I am on a 3h boat ride to Taman Negara and i get a distinct feeling that i am in LoTR... i'm travelling down the river and sudenly i catch a glimpse of misty mountains through a bend in the river. Man! i can almost hear the theme music playing in my ears! i fear to leave the camera on though, in case the batteries go flat. =S i really should have used better batteries. the batteries for my toothbrush died this morning.
the river is truly beautiful. it is a perfect day for a boat ride. the weather is nice and cool, but not so cold as to be uncomfortable. 35min into the boat rid, my nose is starting to get cold, but its nothing too uncomfortable. it's not going to fall off or anything.
i just saw the misty mountains again, but not from such a beautiful angle this time so i didnt snap a photo. just now's view was awesome, but i was too slow to catch it on film. =S
the sun is comming up now behind the cloud, and if not for the wind, the weather would be uncomfortably humid. the long boat stopped for awhile, just now to talk with the driver of a boat comming in the opposite direction, and while we stopped, man it was humid! the air was still, and the sun was reflecting off the water making it so uncomfortably hot!
a beautiful bird flies overhead. i wish i had a digi so i can carelessly take photos, but my digi is spoilt so i'm using a film camera, and it costs a bomb to develop.
rapids! or rather, the stone type things sticking out of the water. the boatman knows the place well, but still he needs to keep a sharp lookout for the rocks.
i wonder how old this river is. there is so much meandering and sand build-up on the banks. and whole sand islands have formed. not huge or anything, but they're there, and they are pretty impressive anyhow.
the sun has disappeared, and it's lovely once more. one thing odd tho. just now i thought i saw a place from a dream i had a few years ago. its starting to scare me, the sort of deja vu i get from my nightmares. i tend to have normal dreams set in familliar places, and nightmares set in unfamilliar places. and ever so often, i come across the places that i saw in my nightmares a few years later.
the place i saw was a place on the riverbank, sloped down, and there were two tracks down to the water. hailway down there was a tree and the two roads converged at the front of the tree and made it's way down to the river. and i remember it was from my 2nd latest nightmare when i was a kampong girl running away from a man who wanted to kill me. come to think of it, most of my nightmares are about running away from a man trying to kill me, and who has convinced others into wanting me dead too.
the sands that have built up on the riverbanks, and sand dunes look so soft and white and inviting. i wish the boat could stop as far as to wade up and play in the white sand. the sun lights up the green so prettily. i almost feel like i'm in England again, with such lush, GREEN greenery and such a bright yellow sun.
we passed through a shaded patch of river, followed by a patch of lorien-type trees. howsit spelled? mellorn? mellyrn? all i remember is the Ms and Ls and Ns. the yellow sun makes it surreal. i wish i had been quick enough to snap that too, but my brain is too sleepy to work fast. its past noon, and i have been travelling since seven last night. some bridge somewhere collapsed, so we had to have out train ride disrupted and have a bus transfer to the next train station to resume the ride. needless to say, did not get much sleep. =S
Other Taman Negara Photos
the Orang Asli village we visited. you'd be surprised, most of the native aborigines speak malay fluently. this is the group outside the hut meeant for young unmarried men. the young unmarried women sleep together in a seperate hut. apparently, you sleep in a community hut until you are married, and only then do you get a house of your own. (talk about mendirikan rumantangga... hmmm... but malays)
the canopy walk. valar, it was terrifying i cried!
