Road to Lata Kijang

Convoy at rest

The plans were made, Lata Kijang located off Kampung Chennah within Negeri Sembilan. The group meet up at the meet up point at 7am 8am in the morning, a quick breakfast, briefing, petrol and air check later we are off to the place where we are supposed to meet up with the people who are going to drive us in using a pick-up truck and a lorry.

Lorry group picture

Sitting in the back of the lorry gives me a mix experience. At first it seems fun and all as the whole bunch of us were just jumping, shouting and trying to dodge log hanging branch but after a while I begin to realized how uncomfortable it is to be in the back of the lorry,to endure an hour of this is enough to drive me nuts, think about the people who do this to go to their work place to earn a living.
Our destination (Lata Kijang) is 20KM away from the starting point, the issue is that no one says that it's gonna be a smooth ride. I already expected it because I've been there a year earlier and at that time there were no tar or gravel road leading to the place, it was a muddy, bumpy 4x4 ride the last time.
Now it's all changed, there is a tar road there now. It's not really suitable for the conventional sedan, but it's still pretty decent, even the scary bridge which has the potential to trap my group for the previous visit is now repaired... no more fun there.

Lata Kijang

More then an hour later, we found ourselves at Lata Kijang and we can't wait to get into the water. There were a crowd there even before we arrive, seems like a group of 60-80 students from some university's nature club, too bad that I had to tell one of them that the group shouldn't use shampoo at the waterfall as this might cause some environmental damage. Unfortunately, there were more of them there to shampoo their hair, one fat and ugly girl in particular was spotted giving herself a facial by the falls, I should had just shouted to her that even God couldn't help her.
Eventually they left leaving the waterfall for ourselves, I'm not sure if they noticed that they had been washing their face and hair with water stained by my pee thou, but that's not important anymore.

On strike

After spending a few hours enjoying the waterfall and mother nature's offering. We set off to the place where the lorry dropped us, waiting to be picked up and head out to our cars. The driver said that he'll pick us up at 3pm. we waited till 4pm and there is no way we can contact him, so it was decided that we should start trekking.
However, there is no way that any of us could survive the 4 hours track back and be able to attend the next event on the following day so the choice was made that we are to trek to the near by camp site that was occupied by a charitable 4x4 group from Malacca called Puma 4x4 club (http://www.puma4x4club.com) for help.

Saved by the club

With the help of their leader and the PR manager, we were all safely transported back to the starting point.
For me this trip was good but it is sad to see how much damage a road can cause to the environment.

Have a Great Day
Dennis

Chilling Falls: She is calling me

Sacred map to Chilling

Aurelius called me up on Friday to see if I'm interested to pay Chilling Falls a visit on the following day, even thou it's a sudden plan and we have another trip on Sunday and Monday I'm game for it.
Chilling Falls is located about 30KM off Kuala Kubu Baharu, Hulu Selangor heading towards Fraser's hills. I first visited the falls back in the early 90's and it is one of the first waterfalls that I've been to.
When I first visited the place, there was nothing but jungles, river and wild life, today it is a fish sanctuary with toilets, guard house, an odd looking 2 story building, trash cans a suspension bridge all recently build by our beloved Malaysian Government's fishery department.

River Crossing

The trail there is simple, start by registering yourself at the guard house located in the "fishy" Department, there you will see a suspension bridge that you'll can't miss unless you are blind.
After crossing the bridge, we come to this "Cross Junction", this is the only confusing part because it looks as if there is a stream moving across the trail, going straight will lead you to a dead end, take a left turn there and go against the water flow. From there we just follow the trail and cross the river at marked crossing point, a 45 minutes to an hour worth of hiking later, the majestic Chilling falls is in sight, still as beautiful as the first time I see her.

She just makes me want to jump in

Group picture

Have A Great Day
Dennis

Broga Hill Trip

It was 4AM and I was already out of bed and driving in a convoy, taking on the role of a sweeper who's primary duty is to make sure no cars leaves the convoy and to inform the Trip Leader if there is any thing wrong or if any of the cars in the convoy couldn't catch up. Really not a typical thing to do on a Saturday morning, but somebody has to do it. It was quite a challenge to keep the convoy together yet even God makes it more difficult for me to control the convoy for it was rain quite heavily, I can't help but to smile thinking that the Gods are making it hard for me so that I can become better.
Trip Leader wasn't too sure of the directions so we did take a longer route to the destination,we took a detour in to Kajang to our starting point which is a very run down Rabbit farm somewhere in Broga.


It was still raining, but it was no concern to me because I already knew that my bunch are real nutcases and there is no way a little rain is going to stop us. A few of the new comers had to leave thou, one of them isn't feeling well and there is no point for her to risk it as it might make things worst for her, it's really a pity having to turn back after coming this far.
Off they go leaving the group on their way home, the rest of us got ready and we marched in to the palm oil plantation where the trail begins.
Upon crossing the plantation we meet an open field which has a track which leads us right in to a jungle, to me it was just too easy, moving at my own pace I made one mistake, I forgotten to make sure the group could keep up.
After clearing the jungle I arrived at a field full of tall grass which has a uphill trail leading to the top of the hill. At this point I realized that it had finally stopped raining, I waited a little while for the team to regroup and try to reach my way up as quick as I can, I just wanted to do that not only because I can but I also wanted to make it a little more challenging for myself.

Sun rise, as viewed from the hill

Alone on the hill sitting on a rock

I managed to reach to the top very quickly while the rest are still quite a distance behind, instead of being happy about my achievement of reaching to the peak quicker then the rest, I kept asking myself "Now what?".
Yea, I am first to summit, so what? I'm still alone. What's the point of making it up so quick alone? It'll be lame if I were to celebrate up here alone.
I look down and see the rest of the group still struggling to make their way up, usually on uphill climbs I always assist those who need help, however this time I realized that my selfishness is my downfall, that point on I thought that it would be more meaningful if I were to assisted the group to reach the summit.

Group in the morning sun

A lesson and a new experience was my reward for this trip, the rest is a gift.

Have A Great Day
Dennis

Kanching falls: Everybody knows there's something wrong

Someone being himself

The Kanching Falls are located between Kuala Lumpur and Rawang in Selangor, Malaysia. The waterfalls consist of seven tiers. A well-maintained recreation park gives access to the lower falls, to reach the upper falls some scrambling uphill is required. It is one of the popular tourist destinations of Kuala Lumpur.
- Quote from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanching_Falls

This marks the location

Made a trip to Kanching Falls last Thursday, the fact that it is a seven tier waterfall gets me excited, so I go expecting something spectacular and here are some of the things I found about the Park.

A view of the park, there is electricity in the facility

The park can be reach by bus, a few hypermarket can be found nearby too

Rubbish bins are found all over the facility to keep the place CLEAN

The water is cool and "clean"

So we hiked all he way up to the top of the fall and found the water source we took some pictures , hang out there for a while and then head back home.

Camwhoring as usual

Was it a good trip? I'll just say it's not worth the Ringgit we paid to enter the park.

Have a Great Day
Dennis

Road Trip: Penang

There's nothing like a food hunting trip with a group of friends.

Have a Great Day
Dennis