Malaysia has two rainforests that backpackers come for, and choosing between them shapes a big chunk of your route. Taman Negara is in the middle of the peninsula, a day’s travel from Kuala Lumpur. Borneo is across the South China Sea, and you fly there.
The short version: you go to Taman Negara for the forest itself, and to Borneo for the animals that live in it. That is mostly true, but not entirely. Taman Negara crawls with life at night too, and on Borneo you can also walk through the treetops.
Below is what you see and do where, what it costs and how much time you need. And why the Cameron Highlands, with their moss forest in the clouds, are the cool stopover you will not want to miss along the way.
Taman Negara: the rainforest itself
The forest of Taman Negara has been standing for around 130 million years, and you feel it before you even get there. From the jetty at Kuala Tembeling, a narrow wooden boat takes about three hours to carry you upstream to Kuala Tahan, with a green wall on both sides and the odd water buffalo on the bank. For about €7, that is the best entrance the peninsula can give you.
Kuala Tahan is a village of a few streets, with floating restaurants on pontoons and not a single bar. Everyone goes to bed early and heads out early. The park starts on the other side of the river, and there it is all about walking: across the 530 metre canopy walkway, up to around 40 metres above the ground in places, and then to the top of Bukit Teresek for a view of forest all the way to the horizon. You do not need a guide for any of that, the trails are well marked.
After dark, you do take that guide. With a torch you see in one hour what was invisible all day: spiders, scorpions, stick insects, glowing mushrooms and, with luck, a mouse deer. Big animals putting on a show is not what this place is about. It is about the forest, and once you have heard it hum through a night, you get it.
It is all laid out in the highlights of Taman Negara.
Our verdict: pick Taman Negara if you want to walk, hear and smell the rainforest without booking a flight for it
Borneo: the animals in the forest
In Malaysia you only see orangutans on Borneo, and for most travellers that is the reason to go. At Sepilok they come to the feeding platform at ten and at three, and in the nursery you watch the youngest ones practising their climbing through a window. Near Kuching you do the same at Semenggoh, where semi-wild orangutans live free in the forest and the platform is a bus ride from the city.
Then comes the river. On the Kinabatangan you step into a little boat at half five in the morning, with mist on the water, and within a few hours you see proboscis monkeys, macaques, crocodiles on the mud and hornbills flying low overhead. With luck there is an orangutan in the treetops or a herd of pygmy elephants on the bank. Here, the boat is your jungle.
You can walk through the treetops on Borneo too. At the Rainforest Discovery Centre in Sepilok a walkway hangs about 25 metres up, where you meet the hornbills and squirrels at eye level, and in the evening the guides lead a two-hour night walk there.
More on each stop in the highlights of Sepilok, the Kinabatangan and Kuching.
Our verdict: pick Borneo if you want to see orangutans and would rather watch the forest from a boat
Walking or boating
This is the difference you feel in your legs. In Taman Negara you walk: over planks and rope bridges, up the short, steep climb to Bukit Teresek, and after rain through the mud in leech socks. The leeches are harmless and you barely feel them, but they come with the territory. Want to go deeper into the forest than the short trails around headquarters? Then you arrange a guide and it becomes a trek.
On the Kinabatangan you mostly sit. Almost everything happens from the boat, and the walks to the oxbow lake are short and optional. Not a fan of hiking? Then that is the jungle for you. Love it? Then Taman Negara gives you more kilometres.
The river plays a part in both, just a different one. In Taman Negara it is your way in, and for about €32 per boat four of you ride up to the natural swimming pools of Lata Berkoh. On the Kinabatangan it is the stage all day long, with a cruise at sunrise and another at sunset.
Treating the animals and people well
The orangutans at Sepilok and Semenggoh come by choice, and it has to stay that way. Do not touch them and do not feed them, not even when one comes close, and never use a flash for photos. Stay quiet on the platform and more of them will come. And if you have a cold, skip the feeding, because orangutans can catch it from you.
