It’s not just anglers who are heading to the Belum rainforest, families are also finding it an engaging destination – for hiking, caving and waterfall swimming, among others.
The rental was between RM10,000 and RM12,000, depending on the season. So assuming 24 people on the trip, that would work out to almost RM600 each. Children swimming while a pair of paddlers row past off a houseboat anchored in one of the many channels of Temenggor Lake.We had a large LED TV with satellite dish connectivity so no football aficionados needed to miss out on their matches. And there was the karaoke set too for those with a compulsion to break out in melody while on a lake surrounded by a rainforest.
There is an experienced angler in our family – my older brother – but he abstained from bringing his fishing tackle along to avoid becoming preoccupied with fishing. Yet it was an easy hike and a rare treat for children to enter an aeons-old cave full of bats flitting about. All the men of this hunter-gatherer tribe were not home; I believe they were out in the jungle hunting and looking for resources.