This email is so good a few years ago Michelle posted an edited version it to our other site Killawatts. You can read that version here. But as a special treat, below is the original unedited email.

Subject: Jungle Mania in Malaysia

Date: February 12, 2001

Welcome to the jungle/We take it day by day If you want it you’re gonna bleed/But it’s the price you pay — Axl Rose, Welcome to the Jungle, 1987

Apologies but I had to quote the guy (even though there’s a good chance he didn’t write the song. But then again, if I knew that I would know entirely too much about Mr. Rose) because I’m quite certain that no one else would, now that he’s a certified has-been, all washed up in his Malibu (or Miami, whichever) mansion trying to make a comeback with only his hairy belly to accompany him. Slash is gone, Izzy disappeared, the racy-looking girls have vanished, the 90’s are practically retro and I’m now 30. I remember thinking that guy was so hot/cool/beautiful, I’m positive I cried during the Sweet Child O’ Mine video many times.

So, we just spent 4 days in the jungle and I’ve probably unintentionally taught the Malaysian jungle birds to whistle the tune above due to the number of times I hummed it while sitting there waiting for monkeys to swing by.

The prevalent rumor about Taman Negara National Park in central Malaysia is that although elephants, tigers, bears and wild pigs live in the park, you won’t see any of them because the park is too big and the animals are too bashful. CK and I found this to be completely false. We sat diligently in a hide, which is basically an elevated tree-house, overlooking a salt lick for hours at a time, the only sound being the creak of our out-of-shape necks to comfort us. We saw mouse-deer (head of a mouse, body of a tiny deer, legs of a mouse-cousin of the mid-western jack-a-lope), silver-leaf monkeys, macaques, flying squirrels, horn bills and a fire-crested pheasant. It was truly magical.

Some of the more unsavory creatures we witnessed were giant red aunts (the size of my thumb), rabbit-sized mosquitoes and leeches. I was having a really great time traipsing through the jungle, listening to the sounds and smelling the scents and then a leech crawled on my sock and suddenly the world seemed a hateful place. I honestly think I need leech-desensitization therapy because of the twist of my demeanor pre-to-post-leech incident. Before the leech incident, I was a happy child of the jungle, swinging on the vines and soaking up the rain, whistling to the birds and taking in all the sounds of beetles, birds, monkeys and unseen mammals crawling through the forest floor. After the leech incident, I became jumpy and alert, given to wild fits of ripping off my socks and shoes, searching for the blood sucking villains, not knowing what I would do besides faint if I found any. CK, serving as my makeshift therapist, had to endure endless questioning sessions about what would happen if there were hundreds of leeches all over our legs. Where would we start? How would we kill them all? What would he do with my lifeless body, etc?

I know leeches are not dangerous, and if I’m going to fret about anything in the jungle it should be the numerous life-threatening snakes that dwell there. But for some reason the idea of leeches, and the prevalence of them, the obscene way they crawl, the way they suck your blood and then get all fat and happy and start looking for other leeches to hump, makes my skin crawl.

Anyway, I don’t want to leave you with the idea that the jungle is only about mud-dwelling, blood-sucking, mate-humping leeches, so I will leave you with the highlight of our jungle visit, which was witnessing an entire family of wild pigs. We heard them squealing long before we saw them, then they finally emerged from the dense underbrush, looking stark in the man-made clearing, and seeming a lot smaller than they sounded. They completely avoided the salt-lick but we got to watch them for about 30 minutes as they grunted their way around the underbrush, looking for dead leaves or truffles or whatever it is that wild pigs eat.

One more thing about the jungle, for all you snake-haters: it’s pretty well-publicized that the jungle is abundantly stocked with deadly snakes. What they don’t tell you is that the roots of the trees crawling all over the pathways look exactly like our slithery enemies, so that at first, every step you take you must decide, is that a snake or is it a root? After a few minutes you get used to it. I’m not even a true snake hater, but it was touch and go at first.

But despite snake-looking roots and leeches, the jungle is an awe-inspiring place. I highly recommend going to one, whenever you can just to listen to the sounds of birds, monkeys, pigs, beetles and other wild creatures. And of course, as we are all well aware, the world’s jungles are disappearing at an alarming rate. We could practically hear the jungle shrinking, almost as fast as poor Axl’s career.

Now we are back in Bangkok, our home away from home, getting ready to go to India and Nepal. We fly out March 3. Hope all of you are doing well. Feel free to write me!

Michelle