Friday, May 24, 2013

A Historic Gathering Of Waterfall Experts in Malaysia


In life, we hardly encounter historic moments of epic proportions. The gathering of fine men and women are rare and special. There were a few notable occasion of this grand spectacle :

1. The gathering of 5 living American presidents - Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Bush Snr, Bush Jr and Barack Obama

2. The peace signing ceremony between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat


3. The star studded cast of "We Are The World"

I have mine and that is the gathering of Malaysia's foremost waterfall experts and they are Mr Jan Stuivenberg and Mr Lim Siang Hui.
Right most: Lim Siang Hui and Jan Stuivenberg in the center

This gathering of gargantual proportions sadly excludes another waterfall expert, Mr Harry Nian who passed away last year in a waterfall incident and it would have been a grand best of the best gathering if he were here today. Anyway, I have known these two great men for a while now and finally, the three of us will finally scale to greater heights ..literally.

Our target is the unknown, unexplored and remote Upper Tebing Tinggi Falls. Located in the Northern region of Malaysia, this yet to be discovered waterfall lies in the Black Area during the 70's and 80's era where the Communist flourished. Undeveloped, this area has been wild since the olden days.
Lower Tebing Tinggi Falls

Rani and Aric tagged along this time and in Rani's Nissan Xterra, he drove us to Lenggong, Perak - a sleepy town known for fresh water fish dishes. Lenggong is the undisputed champion for fresh water fishes and also ...caves. Malaysia's oldest human being, the Perak man was found in one of the caves in Lenggong.
Here are some pictures of our fresh water fish meals :
Malay Style
Chinese Style

We have all decided to trek the Upper Tebing Tinggi Falls on Sunday so the day before, we visited a not so known waterfall. It's been a while since I trekked and with the full force of the sun and inclination of the mountain, I showed signs of fatigue. It was also visible in all of the men and we deduced our suffering to an overeating session.
Taking a break from the heat !!!
Tall waterfall in Lenggong

The next morning, we checked out from the Lenggong Resthouse and headed to the starting point of our waterfall quest. Along the way, I spotted a wild boar and this goes to show how remote this road is. A fairly large pipe became our starting point and boy oh boy , did it angle itself close to 90 degrees.
The horror of climbing upwards

We trekked, bushwhacked, chopped and climbed every imaginable tree trunk, rock, root, thorny twig, log, salt lick, puddle, overhanging branch, etc. Not to mention leeches...
Tired men

After 3 hours, we finally heard the mighty roar of the Upper Tebing Tinggi Falls but we still couldn't view it due to the thick foliage.
Just a little bit more from the fringes of the jungle

As soon as we emerged from the side of the jungle, we were in shock and awe because this is truly a tall magnificent waterfall and we're just tiny specks at the bottom of it.
Upper Tebing Tinggi Falls

A marvelous achievement


The first thing I did was jump into a pool and refreshed myself because throughout the 3 hour trek, there was no pool in sight and we were only glistening in our own sweat. There's something about jumping into a pool of really fresh natural water. Everyone should do it.
We hung around, took pictures, made coffee, measured the height of the waterfall with a measuring device and after an hour, we were on our way home.
On our way back, we rewarded ourselves with a hearty meal of ... fresh water fish again.
Temoleh Fish. Only to be found in the rivers of Belum

The Upper Tebing Tinggi waterfall was spectacular, the meals were delicious but most importantly, it was the company of passionate waterfall loving men that made it a defining moment in the history books of my life.
Great company and Upper Tebing Tinggi Falls

4 comments:

Kwai Loh (Jan) said...

Bravo, that is what I call a dramatic report!

Ellen said...

another remarkable achievement for these five waterfall 'machos' ;)

Unknown said...

Great article :)

Unknown said...

This fall is more awesome than the hottest babe