First day to Ayam mountain climbing expedition

lately my mind is being occupied with my preparation for the expedition of climbing Ayam mountain with TNB group. Today would be the day that i and my wife meet them at KL Central and then everybody will take a train together to Dabong, Gua Musang. The place that we'll go for a camp and mountain climbing is also popularly known as Jelawang Waterfall, where you'll be able to camp at a camping site called Baha camp. The place is actual a transit and a mid point before you go on further to climb few mountains; few of which are well-known are Stong, Ayam and Baha. This expedition however only have a mountain peak in mind to conquer which is Ayam mountain.

Today, right after finish my work, i will join the TNB group whom most of them i have never meet before, and the meeting place is at KL central train station. Our group will depart to Dabong at 8:30pm and then will join a 2nd group who will be waiting for our arrival at Dabong, i guess those team members over there are the local people so most of the plan and what to do at the camping site is planned by them. The food, kitchen ware, few tents and the cookings will also be provided by them. Members from KL including myself shall only need bring those stuffs after being divided equally at the climbing base up to Baha camp.

To be honest, i am feeling of sense of thrill to be able to join in this expedition despite the fact that my going to Jelawang waterfall would be my 3rd one already. I guess, it is mainly because the feeling and anticipation that i will meet new faces apart from my old fren Wang Jazmi who currently work at TNB; well he's my intermediary person rather than the experience of hardship and endurance climbing up your ass to the mountain peak. It would be a new experience of me mixing around with new faces and characters  while climbing up the mountain. Apart from that, i think because of several expeditions already that i've joined, my preparation for the luggage rucksack was tremendously better. My target was to make sure the entire weigh must not exceed 15kg cause i need to take into account the additional food and kitchen-ware stuffs that all members must carry at Dabong. and when i last weighted my packed Karrimor bag after endless repacking and rearranging stuffs, it is 15.2 kg. That was the last rearrangement of stuff i made and 40 minutes before mid nite, i rushed off to my office to leave my bag over there. i didn't intend to bring along on the following day, cause it would be me driving my car and mostly is, it will obviously attract attention of fellow employees. So it would be best if i just leave the heavy bag the nite before and i can come to office as usual riding my bike.

Hanging bridge in Stong

I never know that there is hanging bridge at Stong. I read this story on Stong and its picture of hanging bridge over there.

Climbing Ayam peak at Stong with TNB group

I received a call from my old Sheffield Univ fren asking me whether i'm interested in joining their TNB group for a mountain climbing in Stong Dabong Kelantan 11-14 may. I was so excited and straight away confirming my participation. It looks like going to Stong is my yearly activity. Well, personally i think the waterfall at the Baha campsite in the middle of the climb to the mountain peaks are one of the greatest waterfall ever. So, once confirmation was done, he extended the email circulation on the plan to Stong. Anyway, the mountain peak that we want to conquer is not Stong, but another one called Ayam. I don't really mind cause i have gone up to 3 peaks already over there; those are Stong, Ayam & Baha peaks. I consider this trip as one of my exercises before the most challenging one, which Tahan expedition.

The program from what i see, is a light and easy type. it'll be 2 days and 2 nites, so i guess it won't be that rushing; we should be able to get enough rests and fun time at the campsite & during the climb.

3rd day at Kuala Tahan National Park

We woke up as early as possible knowing the fact that there will be a big crowd today at Taman Negara. Tourists coming either from locals and foreigners are said to be the major reason why there'll be a lot of people here; one of major attraction would be at Canopy walkway. True enough, when we were having our 7:45am breakfast at the nearest warung 5 minutes away from our chalet, we noticed there was a big crowd of teenagers already waiting at the edge of Jeti, waiting their turn to cross the river to the other side of the river bank. We were told that some people need to wait 2-3 hours at the Canopy walkway hut for their turns during weekends. We had our breakfast in a sort of rush and by 8:30am, we were already at the other side of river bank, moving towards Canopy site.

