kuala Tahan. Her effort paid off, as without her findings through internet and feedbacks from our outdoor guru Azli who had experience already staying there, we'd be spending generous yet unnecessary amount of money on our stay over there. At first just like other people who are first timers backpacking to Taman Negara, we'd just resort to taking package tour from local travel agent, where all things will be taken care off by them, from choosing appropriate chalet, travelling from KL to Kuala Tahan, our meals and activities at Kuala Tahan for a span time of 3days 2 nights. However, in the last minute, Azli reassured us that by backpacking on our own without engaging with any travel agent, the cost would differ astoundingly; so we followed his advice. Most travel agents charge in the range of RM300 to RM500 for a simple package 3d2n. We got this quotation from one travel agent, i think NSK something, they are charging RM450 per head, so in total for 2 people, the cost would easily reach close to RM1000. Well, since our weekend vacation is a low budget, we resort to do it on our own.

You know how much we have spent at Kuala Tahan for 3days and 3 nights (take note yeah, it was 3 nites not 2 nites)? Less than freaking RM300 per head! Yesss.. it's worth it.

The distance from Kuala Lumpur to Kuala Tahan town is 270km and it took 2 and half hours journey using pantai timur Highway. You'll pass through jerantut town, where this is the last big town after which you'll only see jungle edge, palm estates and small vilages along the road heading to Kuala Tahan. Don't forget to fill up your vehicle gas to the fullest at Jerantut before your proceed to Kuala Tahan, just in case for precaution because after this onwards there won't be any oil station along the way.

Above is a view of Jeti Kuala Tahan; i know my hand drawing is kinda of rough but it basically shows the day-to-day view at Jeti. The building stuctures on a light brown background are the floating restaurants and the light brown color is the Tembeling River, pls do not mistake it as the usual ground soil. The color of the Tembeling river water is truly thick brown yellowish just like teh tarik. On the other side of the river bank is the other jeti that allows you to go to Taman Negara area. Those are the area where you can easily stumble upon wild animals.

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Outdoor gears

Bought a Petzl headlamp that i've been wishing for endless of time; Petzl Tikka Plus with 50 lumens light intensity, 140 hrs if non-stop usage, 85gram reasonably lightweight and of course at a highly price of RM212 and after membership discount, the final price of RM180.

Then i also bought a small 35liter racksack brand Karrimor at the price of RM167; the original price is RM280+. Wanna use it for a day jungle tracking. What i have in mind at present is to use it for my next expedition of nite tracking at Taman Negara this coming weekend. Both of the items, good quality headlamp & a small capacity rucksack are vital in this nite jungle tracking. I suspect it would be at least 3 hours of walking using not-so-nice trail in Taman Negara.
This is my sketch of Karrimor Elite Rucksack 30L, where i bought it for the use of 1 day outdoor trip; plan to use it at my coming Taman Negara trip.

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Breakfast with sardine pack

last week, i bought one pack of sardine with the intention of wanting to taste and knowing how much weight would it give if in case, i want to bring it along during my camping or jungle tracking. So today, early in the morning i just remembered about this sardine and after taking it out from the fridge, i heat it and eat with the leftovers of gardenia bread slice. hmmm... so far it tastes acceptably okay and the weight of a pack also quite light. There are 3 chucks of sardine inside the pact. So, for a camping that requires 3 to 4 days, 3 pacts sardine would be enough for 2 people.



With a net weight per pact of 120gram as oppose to other sardine pact of 155gram, i think this can be part of my weight inside my racksack and simple menu while waiting for the real dish to finish cooking.
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my motorbike sketch

i memorised the looks of my front view of my bike during my riding it and sketched it. Wonder whether it is the same as the actual one.