Sunday, June 07, 2009

Gua Tempurung

Since both my brother and I are having our breaks, my parents decided to take us for a vacation and today, we set off, leaving for our first destination, Gua Tempurung. We are not exactly sure what to expect there but a friend of my mum's said it is a nice place. We left at 8.30a.m. and by 1p.m., we were already at the cave and started our hike at 1.45p.m.. We went for a light hike as we are not equiped with proper stuffs for the long one. Plus, we have to be there by 11a.m. if we wanted to go on the long one. But anyway, we still enjoyed our hike very much.

Entering into the cave, it felt cold and warm at the same time and the stalagmites and stalagtites are awesome. They grow in various shapes too (the grow an ince every 200 years). There were ones shaped like a horse head, fish, human, hearts, chicken, Buddha and many more. I can't remember everything obviously. But I do remember this one. There was a stalagmite that shaped like a stick and our tour (cave) guide told us there are 3 stories to this particular stalagmite. From the Chinese view, it is the Monkey God’s (I think) stick. Su Mo Kong??? Sorry and excuse my spelling. From the Westerner’s view, it is Harry Potter’s flying broom. Lol. And in the Malay’s perspective, it is tongkat Ali. Lol. He was a funny tour (cave) guide. From Melaka too! Jasin. Haha. Oh yeah! There was also another stalagtite that look like jelly fish! The tour (cave) guide said that was Squidward. Lol! Ok. Enough stories on stalagmites and stalagtites.

Next interesting thing is in the cave, there was a place called the ‘echo room’. However, kids started to shout here and it was annoying and there was this stupid man (also from Melaka) who kept singing the ‘ole ole’ song. Damn was he annoying.
In addition, there was also another room where the wind from the north and south entrances of the cave meet and that room was so cooling that it felt that it was air conditioned. Pretty awesome stuffs.

Oh yeah. I forgot to mention exactly how long my hike was. It was not very far but to and fro, we would have climbed 1280 steps. Awesome. I thought it would be tiring but silly me, it was nothing. No kick at all. A futsal match is more tiring actually. Lol.

Furthermore, there was this place believed to be a mining area by the Chinese community back in 1959 and the tools they once used were still there. The tour (cave) guide said in year 2002, some historians took them to Kuala Lumpur without permission and the tools somehow managed to come back themselves. Crap, I think. Anyway, I guess that is all I can say about the hike. Told you it was short but it was still very interesting and I would recommend anyone who likes nature to check that place out. It is only about 4 hours from Melaka, using the North-South Highway.

As for the direction, just follow the highway (follow Ipoh route) and exit at the Gopeng exit. After the toll, turn to the left at the traffic light. Once reaching Kampung Gunung Mesa, travel for another 5km and you’ll reach another left turn. Take it and follow the road and you’ll reach the cave in no time at all. There are 4 kinds of hike there pricing at RM6 to RM22, based on the difficulty and distance.

Anyway, as I am writing this, I am in Cameron Highlands, our second destination. We will be spending a night here before leaving for Penang in the morning. The weather here is awesome although Malaysia is having an extremely hot spell of weather currently. Right now, I am almost freezing cold and some part of me is regretting that I did not bring my sweater and sweat pants along. –Sigh- But nonetheless, it is all fun and right now, I wanna go get a walk outside.




The tools used by the Chinese peasants in 1959.

Some cristal on the stalagmite. Low value ones. Lol.

Woman's leg. That's a stalagtite shaped like a leg.




3 comments:

CRABp said...

No stalagmites that shape like crab? =(

Natalia said...

Thankfully, no! Muahahahaha! So happy to not see any crabs.

CRABp said...

evil darling