If you are living with the daily hassle of a big city, always in the continuous fight for time and speed, you may like to give it a break. Unwind yourself, and revert to the natural living. Go over to the jungle in Malaysia to taste the nature. How would you like to live for a few days without television and newspapers or your portable phone?.
When I told my children that my parents did not have the TV and newspaper or electricity in Kuala Lipis, Malaysia in 1960s, they were amazed. How could people survive without tv and computers?. Then I told them, tv is a recent toys, only in 1970s we had that and computers only in 1980s. For thousands of years civilizations rise and fall without them.
If you like to try the activities close to nature, then you can try the national park. A night or two, will expose you to how the natives live. Some people will say, how could you live with all the insets and leeches. People will be surprise, the primary and thick tropical jungle do not have too much of those menace. Only the secondary jungle will have a lot of the insets and leeches.
If you walk through a deep jungle, the ground actually is clear of thick woods and trees. The big trees have formed a huge umbrella, a high canopy that shield the sunlight. So,it is rather difficult for seedlings to grow.
You can feel the cool temperature especially at night. Of course it is humid and it get dark very fast. Walking through it a life experience, it will simulate your senses, your hearing will be free from the decibels of the cars and buses. The calls of the birds and monkeys will be the alarm clock to wake you in the morning.
If you like, you can try to camp in the jungle, a real camping without the allotted camp site. It can only be done with the experienced guide. Selecting the site is a task in itself. You got to think of the wild animals, some of them are dangerous. What if it rains or strong wind in middle of the night. Normally we would have the fire burning through out the night. The animals are scared of fire, it keep us warm and keep the insets away. Of course the smoke will make you cloth smell, but after some hours, everybody will be sweating and smell the same. So no body complaint about body odor, as our nasal automatically readjust itself.
One of the thing to take care, please do not lost your way in the jungle. You will be surprise, that the track will look about the same. The trees will appear similar. Take care to provide tracking signs. A bright color string tied to a branch will be good. Leaving a mark on the trees will help. If you get lost, prepare for the camping before it gets too dark. If you do not have any tent, then leaves waving will save you from the heavy thunder.But you have to know what type of leave to gather and how to make it to withstand the heavy rain.
Frankly I miss the jungle walk and the jungle trekking, especially the night hunting. I hope I can still remember the do's and don't of night trekking in the thick jungle.
Kuala Lipis, in Malaysia, is lucky as it still have those jungle, although I don't think it will remain there for long. The big commercial companies as trying to establish their present.
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