The word 'taman' means both 'park' and 'garden' in malay and 'negara' means 'nations'-together they translate simply as 'National Park'. Taman Negara is about 130 million years old and is considered to be one of the oldest rainforests in the entire world.
My excitement started building when I reached the Tanjong Pagar Railway station at 3:30 am. It was for the first time, that I was taking a train across 2 countries. I know it is not a big deal, but the only trains I had travelled in were the trains in India. So this was ought to be a different experience. The journey was very beautiful as well. The train ride was through the jungles and witnessing the sunrise during this ride into the forest was beautiful. I was travelling with the Canon EOS 7D with a 50mm/f1.4. The Canon EOS 7D is a very handy item to have with you when you are on vacation. It is a very versatile DSLR and is packed with excellent features that make it a travel camera that is hard to top.
After this, we headed to our guest house to freshen up and wash off all the mud that we had on our clothes. After relaxing for a while we headed to the house boat for a delicious dinner. All of us absolutely relished the local food. We sat there and had a good time until they almost kicked us out.
In the morning, we took the bus back to Jerantut. The bus journey was equally beautiful and much shorter than the boat ride. We reached the station and we had taken it for granted that we would get the train tickets to Singapore. But there were no tickets available. (Of course that had to happen, the trip has to end with an adventure).Taking a bus was not an option. Well, in Malaysia, you can board the train even if there are no seats available but you have to pay extra for that. So instead of 30RM we had to pay 50RM just to get on the train. Luckily at the time of the arrival of the train we got one ticket. So there was at least one seat. But eventually we managed to get seats for ourselves.
Overall, it was a very pleasant, adventurous and a really cheap weekend getaway and a great travel experience.
Getting there: From Singapore: the best way to get there is take the train from KTM (Tanjong Pagar Railway Station) to Jerantut. From Jerantut either take a bus or boat to Kuala Tahan.
Best time to visit: They say that the best time to visit the park is during the dry season from February to September. But I would say, if you are slightly more adventurous and you want to see the actual beauty of Taman Negara, try going in December.
Activities: The activities include jungle trekking (RM35, 9.30am), a night jungle walk (RM30, 8.45pm), cave exploration (RM45, 10am and 3pm), river rafting (RM65, 10am), rapids-shooting on Sungai Tembeling (RM40, 10am), a picnic trip to Lata Berkoh rapids (per boat RM160, 9.30am and 2.30pm) and visits to an Orang Asli settlement (RM50, 5pm). A weekend is definitely not enough for one to cover all of these.
Note: Kuala tahan is a dry area. There is no sale of any kind of alcohol. Only some resorts sold alcohol for an extremely high price. A can of Tiger beer would cost around SGD8. So if you do intend to drink, don’t forget to stock up your alcohol from Jerantut.