The dos and don’ts of trekking the Malaysian jungle

As regular readers will know, Matt and I are pretty intrepid/foolhardy, but even we did not brave Taman Negara on our own.

Malaysia’s largest national park is 4,343 sq km and boasts some of the world’s most biodiverse rainforest. It’s home to elephants, sun bears, tapirs, gaurs, hornbills, the elusive Malayan tiger and a lot of blood-sucking leeches.

We signed up for a two-day trek – a 15km hike and a night in a cave. We’d normally walk that distance in an afternoon. With a guide showing us the way, how hard could it be?

Very.

Tree roots ensnared our ankles at every step, thick red mud sucked in our trainers, fallen trunks had to be clambered over or under.

Most knackering of all was the humidity. Under the canopy the air was soupy and suffocating.

Maybe we should have been a teeny bit better prepared. Here are a few things Matt and I learned as we tripped and slipped along…

• Don’t take a backpack with a broken zip* that’s held together with safety pins (me). Or a backpack so small you can’t fit anything in it (Matt).

• Do pack mosquito repellent with at least 50% DEET. Don’t spray it liberally while other people are eating (Matt).
• Don’t wear shorts. Wear trousers tucked into long socks to stop leeches breakfasting on your legs. Fun fact: leeches only need to eat one meal a year.
• But do pack shorts. After half an hour, you may decide you’d rather risk leeches than your head exploding from the effort of wading through 99% humidity (me – I had to borrow Matt’s shorts.)
• Don’t bother packing suncream. It’ll melt off in seconds, and your dripping brow won’t stay dry long enough to reapply. Fortunately for pale-skinned beasts, very little direct sunlight worms its way through the canopy.
• Do take a headband, so you don’t have to wear a backwards baseball cap and look like an extremely sweaty 9-year-old.

• Do remember to stop and look up – at the thousand shades of green, the technicolor flowers, the dainty funghi.

• Do take lots of water. We guzzled four and a half litres each in two days.
• Don’t wear worn-out running trainers with no grip (me) or trainers with holes (Matt). Do pack socks. No matter how fancy your walking shoes, the cloying mud will conquer them.

• Don’t stuff your water bottle into your t-shirt while swinging across a river doing your best Tarzan impression. It will fall in and you’ll have to swim after it (Matt).
• Don’t jump in the river fully clothed; nothing will dry overnight as it’s too humid (me).

• Do shut up and listen – to the babble of the birds, the bleating insects, the whispers of a million gargantuan trees.
• Do remember to check your arms for feasting leeches (me – Matt noticed the telltale red stain).
• Don’t pretend you’re vegetarian because you don’t want to carry a tin of chicken curry. (The guide made us carry the tins anyway. We had to watch the rest of the group enjoying extra curry while we ate plain rice and our stomachs growled.)
• Do pack playing cards – the jungle is short on nightlife.
• Do pack earplugs to block out your bedfellows – squeaking bats and snoring Germans.
• Do creep out of the cave when only you and the bats are still awake, and listen again – that ancient babble will seem louder, that rustling could be a tiger. You’ll realise the jungle isn’t short on nightlife after all, then scurry back inside.
• Don’t accidentally throw your passport and $216 away when chucking away your* backpack at the end of the trek (me… I had to fish it out of the bin).

*Ok, so technically it wasn’t my backpack. I found it in our spare room on that last frantic day of packing. I think it belonged to Matt’s sister – sorry Catherine! I’d offer to replace but it was a rubbish bag. Was it a knock-off?