Bugs Anyone?

The air conditioning was turned up to an arctic blast on the bus. This was fine with me as the temperature outside was hot and unmercifully humid. I spent most of the day switching from one bus to another in towns that all began to run together in my memory. But then, the bus stopped by a brown and shallow river and soon I found myself staring at a long and narrow wooden boat, obviously made by hand, with a small outboard motor perched on one end. A lanky man with chocolate skin and a cigarette hanging from his mouth welcomed me with a nod, threw my bag in the bow, ushered me into the boat, and we headed upstream. For three hours, we dodged rocks and rapids, sometimes slowing to a crawl, other times barreling ahead like we were plowing through some unseen wall.
There are no roads that are passable by bus into the rainforest. There are, of course, a few steep and narrow dirt roads that run here and there, but the boats are the quickest and easiest way to enter Taman Negara, Malaysia's largest national park. The advertisers claim that the world's oldest primary rainforest can be found here, at an age of 170 million years, which means that thousands upon thousands of species of birds, insects, trees, and animals are all jumbled together here and somehow find a way to coexist.
I just wanted to keep my bags from getting wet. I had brought enough with me, so I thought, to be prepared for pretty much anything that I would encounter. Bug spray, long pants to keep off of the jungle leeches, sun screen, medicine, and of course, my camera. With a tour guide, I headed out into the jungle on my first night to see what we could find. He was extremely knowledgable and paused every few minutes to point his light at a pair of eyes up in the trees or into a hole in the ground. I saw all kinds of insects and, luckily, some kind of sloth or monkey way up in the trees. It moved like its limbs were made from rubber and easily stayed intertwined with the upper canopy branches. Its eyes shown bright green against our flashlights and it quickly disappeared before I could attempt a picture. Toward the end of our night walk, I lagged behind and let the guide go back to camp. I turned off my flashlight and just stood in the middle of the woods for a few minutes, trying to push everything else out of my head. "Open all of your senses" one of my Malay friends and told me before coming. I did exactly that. I smelt the fresh rain on the leaves, saw the trees silhouetted against the bright stars, felt the intense closeness and heat of the jungle, and heard a piercing orchestra of insects spread all over the forest. I did not put anything in my mouth, four out of five senses is enough. Now as far as the orchestra goes, Imagine a hot and humid August night when the cicadas, whippoorwills, and peep frogs come out and sing at night. Now triple the volume. That's close to what this place sounded like that night. Absolutely incredible.
The next day was by far the coolest. In addition to a wonderful hike with a stunning view of the rainforest valley and a wet and bumpy rapids ride, I had the privilege of going on a solo canopy walk. What is a canopy walk you say? The managers of the park have strung narrow rope bridges from treetop to treetop for almost half a mile zigzagging across a steep hill. This means that you can dangle almost fifty feet above the forest floor and, if you are lucky, see some amazing birds and animals. Although I did see a giant squirrel (this thing was about as big as an obese cat), that was all. I have to admit, walking so high up on nothing but a rope bridge is plenty of excitement for me. I half expected Indiana Jones or King Kong to barrel around the corner and leave me hanging for life, but no such luck. I did hear some Gibbon monkeys in the distance though.
You know, when I was a freshman at UMBC, all I wanted to to was pass my classes. I was scared to death that I wouldn't be able to cut it, I would lose my scholarship, and I would have to wait tables for the rest of my life. Now, I'm on the other side of the planet writing about rainforests, swimming in the South China Sea, and learning a language I didn't even knew existed until a few months ago. It all feels like some kind of strange dream and at any moment I will wake up in Westhill (my college apartment) late for class. It feels like I shouldn't be here, like I don't belong, and that everything that's happening to me is simply too good to be true. The people here are so friendly, the country beautiful, and the entire experience wonderful in many ways and wonderfully challenging in others. I find myself stretched in directions that I simply couldn't understand when I was in America. What is most incredible is watching Malaysia, particularly this region, change and mature from a rural agricultural area to a modern and developed nation. Its amazing to think that this country is only fifty years old and has come so remarkably far. When the U.S. was fifty years old, we had not yet even settled all fifty states. Thomas Jefferson was alive, and we were still rebuilding Washington D.C. from the British invasion of the War of 1812. Malaysia has risen from obscurity and colonialism to one of the most prosperous nations in the world with booming electronics and biotech industries and a racial society composed of three separate and distinct cultures, each with their own religion, language, and customs, and each living with the others in relative harmony. And to think that I was consumed by organic chemistry just a short while ago.