Over the long holiday weekend, I went to Royal Belum, a 130 years old tropical rainforest shared by Kelantan, Perak and Pahang. It has a man made lake and you could see elephant and other wildlife tracks.

We visited Sungai Tiang, Sungai Papan, Sungai Ruok and Sungai Koi (pronounce as Koh-oi). We went to visit and donated some rations to the orang asli-Jahai at Sungai Tiang. I was chatting with the children and fiddling with their new pencils. I taught them how to read and write their names with the little time I had. One by one gathered around me and soon, a small crowd circled me.

Next same day, we trekked to visit one of the highest waterfall in Royal Belum at Sungai Koi. It was a short 20 minutes trek. After the waterfall trek, we were supposed to go trek to see Rafflesia but according to the guide, a huge tree fell blocking out trek, hence we could not proceed.

It rained whole afternoon till night dashing out plans for a night walk. We ended up swimming in the lake in the evening, sharing stories and singing. We stayed overnight at the powered diesel boat house.

We trekked to the saltlick at Sungai Papan and heard many sounds of the forest. We saw artificial salt lick prepared by the Wildlife Department. They were equipped with two cameras by the side of the tree, one on each end. We trekked further to another islet at Sungai Ruok. We were all excited as this is where we can swim in the waterfall. The swim was refreshing and I spotted a water terapin. It has 4 striking black dots on its body. The water was cold but a welcome treat.

We left the same day back to Kuala Lumpur and the journey home took 10 hours, with traffic congestion on the highway.