Anyway, foods sold for breakfast by local folks were like pisang goreng panas. Despite of many locals were selling similar type of food for breakfast, they didn't have any difficulty to sell off their stuffs completely. By 8:30am, most of them have run out of stuffs already to sell to customers. Well, believe me, selling food over here for breakfast is like living in heaven! Food like nasi berlauk ayam kicap, nasi berlauk daging kicap, ayam berlada and nasi lemak ayam goreng or simple fried egg are commons here; they were nicely packed up in wrapping paper readily as takeways.

We bought some extras for our meal during our next activities Canopy walkway and tracking uphill to Teresik hill peak. Tracking to the site entrance of Canopy walkway took 45minutes & its distance from the jetty is 1.7km into the jungle. We were lucky because we didn't have to wait for our turns as there was no one at the Canopy site except few Perhilitan staffs. The height of the hanging bridge made of ropes and wires is unbelievably high; truly this is not for the faint of heart, you'll definite pee in your paints ;) it got worse by the effect of the bridge swaying from side to side. Total distance of the bridge crossing was 280metres (the actual one was 500+m, but there was a repair going on at some segments of the bridge, so the authority closed the other half of the bridge). personally, i would rate this as 5 out of 10 cause i didn't feel it as that challenging. But for those who have never tried walking in the woods 50 metres high, you should try it and feel the rush of adrenalin.

Next was going up further to the peak of Teresik hill. I found this closer to my liking as it is more challenging. Route to the hill peak required us to track uphill of additional 1.7km. Teresik hill has 2 tops, the 1st one overlooks some view of mountain range at the same side as Kuala Tahan town whereas the 2nd top overlooks the Titiwangsa mountain range.

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2nd day trip at Kuala Tahan

13th April, this was the second day of our trip at Kuala Tahan National Park. It was Friday, so i thought of not really spending time on something serious or hard as i didn't plan to skip my Friday prayer. So right after we woke up at 8-ish am, we went to Pejabat Perhilitan nearby to register ourselves for the licence and registration to use a camera. Fee for a camera is RM5 and for ourselves is RM1 each. Then we went to a close warung for a late breakfast. Well, at 10:30am you won't get any breakfast-related meals already, what you can get is the meal for lunch. So it was kinda late for breakfast, we go for brunch instead. Ikan patin masak tempoyak and ulam raja; that was quite a heavy meal and that would probably last till dinner time. To be honest, i've never had any ikan patin masak tempoyak before, so this was considered my first time having it and i'm not fond of ikan darat; my response for those who have never had this meal before - you must not ever leave Kuala Tahan before eating this dish, it's worth it!

Half past eleven, we were on our move on the other side of the river bank. The fee to cross Tembeling river by using the only available public transportation river-crossing boat is RM1 for a one-way direction. Those boats are long and narrow where they can only fit 2 people per row. They operated since early in the morning up to 11pm everyday. You'll pass through an expensive yet very comfortable resort called Mutiara Resort on the other side of the river bank; those who have fat pockets can try staying here. There was a canopy walk bridge outside the resort at the rainforest edge where you need to track deeper into the jungle for 45minutes. The track leading to the canopy walk site is easy despite its location is inside the jungle; this is because the local authority has laid down long convenient walk-pathway structure interconnecting to various jungle trails for the convenience of the tourists. We moved on into the deep along the nice trail, however at 10min past one, we return because it was already late for my Friday prayer. We rushed off back and luckily i arrived just in time at a nearby mosque for the prayer.




At 2:30pm, we had a boat activity called rapid shooting; honestly i didn't understand why they called it as shooting in the first place. The first part which is rapid, i can relate because the boat that we use will go against the river rapids but shooting, mmmm... i have no clue at all. That was until i ride the boat i started to figure out why it is named as such. While we were moving fast through rapids especially against the current flow, the splash of the water from underneath will be so great that it will sort off shoot up at us. This was when the fun started, the whole splash of water to you will end up you getting wet the whole body. But i personally think that the splash purposely made by the guide sitting in front of the boat caused more splash that the natural one underneath the boat bottom. He started splashing waters to our face by putting down his hands in the fast moving river water. This was more looked like he is shooting water on us. Anyway it was fun though. i'd never forget this guide whose name is Lizan (012-9596753), he talked english quite fluently but with over-the-edge-european-style which in the end sounded strange. For just a record, his friend named Hafiz (017-9106122) currently working at NKS travel tour that was the same company that organised rapid shooting & visiting orang asli's village for us.


