I really should have thought this one through a little more. I might have realized how it would go. The chance to see spiders and other creepy things in the nighttime rainforest would be too much for most people to resist. And so they wouldn't. And they didn't. I figure there were at least 8 groups of 15 to 20 people tromping through the jungle just opposite the town. There is a posh resort, the Mutiara Taman Negara, on the national park side of the river and we were stomping through the jungle just behind the resort.
We did get to see a number of bugs and such. There was a stick insect. You can see it in the center of the photo towards the bottom.
There was a termite mound on this tree. (It's towards the top of the photo.)
And there was a pretty big looking black widow spider as well. I haven't ever seen one that looks like that. Maybe they have a different one here in Malaysia. There is also an animal blind in the area. Our guides took us to the blind and shone their big-ass flashlights into the distance and the light was reflected back from the eyes of some deer out in the forest foraging. We were lucky. Not as lucky as the guide of my group though. He had previously seen some elephants out there. And one time he even saw one of the park's rare tigers.
Unfortunately, our guide explained that it wasn't a very good night for seeing bugs. There seemed to be a storm coming. Before a storm, bugs and such are scarce and are difficult to find. It's after a storm that there is lots to be seen in the area. We still saw a bunch of interesting things. And I enjoyed the sounds of the night in the rainforest, with the comfort of having a guide to make sure I didn't end up meeting some ugly end in the night. But with all the other people stomping around in the dark, it did sort of feel very staged and as though we were farm animals being led around through the night. At least we weren't being led to slaughter.
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