Travellingman reisverhalen - - Kuala Tahan
Day 9: Vrijdag 8 april 2016
Kuala Tahan

Around 7.30 AM I was awake. I had breakfast at the hotel, which is buffet style. Around 9.15 AM I went for a walk. I went first to the kanopi what was about a kilometer away. For RM 5 you can walk the various stages between the trees; views are nice and fun to do, but not much exciting to see.

After a moment of relaxing by the river, I walked on. The trail mostly follows the river and birds whistle, but they hardly to be seen. The sound of the many boats operating as taxi is annoying. After a while walking, I came upon a small tent camp, probably the people just lived here along the river. I took a short break before I walked on. The path is not easy to walk, many roots, stumps, hills, valleys and so on. However, a wide variety of plants and trees. They say that this is the oldest rainforest in the world (130 million years old), but whether this also applies to the part where I was going, I doubt it. However, there are giants of trees.

There were three other hikers on the trail and sometimes we walked together, sometimes not. To each his own pace. I took several pictures and enjoyed occasionally the area. After 2 hours walk (a distance of only 4 km) I still had to climb a hill with ropes over tricky obstacles. I could see that my condition was bad. Eventually I came upstairs, where the other three hikers were. The hill is called Bukit Indah and is 300 meters high. Beautiful views on the river and the other side. The others left again, but I enjoyed a bit of the view.

Eventually I left again this 'climax'. The walk down was not easy. Especially since it was getting warmer. After several relaxing moments, where I again discovered how varied the jungle actually is and there is constant leaf fall, I arrived after two hours at the kanopi jetty. I sat here to relax and spoke with a young Dutch guy, who also just arrived.

After that, I walked back to my chalet. The trail is designed as a scaffold and thus walks a lot easier than the path with all roots, yet it was still 1.5 kilometers. Eventually I got back around 2 PM.

It was now quite warm and I decided not to do much more for the rest of the afternoon. After a sort of siesta, I went to the restaurant (the only place with wifi) and planned the rest of my trip while enjoying a beer. The internet was slow, but eventually I managed to also find a hotel for tomorrow. I did some other administrative work and went around 5.30 PM back to my chalet.



A group of monkeys was sitting in the grass and seemed not at all impressed by the people who walked by. After watching TV I went for dinner in the restaurant around 8 PM and tried to surf the internet, what did not work anymore. there too many people using the wifi. Around 10 PM back to my chalet, watching a movie and then sleeping.

Initial publication: 15 april 2016
Last update: 07 mei 2016
© A. Heeroma









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