Has anyone ever visited a jungle? I don't mean a tourist friendly ''Rain Forest''. I mean a jungle that's thick with vines, massive trees, swamps, snakes, spiders, monkeys, gushing rivers, and those birds with a big colorful bill. I think it'd be interesting to visit, but I'd hate to end up in quicksand surrounded by dangerous critters. -Dave

Not really, but close.

It was at a very undeveloped tourist spot near Cancun, Mexico. Saw a wide range of animals in their natural habitat, and was even chased by a spider monkey after I tried picking it up.

It was still a far cry from the true jungle, but closer to it than most people see...

Yes - kind of; but thankfully we were heavily looked after. We went for a short night-time trek alongside the Kinabatangan River in Sabah, Mayalsia.

We were staying at a rather basic riverside lodge, only accessible by the river; so it was surrounded by jungle.

While we were there, we had opportunity to go on a short night trek through the jungle to look at some phosphorescent fungus. The following day, we were on a safer canoe tour.

For our walk, we had two guides up front, and one at our rear. Each were scanning the branches constantly with torches for snakes. Once we were away from the lodge, they turned off the torches for a minute, so we could share just a little of what the Japanese prisoners of war went through in this area (although of course, we knew our experience was only temporary, and we were well fed).

The noises were both fascinating and scary.

We got to see our glowing fungus and returned - our trip took all of about 40 minutes. Later in the shower, I discovered that 2 leeches had attached themselves to the back of my head, and had filled themselves with blood!

I was lucky as I managed to pull them off without leaving their suckers embedded. In the morning, my pillow looked like someone had been murdered.

The jungle is home to Sun Bears and Panthers, although they chose not to drop by. A troupe of noisy gibbons did wake us up as they were just outside our cabin at dawn. As we had been warned not to open the doors or windows if they came by, sadly, we didn't see them.

Really sad was the constant flow of logged trees floating down the river...

I've also walked in the Indian mountain woods with a guide, where we spotted deer, and the very recent droppings of a Dhole (wild dog) - the young guide almost ran off when he spotted them! We crept along to a watering hole, but the dog had gone in a different direction. We also saw a wild elephant in the trees.

The tigers in that particular park rarely strayed into the part open for walking, but it was great to walk where tigers walk.

Yes, a couple of unmissable but rather scary experiences.

Chris

Wow, Chris, all for a glowing fungus!

I, personally, have not traversed a jungle as of yet. I think I will wait until I run out of other places to visit first, as I don't have a strong desire to be attacked by leeches, snakes, or sun bears. However, I do plan on visiting a tourist-friendly rainforest on my January cruise.

Michelle

Define visit? If you mean travelled through, worked in and even almost got lost in then I guess yaah.

Yeah, South America. Didn't see any monkeys swinging but they were lots of the locals selling Coca leaves.

But really, the closest recently I've been to a jungle is the LA freeways. You really do need an armored land cruiser to navigate these babies.

i have been in a jungle like that and i got bitten by a snake luckily it wasn't poisonous