There is, apparently, in Malaysia the world's oldest stand of tropical rainforest. I'm not sure how they determine these sorts of things, but I'll take their word for it. The rainforest is called Taman Negara and it is protected in a national park. It's significant because, in a world that is routinely laying waste to rainforest all over the world, for timber, to clear land for agriculture, and whatnot, Malaysia has decided to protect one such patch of rainforest. Completely. So I thought I might go and have a look. And I thought it would just be really cool to go wander around in the world's oldest patch of rainforest. So I arranged for transport from the Cameron Highlands to Taman Negara National Park. It was pretty easy. The van came and picked me up in the morning, along with eight others, and off we went. But not before I made note of a sign that I suspect would only be in establishments in the tropics. I don't think any sign like this would be found in Canada.
There were two kinds of transport to Taman Negara. The first, and the earlier option was to take the van transport to about the three quarter point and then transfer to a boat for a three hour journey up a river to the national park. The second option was to leave a bit later, arrive a bit later, and go all the way in a bus. I never really considered the second option, but I did ask what the difference was and was told that I shouldn't go all the way by bus because it was high season and it would be busy, so I should get there as early as possible and be able to get a room. Uh oh. That made me just a bit uneasy. When you ask about the difference between two types of transport and get told that the difference is basically being able to find a room or not, it sets the nerves a bit on edge.
Even if that hadn't been a prime motivation, the idea of travelling up a river just sounded like a more attractive option, so I chose the bus/boat option. When we got to the jetty in Kuala Tembeling, there was a travel services desk provided by the company who had provided the bus service. They had a counter and pretty much everybody from the bus, as well as the two other buses that arrived as well from the Cameron Highlands area, plus the buses from Kuala Lumpur, plus the people arriving from other parts of the country, went to the desk to make arrangements. Uh oh. The pit in my stomach was getting a little queasier. Should I have made some phone calls to assure myself of a place to stay? Was I going to have difficulty? The people at the desk were all very busy and one woman started to try to help me. She showed me a list of places to stay in the tiny town of Kuala Tahan, just outside the park, and asked me where I thought I might like to stay. I chose one, and she called, but there was no answer. So I chose another and she called, but they were fully booked up. She suggested another one, and called, but they didn't have running water. Then she was called away helping someone and I felt like I was getting lost in the shuffle. In the end I lost my temper a little bit. She came back and apologized and suggested that I go and buy my park pass, and she would try to help me some more. I told her that maybe I wasn't going to go, if I couldn't be assured of a place to stay. Then she got a bit upset and ran away. The others there told me that she was still new on the job and I had scared her a little bit. And that's when I realized what I was doing. I felt quite badly and I apologized to her, when I coaxed her to come back. In my years in the casino industry, I always wanted people to realize that I was only doing my job and not take their frustrations out on me, particularly when they had gotten themselves into their own pickle. As had I here. I could have made some arrangements before I started out to the park. And none of my current situation was her fault. She felt much better after that, as did I. Especially when I remembered that this was a tourist area, and I have yet to go to any area with a lot of tourism that hasn't had ample places to stay, in all budgets. This was confirmed by one of the others on the desk, when he told me that most of the accommodation in Kuala Tahan wouldn't take reservations in the high season because they wouldn't get their money until later. They wanted the people coming into town to pay the cash up front. So they wouldn't answer phones and wouldn't take reservations, knowing that lots of people were coming in by boat and bus every single day. I decided I wasn't going to have a problem.
Next it was into the boat for the two and a half hour ride up the river to the park. In photos, it all looks the same, but it was an interesting ride up that river. And it culminated in the first look at the oldest jungle in the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment