Day 6: Teket, Tioman Island, Malaysia

Hiked 2 hours today through the jungle, and across the island; Juara Beach to Tekek. Feel pretty pukey, combination of multiple factors: 2 hour hike in 100+ temps with a soggy deep fried grease omelet in the gullet, smoking cigarettes until my larynx feels like a muffler, Jack and Cokes for dinner...hmm, probably just a bug of some kind... been pretty lucky anyhow.

Day 6, and feeling a new lease being presented. Adam will fly back to Hong Kong in just under a week and I've resolved myself to head by land north. Haven't decided on the East or West coast of Malaysia yet, but then on up into Bangkok possibly. Maybe a flight out of Bangkok back to HK, or maybe continue to travel by land and go back up through and hit up the North. Then regroup in Hong Kong for spell.

Met a guy named Dave Taylor when in Hanoi on the Ha Long bay cruise. He hipped me to a possible teaching gig in Thailand (Bangkok?), where if I recall correctly starts in October. If all works through maybe I will be able to visit the school on my way through and get a feel for the atmospheric conditions and operations.

...

On Juara Beach. Excess of 100 degrees and the sweat comes down. Puddles of sweat collecting on my eyebrows until then continually reach their maximum holding capacity and burst salty sunblock into my eyes. Good day for paddle up the river. Two rivers border the beach and quickly lose themselves in jungled rain forests beyond.

Nate grabs three boats from the local pirate john, and armed with a spinner rod, fly rod, squid, some smokes, and some smoke, and we head up stream, the salt already being to stick and dry from the quick brackish swim at the mouth.

The galaxy of twerps, and cackler's, monkeys high in the palms, glimpses slight in the thick groves, and giant palm shaders. Strange mangled vines and low lying tangles filled with fallen trunks, dried leaves and dirt. Arching back to the stern of the kayak, barely clearing a foot diameter tree where the base and top somewhere unseen, extend deep into the thick reaches of the forest on either side. Nate comments that the water seems more murky and dirtier than usual and attributes it to the tide coming in in some certain strange way. I was looking for a swim in some fresh water for change, but the water seems ominous and dense with no telling what... starting to loosen up and realizing what pristine place I've found myself. Better than any jungle rain forest CD you can buy, orchestrated unworldly rhythms reaching across the whole of my surroundings. I could probably paddle the boat with my eyes closed just listening to the forest, the water, the breeze, surrounding everything...

Despite the relatively relaxed state I've found myself, be it assisted, or forced, I can't quite let the comment from Nate about the pythons slip so easily away from me. Apparently, though Nate has never seen one, the Pythons like to come to the river in the hottest part of the day and cool down, and that many people see them. After coming from the Philippines where the world's largest captive python lives, I am fully aware at how gargantuan these creatures can become. I scan the trees a foot above my head to the mangled messes of treeness that surround the most high.

Then, about 10 meters ahead, one o'clock. A head like a size 11 sneaker, and neck extending about a foot and half above the murky water. As quickly as I relay the location the giant serpent returns into the abyss from whence it came, easily 15 foot long and 150 - 200 pounds. We slowly peruse the situation and slow and steady, make a deliberate passing of the last known citing. It's beginning to dawn on me that we are not exactly in the natural habitat of the human. No telling how deep this water is, where the land beneath the thicket tangles and grooves to the side begins. Ah, good healthy fears. Always seem to learn something new about ourselves in times like these.

Another 50 meters or so and the river is too thick to continue, we languor and mill and slowly gather ourselves for the return. A break in the canopy and the sun still descending and dropping its weight amongst us, heavy. Back under the protection of the giant palms and leaves high above, back to the quiet motionless water, and back to the tunnel of our liquid path back. Strange monkey screeching, and high pitch squawks, close by and just up ahead, off the starboard. Some type of encounter just within the side of the river where our eyes cannot penetrate. We slowly coast, eyes peeled and alert. Suddenly, one last squeal and then a giant splashing sound continuing and clumsy. "what the hell was that" I say quickly. Someone replies with maybe a monkey or something, but I'm already not agreeable to this guess work, and I respond that it sounds more like a 300 pound python falling into the water. "There it is!". Up a head 15 meters, 1 0'clock, heading away and about the same size as the one I saw earlier. "where?, where?", I try to convey when all of a sudden right in front of the Nate's boat, 6 ft away, another giant python breaches the surface, extending 1 to 2 feet out of the water and in a hurry, head like an iron dripping blood from it's mouth from a moments earlier kill, and heading straight for Nate...Holy shit, my stomach drops and I hear Nate say eerily calm but with utter urgency to listen - "back paddle"... Naahh I think, sweep stroke and some haul ass front speed for me. Adrenaline pumping, I catch the python out of the corner of my eye as I'm turning, it spies us and descends back into the murkiness. We back ourselves up about 10 meters and check ourselves...

Just another day on Juara Beach. No unlikely statistics did we find ourselves, just three more for pizza and beers at the Bushman.

Apparently, a guy from lonely planet went up the same river a couple weeks ago and say three different types of pythons that he had never seen before.


- In other news. : Lapsap String Band Reunited, and now peering into vast possibilities of
psychedelic trance grass.