This story takes place in one of the forests of tropical Malaysia. A little backstory, I was a postgraduate student doing a project in a tropical rainforest in Malaysia. I apologize if my English is not very good This is one of the stories that happened to me that I will never forget.
The project that I was doing required camera trap images of different wildlife in the tropical rainforest. Malaysian virgin rainforests, rich in biodiversity are perfect for someone like me who wishes to know more about the wild animals living in their natural habitats. Our small team normally travels into the forests once every 2 months to recollect our data and reset the camera traps.
So this particular sampling started out like any other sampling, where we arrived a day early and stayed at a nearby town. The next morning we prepared our gear and waited at the jetty for our guide who was a ranger working at a nearby NGO, and is used to going into the forest. Tropical rainforests are different where it is really dense, dangerous as it was filled with dangerous animals as well as poachers. The army also patrols the forest so there were many precautions to take.
We took a 2 hour boat ride along the main river into the deep forests, there are no cell phone signals, and we either had to rely on the GPS, or the skills of the ranger to navigate through. About 2 hours later, we arrived at a native village alongside the river, people who live as nomads in the forest, and gather resources from the forest. This was where we met Tomok, a native who was willing to be our guide. Once we picked up Tomok, we traveled another hour via boat and arrived at a point of the river where boats could go no further, more of a shallow stream at this point.
We then started our hike. The group today was a slightly larger group, so we were moving slowly through. My bag, which was filled with new cameras and batteries was about 7kgs so I kept with the group as Tomok led the way, scouting ahead for the presence of large beasts. We were at the halfway point when the group was taking a short break before starting again. At this point I was bored of following the group as they were moving slowly, and my bag was making me more tired the slower we go.
So I made the brilliant decision to follow Tomok ahead of the group. Now Tomok was a native who had known the forest his entire life, every step was easy for him to navigate the stones and fallen trees, he was doing it barefooted. I tried my best to keep up with him but he was too fast. At this point I heard a bird sound (important) not too far away but I was too tired chasing Tomok to think about it.
There came a point in the journey where I was alone along a narrow trail which was along the ridge of a hill. The trail was the size of my shoulders where the right was a drop and the left was a vertical slope. You could not see anything on either side because of the dense forest. I realized that I could not see or hear Tomok anymore, and I also could not hear the larger groups chatter anymore. That’s when it happened, a loud, deep growl on my left just above me that left my ear ringing slightly. I stopped walking, petrified, my knees were jelly, I could not move them. I knew it was a tiger but I could not move nor did I dare to look up. I was frozen in fear. I was wearing my backpack and a hat so I hope that was covering my nape. After a few moments I thought to myself, there’s nothing I could do here, so I just started walking. My knees were wobbly I almost slipped into the ravine on my right. But I walked on till I met Tomok resting at the sampling site. He looked at me and asked ‘Did you hear your friend?’ (He knew the project was about tigers) I nodded and we didn’t say anything more. It’s a superstition or belief where you don’t mention dangerous animals in the forest so we did not speak about it with the rest of the group.
Hours later when we were finally out of the forest, I approached the team leader and asked him, ‘Did you hear anything along our hike to the site?’ He said ‘No, what are you talking about?’ The ranger was beside him at that point and said ‘There was a tiger along our inward trail and this point of the trail, and I also heard the bird that follows the tiger’. He described the exact location where it had happened Locals believe that a species of bird follows the tiger along the forest so if they hear that bird sound they know there’s a tiger in the area. He also said that he did not alert the group because of fear of panic, and also because of the belief/superstition. He then proceeds to tell us about the times he’s encountered large dangerous animals in the forest. It dawned on me how lucky I was that day when we finally got out, it could have ended very differently. Context: Tigers do not harm humans unless under extreme circumstances. Humans are not part of the food chain for tigers here. This is one of the experiences I had while doing my project. I have one more I will share if this one is ok.