Morning Chase: Pahang National Park

It’s TAMAN NEGARA !!!! National Park !!! This is awesome! It was actually an expedition programmed by the Ministry of National Resources and Environment to bring media into the national park and expose the nature of job of the PERHILITAN staff. The expedition scheduled from 28th November 2012 until 4th December 2012. On the first and seventh night, we accommodate the Rainforest Resort which located across the river of “I don’t remember”. Haha!

Anyway, we start our journey on the second day with long-boats. It took 3-4 hours to reach our first base-camp which located at the Lata Said of Keniam River. According to the rangers, the Lata Said is the last place they would bring tourist in. Beyond this point is not open for public (but we will go beyond this point. Yeah!). Lata Said is also known for those who love fishing. It is famous for “kelah”, “patin” and whatever-else. They also told us that public is not allowed to camp here. But since we are authorized by the ministry, then we are lucky! :) However, because we arrived here at noon, the rangers discouraged us to hike because we won’t have enough time. Furthermore, we need to set up our tents and hammocks. Oh! This is my first time sleeping in a hammock. It was very exciting and awesome!

On the third day, we started hiking towards our second campsite at Lubuk Terembong of Petir River. It was a very challenging experience as we need cross a very fast flowing river at the depth of the chest. It was amazing. As soon as we get there, the first thing that we need to do is to set-up our tents and hammocks. Right after fresh fishes of lunch, we went to “I don’t know where” to evaluate the camera traps that has been installed by the rangers months ago. From these cameras, we get to see wildlife that wanders around the area. As the matter of fact, along the way to Lubuk Terembong, we’ve found many elephant dungs which show that there are elephant activities in this area.

On the fourth day, we went to search for animal footprints. We did found traces of tapir along the riverine and also its footprints. We plaster-casted the footprints for souvenirs :).

On our way back to Lata Said (which is on the fifth day), we found more footprints of wildlife such as wolves, “Sambar” deer, birds, jungle cats (except tigers) and mousedeer. We also took samples of bloodsucking leeches. Beware of them! They are all over the places.