We stopped by at one of orang asli's village at the end of one-way ride. The village belonged to one particular orang asli called Batek tribe. 3 common tribes currently are the jungle inhabitants close to Kuala Tahan national park are Batek, Sekam-furi and Jakun. during the visit, the guide explained some stories about their life and let one orang asli guy did a demonstration of making fire from basic jungle woods and menyumpit. Honestly speaking i was quite impressed on how he did a fire in less than 5 minutes just by rubbing rigorously rattan wire against meranti wood piece. In total the cost of rapid shooting and visiting orang asli village was RM60 (RM45 for the boat and RM15 for the orang asli).


At night, we have another outdoor in-the-jungle activity called night tracking that costs RM35 per head. Participants were advised to bring along torch lights or headlamps. The purpose was to walk at night along the pathway close to Mutiara resort and observe insects and some small wild animals close to our pathway. It was a 200metre distance where at the end, we arrived at a Hide (aka Bumbum), named as Tahan hide where it allows us to see wild animals from far distant view. Anyway, we did see some far distant raindeers in one group grazing grass in a nearby valley. personally, i won't suggest this activity to those who rate themselves as serious adventurer, in fact i would consider it as lame; walking at nite for less than an hour along a nice pathway close to nearby resort just to see wild animals from far away. No challenging what-so-ever. this would definitely my last experience. Our nite tracking guide was a guy named Jaafar (017-9102733) in his mid 40-ties working for Perhilitan department; i guess he was doing some part time job. We sat down at one of floating restaurants having teh tarik after finishing the activity; he shared some stories of how's life at Kuala Tahan national park. In general, most local folks earn their money from jungle-related activities either doing some simple business like menjual, working as guides, operating travel agent business, running chalets or working for perhilitan department or available resorts. In a way, having national park over here have directly improved the socio-economic level of the local folks.

We went back to our chalet after having long chat with Jaafar. It was fortunate, cause few minutes after that, there as a heavy downpour along with thunders and lightning. Imagine, if we still doing our night track in the jungle! Our heighbour mat salleh, i guess few Germany tourists were not that lucky cause they got caught in the rain while doing an activity called safari night - an activity where you sit on an open four-wheel vehicle, going into palm estate searching for wild animals. i wouldn't advice joining in this activity as there were many complaints already claiming that there was no wild animals found during the ride. Well, i guess those mat saleh were having more challenges due to heavy downpour as oppose to the challenge seeing wild animals.

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Travelling to Kuala Tahan national park

It was 12th April 2012, we started off our journey by car at 11pm. I spent some time after work to pack up every thing into my car; lucky that it is a MPV-type vehicle, so i don't have trouble too just sumbat everything inside including few boxes of stuffs that i never look into them properly. Well, as long as everything i need is inside like medicines, outdoor gears and camping-related items, a simple of campak and sumbat inside the car will do the job. We intend to go off as early as possible so that we can reach Kuala Tahan town while local folks are still awake. However, since we took time to stop by at giant to shop last minute and have our dinner; worried that there won't be anything to eat once we arrive at Kuala Tahan, at last we were official on the move at 11pm.

Journey by car from KL to Taman Negara Kuala Tahan took roughly 4 hours; starting from 11pm and arrived at 3am. The route from Jerantut to Kuala Tahan town is bengkang bengkok and hilly. not to mention here that right after we passed Jerantut & heading towards Kuala Tahan, the only single route accessing the place was filled up with thick morning mist, thus worsened our visibility to less than 10 metres. because of this trouble & apart of struggling like crazy to wake up and being driving alert, there were so many cows preventing us from driving fast. those animals were like welcoming us along the road, and few considered idiots still cat-walked crossing the road while we were flashing high beam towards them. memang nak kena langgar betol la korang niii.

