Rattyshack
We headed 45 minutes upriver in a motor-powered longboat from the base camp of Taman Negara, which literally translates to National Park in Malay. Over the next 2 days and nights, we planned to stake out wild animals at a salt lick in the jungle, and we’d already seen monkeys and plenty of birds from the vantage pount of our boat, a promising start.
We landed at planks of wood disguised as a jetty. As our boat sped away, we climbed a rickety ladder to the peaceful and remote Trenggan Lodge. Unfortunately, thi lodge was destroyed by a rampaging elephant a few years ago, and the remaining bungalows had already been mostly reclaimed by the jungle we headed into. We hoped our hut was in better shape, as it was afternoon and too late to start the six-hour hike back to civilization.
After walking for an hour on a trail that was comprised of mud, fallen trees, and leeches, we reached our stilted 12 wooden bunk hide, so-called because it’s built open-air so the inhabitants can look out but animals can’t see inside. There were already 4 people in the one-room shelter when we arrived, but they quickly left and after peeling off leeches we were undisturbed in the incredibly noisy jungle until 2 AM when we awoke to the closer sounds of chewing and scratching. We had forgotten to add our small pile of opened food to our bag hanging from the rafters. After much ineffectual yelling and banging and an effective broom, we scared the cat-sized rat, tied up the food, and climbed back into our bunk. Thus began a frantic 3 hour seige by a circus of rats who continually outsmarted Adam’s attempts to rehang the bag while Cara waved around a broom.
For future reference, rats can climb along rafters, big and small. Rats can climb along small water pipes. Rats can climb down nylon rope. Small rats can climb down string and shoelaces. Rats can jump onto bags from above them. Rats do not care if you yell, bang, wave a stick, or insult them. Rats will run parallel to your sleeping bag in the attempt to search for food while you shine your flashlight and screech. As far as we know, rats cannot climb upside down. At 5 AM, we finally tied the bag to the middle slats on the underside of an empty bunk, and the rats went to sleep.
We spent the next day fruitlessly looking out of the hide for animals and exploring the jungle further on a short leech-filled walk.
At 2 AM, the rats returned. They were unsuccessful in getting into our food bag, but they were successful at keeping us awake for the next 3 hours with their scratching and running around.
2 hours later, we woke at dawn to get a last glimpse for wildlife and get an early start on the hike we’d been dreading for the past 2 days. The trail was as bad as we feared with countless fallen trees to crawl over, under, and between, stifling 99% humidity, steep ravines that we could only get into and out of by relying on ropes tied to trees which also served as trail markers, and leech checks to peel off the blood sucking zombies every 2 minutes.
We wish we could say it was worth it to spend 2 nights eating dry ramen for dinner in the jungle because we saw wild elephants or tigers or even deer, but we only saw birds, butterflies, bugs, and rats. However, we can say it was worth it to be enveloped alone in the spectacular and relentless landscape. We won’t pretend it wouldn’t have been better if we’d seen beasties though.
Tags: Malaysia
Adam
Ugh! So sorry to hear you had to endure all that and still not see what you were hoping to. But I have to admit I’m still jealous, rats, leeches and all!
Thanks for the fabulous blog entries thus far. What a wild trip!
– Nancy
I agree, that sounds awful! But hey, look at it this way, the amount of time you stayed up fending off rats is good preparation for having a kid. (Obviously not the same thing, but the early morning wakeups, lengthy episodes, and constant yelling reminded me of it.)
Anyway, hopefully this was the worst part of your trip. Look forward to better days to come!
– Alistair
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