Taman Negara

Imagine being 130 million years old, how cool would that be? The life spans of everything else on the planet would feel so incredibly short. That said, apart from the mycelial network, the rest of the national rainforest known locally as Tama Negara is possibly a bit like Trigger’s broom, everything above the ground has been replaced numerous times in the last 130 million years but it’s essentially still the same rainforest.

Some trees live as long as 800 years under the protection of this beautiful forest, they rise out of the earth as though bearing witness to the wisdom of the ancient mycelial network beneath the forest floor.

The noise of safari boats and other tourists disappears as we step off the rickety boardwalks and onto the more challenging soft earth trails. We pass through a brief wall of quiet, as though the rainforest is holding its breath, then the almost deafening sound of an ecosystem bursting with life returns.

Being hissed at by something in the undergrowth, picking our way through fresh elephant dung, trying to avoid stepping in what we think was the poop of a poorly Asian palm civet, finding a sun bear’s favourite claw-sharpening tree and surprising a porcupine disguised as a bush is as close as we are aware we come to anything dangerous …well, apart from the black mangrove snake that fell out of its tree.

In a forest of this size where the animals that live in it are genuinely wild we take the abundance of signs and lack of sightings as a good thing.

We spent many hours in a hide each sunrise and sunset for several days, only to spot some muntjac, deer and jungle peacocks. Our guided night safari has us loris spotting from a long tail boat, and while we can see eyes staring back at us from the riverbank it’s challenging to know exactly what we’ve spotted. (although judging by the size of one pair of eyes there was at least one loris, as well as a flying squirrel, and a kingfisher having a snooze).