We passed by an area called Gajah Mati; there were some rumours saying that some night drivers encountered elephant crossing the roads ahead of them and some saw elephants in a group. they claimed those were not actually living elephants but ghost instead. Anyway our journey passing the road was good. Nothing happened & we never saw anything strange.

When we arrived at Kuala Tahan town, it was obvious that it was already a dead town; everybody was in deep sleep. Looks like we have to find this chalet that my girlfren have made arrangement earlier over the phone by ourselves. The chalet manager has obviously turned off his phone but anyway have left a message that he purposedly unlock one chalet in particular reserved for us with keys inside. Well, i can only say 'memang mangkuk la engko Azli! kata 24jam orang hidup kat bandar. Haram satu ekor pon takde, semur dah tidoo'. Anyway, after 1 hour crusing around every corner of the town, we finally found this Aki chalet. But before go on further, let me give you a good advice on Aki chalet. Never ever ever ever take this shit chalet. It was full of bug, kutu and pijat katil. menggaruk2 satu malam aku tido kat tempat barua nih! Dah la mahal!



As the room chalet is equipped with all basic facilities plus an old aircond but still works, we didn't stay awake long enough. You know what happened next, we doze off in no time. zzzzzzzzzzz
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Taman Negara Kuala Tahan 3days 3nights

this weekend was quite tight. My girlfren and i had a good time going outing to Kuala Tahan National Park. Personally, this place is like a ghostly inviting place to me; i had couple of unforgettable memories in relation to this place since i was teenager and the last one was last year where i've joined in the Tahan mountain expedition. So by re-visiting this place, there were times when some past mental images flash into my mind momentarily. Well, in this posting i won't bring up any past stories, in fact what i'll do for the next coming postings would be about sharing my experience staying 3days 3 nights at Taman Negara Kuala Tahan.

Thank you to my girlfren for her effort to do some research for the last few weeks before we went off to Kuala Tahan. Her effort paid off, as without her findings through internet and feedbacks from our outdoor guru Azli who had experience already staying there, we'd be spending generous yet unnecessary amount of money on our stay over there. At first just like other people who are first timers backpacking to Taman Negara, we'd just resort to taking package tour from local travel agent, where all things will be taken care off by them, from choosing appropriate chalet, travelling from KL to Kuala Tahan, our meals and activities at Kuala Tahan for a span time of 3days 2 nights. However, in the last minute, Azli reassured us that by backpacking on our own without engaging with any travel agent, the cost would differ astoundingly; so we followed his advice. Most travel agents charge in the range of RM300 to RM500 for a simple package 3d2n. We got this quotation from one travel agent, i think NSK something, they are charging RM450 per head, so in total for 2 people, the cost would easily reach close to RM1000. Well, since our weekend vacation is a low budget, we resort to do it on our own.

You know how much we have spent at Kuala Tahan for 3days and 3 nights (take note yeah, it was 3 nites not 2 nites)? Less than freaking RM300 per head! Yesss.. it's worth it.

The distance from Kuala Lumpur to Kuala Tahan town is 270km and it took 2 and half hours journey using pantai timur Highway. You'll pass through jerantut town, where this is the last big town after which you'll only see jungle edge, palm estates and small vilages along the road heading to Kuala Tahan. Don't forget to fill up your vehicle gas to the fullest at Jerantut before your proceed to Kuala Tahan, just in case for precaution because after this onwards there won't be any oil station along the way.

Above is a view of Jeti Kuala Tahan; i know my hand drawing is kinda of rough but it basically shows the day-to-day view at Jeti. The building stuctures on a light brown background are the floating restaurants and the light brown color is the Tembeling River, pls do not mistake it as the usual ground soil. The color of the Tembeling river water is truly thick brown yellowish just like teh tarik. On the other side of the river bank is the other jeti that allows you to go to Taman Negara area. Those are the area where you can easily stumble upon wild animals.

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