Geruntum Falls

Part of our plan for Lata Puteh trip was that we would visit a waterfall before we head back home, so Geruntum falls located in Ulu Geroh was our destination. We drove on to a small road in KampunG Geruntum till we found a few small bamboo hut which marks the start of our trail. In less then 30 seconds on to the trail, we saw a waterfall...

Lower tier

What we saw wasn't what we came for, we wanted more, we wanted the waterfall on the upper tier. So we followed a marker thinking that it is the start of the trail, but we soon found out it's not as there is no trail and the climb up was extremely steep. So we tried to find another alternative which was just a few meters away from us, there is a proper trail with nylon rope along it. We took that trail and in about 10 minutes we reach our destination.

The goal

Posers and the prize

I'm feeling lazy to describe further so I'm just gonna leave this to your own imagination. :)

Have A Great Day
Dennis

Conquering Lata Puteh

it's 3 A.M. and I'm still awake, can't really sleep and there is no point in sleeping anytime soon because the gang (Aurelius, Ai Ling, Chris, Seen and Eagle) will be arriving soon and we'll be leaving for Ipoh anytime soon, I couldn't remember much about the journey but I do remember me swearing and cursing at the driver and waking up for breakfast in Ipoh, that's where we meet up with the Ipoh group for our trip to Lata Puteh.
After breakfast, we drove about an hour (maybe more) to reach our destination even thou we made a few U-turns courtesy of Aurelius.
We parked our cars at the water catchment facility by the road, this is when a crappy looking van which is making it's way in to the water catchment facility suddenly stopped near us, the driver asked us what were we doing there in a very rude tone, I told the driver that we are going to the waterfall and for some reason the driver said that we cannot go in and asked us to go home - Parliament member style. Good (or bad) thing that Aurelius actually had me backed down and have himself reasoning with the moron. It makes no sense to me because the place is known as a tourist destination, there is even a sign there that states that clearly, no way this water bug is gonna stop us .

When we read this...

and see this...

We smile like this.

Eventually, Aurelius got the moron to go away and leave us to our business, everyone got in to their gears, and after a short briefing by Aurelius. We started heading towards the waterfall, visible but quite inaccessible, there was a trail following some water pipes but it didn't really bring us close to the waterfall, only confusion. There is no trail to be spotted so in order not to waste the group energy, our navigator, Aurelius, deploys his scout which happens to be me. I head to a few directions and there were no trail still, so the next logical thing to do is to make my own, so... out comes the 18" machete and it's bush whacking time, it's not easy considering the fact that there is a lot a uphill climbs and there is a large number of people I have to watch over for safety but as long as I know the direction to the waterfall, we can't go wrong.

It's a good thing that Linus didn't follow or else we'll won't have the rope to climb if we tie him up

After about maybe 2 hours of bush whacking, hiking and climbing, we finally managed to reached the waterfall. One so spectacular that it took my breath away literally.

Seen: I think your camera shutter got problem, nice effect thou

Picture doesn't do justice to the waterfall's size and power, still beautiful it is

At the base of the waterfall it is very windy as massive amount of water kept pushing the air as it falls, there was no pool to dip in but there isn't a need for one, you don't really need to be close to the waterfall to get wet, the wind does all the work for you.
I must say that even thou the accessibility was a bit tricky, the team work and the patience of the group was very well rewarded.

Have A Great Day
Dennis

The Search for Batangsi Falls: Part 2

Right after our doomed attempt to find Batangsi Falls, Aurelius decided right away that we should go for a second attempt to explore and find the waterfall and tag it's coordinates. It is no walk in the park that's for sure, so it is decided that we bring only the fittest, experienced and have as little people as possible in this trip so that we could cover more ground (or water in this case). The participants of this trip consist of the organizer Aurelius (Organizer), Chris(Wild boar curry specialist), Jan (Webmaster of Waterfalls of Malaysia), Ping(Photographer Extraordinaire), and myself (Escaped Zoo Monkey)

(From Left to Right) Ping, Jen, Aurelius and Chris

At about 9am, we started exploring the river from the point where we gave up on our first attempt, it's not that we don't want to trek on land but with the amount of foliage it makes trying to negotiate the obstacles extremely difficult and slow, so we trek in the water all the way upstream, this is very difficult and tiring as well but looking at this in a positive point of view, there is no way we can miss the waterfall (If there is ever one).

This is what's it looks like to trek in river

As we trek, we keep finding fast flowing river rapids which are challenging and dangerous to navigate trough, we never consider them as waterfalls because they are not even 2 stories tall and they are not worthy enough for me at least.

One of the larger river rapids we came across

Jan's Batangsi fall

We trek till about 1pm, with no sight of waterfall we decided to turn back as it was getting late took us about 3 to 4 hours to get back to our starting point, right before we leave, Jan show us what he suspect as the Batangsi fall, just another rapid... I guess we have to come a third time.

Have a Great Day
Dennis

The search for Batangsi Falls

Where the HELL are we?

August is over and it's now safe to go jungle trekking in search of waterfall once again, this time we try for something that's "there but don't know where", according to the Waterfall of Malaysia website there is a so called Lata Batangsi but the actual location of this place is either unknown or only known by few people who are either shy to reveal the location. So armed with a frigging huge map, 2 GPS and a BIG stick, we head down to look for the mysterious Lata Batangsi.

The group being lost as usual

Right after having our breakfast, we head for the wrong turning point to get lost and to find our way back out again, it's becoming a ritual for the group. Yet we managed to find the correct (perhaps) starting point, everyone got in to their gears and we begin trekking a nicely paved dirt road which made me asked the question "Why didn't I just drive on this damn road."

The start of the trek

Mayo leading Ping and Henry

Half way through the trek we found a small steep path that leads down to the river, fearing death Aurelius deploys his scout for a possible suicide mission, and that happens to be me. We took the path anyway and started trekking up stream, it turn out to be a very pleasant walk until the sky decided that we were not wet enough and it started to rain.
Fearing that Henry might get washed away by the river, we decided to get back on to the road and continue trekking in the rain.

Reach a permanent farm which feels like war torn Vietnam in the movies

The walk was long and the rain makes it discouraging, being the only dumb ass in this trip I had to do something dumb to boost the group morale, I had to do something like...

...pretending to put up a flag.

We continue on in the rain till eventually we met a kind farmer who offered us shelter from the very heavy rain. There we try to kept ourselves warm and discuss about our next course of action, we didn't want to continue on because the rain had made the river murky and even if we made it to the falls, it won't be worth the trip because it's going to look ugly like a big flowing teh tarik.

We did what we came for anyway - Cam Whoring

We'll be back there again.

Have a Great Day,
Dennis