Leeches and Monkeys and Rats Oh My!

Looks like the photo option isn't working right now, sorry...not too computer savvy. I think you can check out some of my photos at flickr.com/photos/bike-nut/ (as the Malaysians say after every sentence, maybeee)
Sitting above the banks of the Temberling river across from Malaysias biggest Natl. Park and also the oldest rain forest jungle in the world. Undisturbed for 130,000,000 years it's home to tigers and elephants and monkeys and a whole bunch of leeches. I'm looking down onto the confluence of two rivers, one a murky latte joining with a dark tannin infused English Breakfast. Floating buildings house restaurants and stores- ramshackle tilting barges that hold corregated shacks along the banks. Metal sheets peeling at the edges all stained black above the window openings from years of smoking roti stoves. Long narrow sampan boats noisily ferrying people back and forth across the coffee and tea. The endless drone of outboard motors is somehow pleasing...reminiscent of the sea and the places I love. Sitting at the tables here I'm feeling more content than I have this entire trip. No agenda, no plans and nowhere to be. I am usually thinking about where I'm going to stop for the day and where I'll be sleeping and how to deal with all the stupid details of travelling. The ones that never get written about and that make travel a chore and not "super fun" or even interesting. Like where am I going to poop if I need to, and how am I going to get to this hostel listed in my book, and "how do I pronounce cold drink again"?
Not today however. Today is all chill out and be a tourist. I'm hoping to meet up later with my German friend that I met on the trail yesterday as we had a great conversation that lasted all day and well into the night. That was an amazing treat as for the previous 5 days I hadn't seen another tourist or for that matter anyone that could speak english (aside from the ubiquitous "where are you from, where are you going and where have you been in Malaysia?"). We met on a trail heading to a roped canopy that is suspended 150 feet above the jungle floor. She also has been travelling alone and after swapping stories it seems that my experience of loneliness and uncomfort and burn out is not very unique. I thought I was so special and different and confused...turns out a woman, from a country far from mine and of a different generation is having the same trip as I am. Maybe everyone's everyone having the same journey, travelling or not, looking for something nebulous and deeper and that will help them sort out what all this insanity is about. Hmm, maybe not. Anyway the tour we were on contained a group of young malaysian guys that gabbed the whole way effectively scared off any wildlife we might have come across, including any birds. And while in the thick of it, descending a steep trail, one of the guys' cell phones started ringing! Where has the sense of adventure gone?! So except for the wriggling leeches poking up out of the yellow slippery clay floor, the trip was pretty uneventful. The suspended bridge was spectacular however. Being up at tree level was exciting and beautiful and kind of spooky in a swaying, non-maintained rickety sort of way. Once safely back down, we did come across some puma tracks but they were the shoe variety not the cat kind. Todays entry should be called Puma's and Teva's and Nike's oh my!
After introductions and the almost painful "where are you from and where are you going" necessities we chatted non stop until the walk was over. Hours later she left to go on another tour she had signed up for. That trip was a visit to the local tribe of jungle people called orang Asli (original people). The photos at the floating ticket office/restaurant, of tribal people squatting down in the mud (ostensibly doing whatever tribal people do) while a group of white tourists in tennis shoes and tube socks encircled them pointing cameras was enough to keep me back in town. Juliane was also concerned but curious.
"Human zoo" was how she succinctly described it upon her return. And it really bothered her and me to; the crass desperation of modern man gawking at/searching for an authentic human experience. One stripped of comfort, of convenience, and of the inexorable push toward homogeneity. My dismay didn't last however as she continued her story. Apparently this small group..."who's children warmly greet visitors with smiles and curiosity and from whose adults one can learn the traditional ways of starting a fire or hunting with a blow gun"...are hired to camp out a few Km from town during the peak tourist season. For the rest of the year they live in Jeruntut, a bustling, delightful town downstream where my bike is currently being stored. One would assume that as part of their contract with the Park Service they have to silence their cell phones and hide their cigarette lighters during the contact-with-the-outside-world hour.Orang Asli have become Orang Disney. Even in the jungles of central penninsular Malaysia the only authentic experiences are the ones you don't want to have: leeches sucking on your ankles and sitting in a hide at a salt lick waiting for wild animals to appear...and they do; rats, pigs and other tourists.