On the river the same goes, with more space in between. Do not get too close to elephants, not even for that one photo, always listen to your guide when a herd is nearby, and keep your hands inside the boat: there are crocodiles in the water.
In Taman Negara many boat trips stop at a village of the Batek, one of the indigenous peoples of the peninsula. You are a guest in someone’s home there. Ask permission before every photo, ask your guide how much of the tour price goes to the village, and take home a piece of their craftwork rather than only photos.
What it costs and how much time you need
Taman Negara is cheap and fits easily into your route on the peninsula. About €28 a day does it, with a bed for €8. The park permit costs about twenty cents, and a camera permit and the canopy walkway are about a euro each. Two days is enough for the walkway, Bukit Teresek and a night walk; add a third day and you get Lata Berkoh or the Batek village too. From Kuala Lumpur a direct minivan gets you there in about five hours.
Borneo asks more of your wallet and your calendar. First the flight from Kuala Lumpur, then Sepilok for one or two days at about €30 a day, with an entry ticket of about €6 that is valid all day. On the Kinabatangan you pay for a package with bed, meals and cruises, from about €110 for two days and one night in a dorm. An extra cruise costs about €12. For Sepilok and the river together, reckon on three to five days, plus your travel days. Kuching is the cheaper way in: there about €22 a day gets you by, and Semenggoh costs about two euros.
Cameron Highlands: the cool stopover
After a few days of sticky rainforest, you step off the bus in Tanah Rata and pull on a jumper. At 1,440 metres it is around twenty two degrees in the day and about fourteen at night, and after Taman Negara that feels like a reward.
The forest is different up here too. High on Gunung Brinchang is the Mossy Forest, a cloud forest where every branch and root is covered in moss and the clouds drift between the trunks. You walk it on a boardwalk, and the easiest way there is a Land Rover tour, which from about €20 also takes in the BOH Sungei Palas tea plantation. After a landslide the boardwalk sometimes closes for weeks, so ask in Tanah Rata first whether it is open. Prefer to walk yourself? Numbered jungle trails start from the village, for example up to Gunung Jasar. Ask at your hostel which ones are open.
Two to three days is enough, at about €22 a day. From Taman Negara you travel via Jerantut to the Highlands, and from there buses and minivans carry on to Penang in four to five hours. That way you get two very different forests back to back on the peninsula. More in the highlights of the Cameron Highlands.
When to go
The seasons work roughly the same for both. Taman Negara is at its best from March to September. In December and January the river runs high and the canopy walkway can close in bad storms, so build in a spare day then. On the east coast of Sabah, March to October are the most pleasant months, and from November to February the Kinabatangan can burst its banks.
In the Cameron Highlands it rains in every month, usually as an afternoon shower, and January to March are the driest. So set off early on your hike there. How the rest of the country works out in each season is in the best time to visit Malaysia.
If you can only do one jungle
Staying on the peninsula? Pick Taman Negara and follow it with the Cameron Highlands. Then you have had one of the oldest rainforests in the world and the moss forest in the clouds, without a flight and for not much money. That is how they fit into our three-week Malaysia itinerary.
Got an extra week? Go to Borneo. Sepilok and two nights on the Kinabatangan are the days you will talk about most afterwards, and Semporna is still on your route after that. Whether to start in Sabah or Sarawak is covered in Borneo: Sabah or Sarawak, and how to get everywhere in getting around Malaysia.
Can you see orangutans in Taman Negara?
For that you need Borneo: in Malaysia, orangutans only live there. Taman Negara gives you something else, and that is the forest itself. The walkway through the treetops, the view from Bukit Teresek, the river boat in and a night walk full of insects, spiders and glowing mushrooms.
Want both? That works fine on one trip. Do Taman Negara and the Cameron Highlands on the peninsula, then fly to Borneo for Sepilok and the Kinabatangan. That way you have seen three very different forests, and afterwards you will not be able to say which one you loved most.
If you really have to choose, choose on what you want to do. Want to walk? Pick Taman Negara. Want to watch wildlife from the water? Pick Borneo.
