Selamat Hari Merdeka and happy long weekend to all Malaysians! We decided to revisit the beautiful Taman Negara this weekend. We stayed at Tekoma Lodge, conveniently a 5min walk to the park entrance and the river. It has been very noticeable that all accommodation and domestic tourism has sky rocketed in the past few years, and things that were once bargains no longer are. We paid quite a lot to stay here but luckily we were upgraded due to a power cut in our room! This meant we ended up with a room closer to what you’d expect to pay for the price, rather than a container with nothing but beds in it. We ended up in the family room, which had 5 beds, kettle, fridge and balcony but the bath only drained when a spoon was pushed into the plug at a specific angle. You win some, you lose some. If you choose to stay here, avoid the container rooms.

Tekoma Lodge is one of the only places to stay with a pool, although they have annoyingly put a huge sprinkler fountain in the centre of it, so you can’t actually relax in there due to constantly being splashed in the eyes. However,  with a child, it was a great addition and there was a small shallow pool as well.

For our first day we got the boat across to the National Park entrance (rm2) and reminicised about the last time we were there in 2019. We did a huge hiking loop back then but due to our 4 year old we decided to walk to Lubuk Simpon and enjoy the river. Ayla made it the km there and km back with bribery in the form of snacks.

We also took a then and now photo to commemorate our 7 year revisit.

How times have changed!

The next day we drove kinda aimlessly to see if we could find any hidden gems further down the river. We stopped at Bukit Awan for the view…it was very cloudy but atmospheric. Then we carried on to Kuala Sat, spotting so many signs of elephants on the way but sadly no sightings. A man we met said the elephants appear on the road once a month as they tend to follow the same route through the park and we could maybe see them at 6pm, but sadly we didnt see any.

We got to Kuala Sat and we walked onto the river beach and there was literally no one around. Slightly annoyed that we had wasted a journey, we were going to leave when a man with a boat randomly turned up. He agreed to take us as far down the river as you can go without a permit, so iff we went. We passed by an aboriginal village with lots of curious children staring at us from the river bank and women washing all their kitchen ware and clothing in the water. It is easy to forget that there are still many aboriginal tribes and villages in Malaysia, especially in the rainforest.

Both evenings we ate at the floating restaurants on the river. Basic food but fine, Taman Negara is not known for its food sadly!

Another great trip in the beautiful rainforest. Let’s hope it stays that way for generations to come 💚