#rainforestOlderThanDeities?

[seasiawanderer]

Taman Negara: 130 Million Year Old Rainforest

Our journey into the rainforest started with driving to this river and speeding via boat. 

The water looked really murky, but was actually pretty clean! (Someone told us they showered in it?!)

The trees in Taman Negara apparently don’t have any rings, so I do wonder how they decided that the rainforest was the oldest in the world. There aren’t any seasons, and so (we were told) this is why the trees don’t have rings. 

Also we got transported via the fastest railed pick up truck yet:

We took a jungle night walk through the jungle with a guide, and it’s a good thing we did because the spiders there were the size of dinner plates :O

The only good night picture we got was of a scorpion because they GLOW IN THE DARK WHEN THERES A BLACKLIGHT?! There were snakes, spiders, leeches and lots of different varying-size bugs. 

 The next morning we went on a hike on the other side of the river.

There were lots of rickety canopies high up in the trees! (They didn’t let you take pictures while you were crossing them, sadly.)

To be honest, if I were to engineer a bridge I would also use a ladder as stairs down. It’s like the duct tape of bridges.

It was kind of foggy up there, and there were butterflies everywhere so the adventure felt Real.

I think Louie’s actually smiling here?? :O

Remember I mentioned leeches in the rainforest? Well during our hike, I noticed Louie kept fumbling with his shoes. The whole morning. Well it turned out to be a leech that was sucking all of his blood out.

The little devil had the tenacity to drink up until it was like 5x it’s thickness and then throw the blood back up. And then (not pictured) proceeded to SWIM IN A POOL of thrown up blood. I guess I would do the same if I ate multiple times my body weight in food. But still. Animals. 

Later that day, we visited a aboriginal tribe in the area, where they showed us how to make fire and darts to kill monkeys (I mean food) using local plants. That bulgy part at the end is the mouth piece. 

Here is Louie, Malaysian hunter version (LMAO):

Here I am shooting a monkey. Normally, only the men go hunting for food, but (not to brag or anything *cough*) after I had my shot they said maybe they should start letting women go. 

To be fair, though, it was only a stuffed monkey:

I’m not sure if the people there were pissed off that we were there, but apparently they don’t mind people visiting as long as they get paid, so I guess it’s good for them. Not many of them speak even Malay. 

 I tried to wave to the kids, but they didn’t even wave back: 

However, Louie found wifi right where their houses were, so maybe they’re actually fluent English speakers who just want to put on a show? We will never know.