Kampar Day 2 – 3: Gua Tempurung

Kampar Day 2 – 29th November 2008

We woke up at about 6.30am and got down for our breakfast buffet at the hotel’s restaurant – it’s free for 4 people (and we were only charged RM10 for 1 person for some reason despite the fact we had 2 extra people along.. but we’re not complaining).

I also forgot to mention that our hotel charges RM237 per night (it could be cheaper, but we were staying during their ‘peak’ tier or something of that sort) for our Family Suite.. which is a pretty sweet deal when you divide it by 6 people. It’s cheaper than staying at Rumah Rehat Adeline in Gopeng, which if I recall correctly what Siew had told me, only provided you a hut (or a tent by your choice) but with “the most delicious food you’d have ever tasted” 5 course meal for about RM90/night or more.

Our buffet hall/restaurant.

They vary their breakfast a little everyday, but here’s a non-comprehensive list of what they had (that I could remember at the top of my head): Koko Krunch/corn flakes/Honey Stars with milk (cibai I can’t eat this anymore haih); nasi lemak with sambal and kacang and anchovies (this being a buffet, you can take as much or as less of something as you want); red beans!!!! (my absolute favourite); half-boiled eggs; egg omelettes; chopped sausages; the list goes on.

After downing our breakfast (I was trying to make it as less heartily as possible ‘cause any sudden stomach ache during our upcoming caving would be highly undesirable), we left at about 8.45am for Gua Tempurung.. and thanks to horrible signages, we were lost for a bit (despite the fact that Jon had been to the cave before lol) and ended up in an extremely narrow kampung road and had to ask a pakcik where Gua Tempurung was.

I didn’t have my useful GPS-handphone around (which actually helped us a bit during our first day when we were on our way to Kampar and were debating which roads to use) ‘cause we left most of our valuables in our hotel room (told the receptionist that we didn’t want any housekeeping done before we left for the cave). I was also a little worried that we wouldn’t make it on the appointed time of 9am which was the time I had ‘booked’ our caving tour for, and we only arrived at 9.30am.

Which was nothing to fret ‘cause the moment we arrived there, we rushed to the ticketing counter and bought our tickets for the Grand Tour (RM22 each, touted on a board nearby as ‘paling mencabar’ wtf, which I doubt).. and we were at first told that by the lady that we have to go for the 11.30am tour, before her colleague nudged and told her that we could fit into the 9.30am group instead which was departing right there and then.

Heng and I went to the toilet quickly to relieve ourselves (had to pay RM0.30 to enter, and RM1 if you wish to change your clothes/use shower facilities WTF), then we were ushered into the cave along with our fellow tour-mates, which can be grouped into three: the Malay university students/family group, the u8 group (us), and the noisy Chinese-educated brats who were probably slightly younger than us.

Us in a cave! Kai Tzin brought along two construction helmets and both Kai and I were donning it the entire time. I brought along my Canon IXUS 850 IS together with an underwater pack that was designed to store valuables like handphones etc (which was not the one I wanted, ‘cause I had another underwater pack that would fit my point-and-shoot very well but I couldn’t find it ANYWHERE the night before we left), so at certain situations when we were resting for a bit, I whipped out my cam and snapped some pics.

Oh, and the blurry specks in the pics are because there are supposedly tons of dust floating around in the cave.. so we were supposedly breathing in said dusts wtf. Jon even shone a torchlight and breathed loudly on it to clearly display the dusts that were floating around.

The 5 of us with Jon snapping this pic.

I really had fun caving, and it was nowhere as physically strenuous as Bukit Tabur which was a hugeee plus – and as they always say, if Esther can do it, anyone can wtf despite her complaints and grumbles along the way like “Let’s go shopping lah” and “I wanna turn back..” wtf.

There was an incident where I had a semi-claustrophobic moment when we had to crawl commando-style across a body of water. The ceiling – whatever you call it – was dangerously low and half of my body was submerged in the water. This was when having my helmet was a bit of a nuisance ‘cause it increased my overall ‘height’ of the head and caused me to bump the helmet repeatedly against the ceiling and forced my head to dip into the water for a bit. =( I panicked actually and was afraid I’d drown etc ‘cause I’m not good with water, plus it didn’t help one bit that the current was strong and I could be swept away because of my weight, and in the end I had to turn sideways (so that my face was facing the ceiling instead of the floor/water) and use both hands to grab firmly on the ceiling and slowly inch my way forward like an overturned tortoise wtf.

Another pic of us near The Slide (Jess as the photographer this time) and if you look at the background, you can feel the sense of depth of the cave.

