Leeches, and leeches and leeches, oh my!

Well, they do say that in nature its 'survival of the fitest', and now Carla and I know that that's the truth first hand:

After a lovely few days spent in the paradise that is Palau Keci in the Perentian Islands off the east coast of Malaysia, Carla and I got a bit off track of our nice relaxing travel/holiday. In the Perentians, we lounged on the perfect beach, with perfect white sand, and perfect clear tuquiose water which was just the right depth, and Carla got another perfect sunburn. We also took a day snorkelling tour of the islands. Amazing! We swam with giant sea turtles, one of which had a baby shark under its belly. I was about a foot away swimming under water with one. We saw gorgeous coral and technicolour fish. I learnt to dive down to take pictures and touched the sticky coral trying to catch the clown fish that live in it. The highlight though by far was Shark Bay.

I, as most of you by now know am not so hot on fish, and sharks, well that's a whole other nightmare for me. Well, at the sound of Shark Bay, I was like "I'll just stay in the boat", but then realising everyone, including the guide was jumping in the water and if Jaws came along and bit that boat in half I'd be alone, well, I pulled on my flippers and jumped in. I swam right beside our guide, never leaving his side, and when we saw a black-tipped reef shark, the size of me (gulp) and his slightly smaller friend, I found myself swimming fast towards them camera in hand.

As soon as I realised that these sharks were swimming away from us, and not circling around (I spent a lot of time looking over my shoulder) loking for an easy meal, I became so comfortable. We saw about five sharks in the bay. It was very cool. We saw another in the coral gardens, and I'm now ready to buy my own fins and take up snorkeling as a competitive sport!

So after our time on Keci, we took two days trying to negotiate the public transport system to get us into Taman Negara. It is a national Park and Rainforest. 130 million years old. It was gorgeous. We took a three hour boat ride in and then found our overpriced dorm room in the local village.

Being the adventurous types that we are (ha!), Carla and I decided it was time to get athletic and do a trek. We also found that if we did it ourselves, without a guide, we could spend two days, one night in the jungle and pay an 8th of what the tour companies charged. So as we were stalking up on suplies, and a bit nervous to sleep alone in the jungle hide, a building with 12 wooden bunks 3 storeys up and 11kms into the jungle which overlooks a natural salt lick. ie good animal spotting, we met a Spaniard looking for some travel advice. We were hoping to find a boy to come along and kill the spiders, and well, David became that boy. Although it did turn out that he was more afraid of the spiders than we were, he was still great to have along.

The trek was suposed to take us 5 to 6 hours, we took "the easy way" and left plenty of sunlight at the end of the day to get settled. They had also told us that there were some leeches on the ground (no big deal), so we bought some "leech spary" and off we went.

The day turned into a horror movie. It felt like we were being stalked on an endless chain of muddy paths by super-human leeches. They can apparently feel the vibrations in the ground of you coming 2kms away! So they prepare themselves, climbing shrubs and hiding beneath leaves on the path to stand on their hind legs and jump onto your feet as you pass. hey can crawl right through your socks, and the shoelace holes in your runners. It was insane! I saw them leap for Carla and she faught her way thru the endless spider webs that covered the paths. There were fallen trees and giant milipedes, and razor sharp vines and palm trees covered in spikes. We couldn't even stop for lunch, because as soon as you stop you are covered in leeches. We ate a box of cookies as we walked as fast as we could for 5 hours. When we finally met a couple coming from the same hide who said they had been walking for 3 hours!! We thought we were so close. It gutted us...no more optimism at this point, we were exhausted.

But we trecked on, only thinking we were lost only once and without a compass, or cell phone, or emergency anti leech blanket (i wish)! We finally got to the hide before dark, 8 hours after we left and joined another couple for some wildlife observation. And I never realised it was possible for girls to smell so bad! It was like hockey season and we were wearing our warm up gear for the eith practice in a row kinda smell....horrible. The air was so humid and damp...yuck! We sat for hours the 5 of us in front of a tiny window, and it felt like we were watching a really boring movie. We did see a Tapir though: a rhinocerous looking animal, half black, half white, with soft fur and an anteater nose...really strange. And as the sun went down the forest animals came out in an amazing chorus.

They had informed us to keep our food tied to the ceiling to avoid the rats. Well when I found a tiny feild mouse munching on our biscuts I didn't mid, he was cute...that was until he told his giant rat friends! We had atleast three domestic cat sized rats in the hut. It was bad enough when they were eating all our breakfast on the ceiling beams, so very loudly. It was another when they started running across the floor, and my bed!!! in the middle of the night looking for more food...greedy bastards! I ''slept" with a blanket over my head, zipped into my sleeping bag, sweating my ass off, flashlight in hand all night. They stole and candle and played the drums on out tin roof all night! that is until the rains came. Then there were bats flying above my head....great.

We headed out in the morning for our treck back to the boat that was to pick us up 45 mins out through the muddy hills and leech infested forest once again, with nothing but a chocolate bar to share for breakfast.

Things did get better as we burned the final leeches off our skin and cleaned out our shoes to do a 500 meter canopy walk 40 meters above ground. So scary! And so cool!

We made it back to the park on our wooden longboat through the river rapids with just enough time to eat and have the best cold shower of my life at the campsite before catching the boat out of the park and back into civilization again. So here we are, slightly wounded, and slightly traumatized, but proud of ourselves, and left with a great story in the end.

We leave on the midnight train to Kuala Lumpur to start another adventure tomorrow. Wish us luck...

R