This is The Slide (or so I’m calling it). Not sure how far the drop is, but our tour guide told us that there was once an angmoh from Germany boasted that he was a triathlete or something etc and told our tour guide that he won’t slide down, but run and jump down wtf?? Obviously the result wasn’t pretty (our tour guide made two ‘bump’ sounds) and the German dude broke his leg =..= and ferrying him back to open land was a huge hassle.

The tour guide went down first, followed by the Pakcik (from the Malay university students/family group) who stopped mid-point to guide the rest of us young’uns down – close your legs tightly, use your hands to control your falling speed etc. Heng and Kai Tzin went down first (among our group), and Kai fell down quite loudly wtf.

The pic above depicts Kai and Heng helping out the rest of our tour-mates to get down safely by using their bare hands to grab hold on the soles of their shoes to cushion the momentum of their fall. At one point, the Chinese gang’s friends next to Kai and Heng were too noisy when both of them were shouting instructions to those who were making their fall, that Kai snapped at the nearest person next to him in Mandarin to “shut up and let me give the instructions” hahahaha.

Jon and other tour-mates (we met another group as well along the way) – we were given a short break here at the place where we could see the sunlight, and Jon wanted to pee quite badly lol so we had to wait for him. At this point too, Jessica’s shoe was completely tattered and its sole came off completely, so she had to trek on her bare socks all the way till we reach outside. =/

My torchlight was working erratically – occasionally it wouldn’t turn on and occasionally it would just flicker back to life – so it was hopeless trying to rely on it. At one point, Jon and I who were in the lead (of the u8 group, but way behind two other groups in front) were nearly surrounded in the darkness that we couldn’t see what was ahead of us, till some guy whom we didn’t know in front helped us to shine our way. Oh, and earlier on we also got to experience ‘total darkness’ when our tour guide asked us to turn off our torchlights, and the experience was kinda cool – you really couldn’t see even a single millilitre in front of you.

Having a tour guide around was cool as you get to listen to interesting historical facts of the cave, and we were pointed to seemingly random rocks and he would tell us that it actually looks like a tiger, a pregnant woman, a monkey driving a car, the Goddess of Mercy Kuan Yin, etcetc. We were also told that that very cave used to be the hiding place for communists back during the insurgency, and that Kampar used to be the town of communists.

We were also shown a well (which was more like a very deep, well-dug hole) and our tour guide told us that during the era of communists, the British poisoned the river water in the cave with animal carcasses and in the communists’ desperation, they dug a well in hopes of being able to get fresh, clean water, but that failed because the river water seeps into soil.. like duh! And he was also telling us to be careful ‘cause years ago when he was bringing in a small group of angmohs, this one dude was busy snapping photographs, walked backwards and fell into a deep hole.. literally. There was no rope etc whatsoever to lift him out of the hole, so the tour guide had to suggest that everyone take off their clothes (!!) (both the males and females) so as to tie the clothes together tightly to form a strong makeshift rope. They managed to lift him out.. and all of them had to complete their caving topless ‘cause the rope of clothes was knitted too tightly together that it was impossible to undo them lmao. (That was more of an amusing anecdote than anything else.)

During the final parts of our trip when we were on manmade platforms and stairs (which was boring imo), we could really actually see scribblings by communists of the past which detailed their plan to hijack a car at a certain time (by drawing an analog clock that shows said time) and kill the British 0_o. There were also lyrics to the communist party or something which the tour guide told us he used to know how to sing it, but ever since complaints of him singing a communist song made it to the newspaper because apparently he was spreading the ideals of communism through singing it (seriously people can be soo fucking moronic), he had to stop doing so.

And we were also shown a British soldier’s grave, but his body was already flown back to England ages ago.. the true story was (according to my tour guide) he fell down and accidentally died or something, but what was written in history was that the poor man died fighting communists in the cave wtf.

OK I must be boring you enough with my cave stories so here’s a pic when we finally exited the cave!

Group pic!

Jess’ horribly battered shoe.

My Crocs survived the cave =D even though the sole was slightly worn out (I dunno whether it was as a result of the cave or my daily usage).

The gruelling 4 hours came to an end (and I’d like to say again that it’s not as gruelling as Bukit Tabur), and we were all hungry as hell. We changed our clothes before entering my car, and waited for a while, while Esther purchased 25 RM0.20/stick satay (!!!) nearby. O_O You would never find satay at such a price in Klang Valley..

I told the rest that we should eat first before going back to our hotel ‘cause when we reach our hotel they’d be too lazy to go out etc but they wouldn’t listen.. and I was proven right after nearly everyone had showered and they wanted to sleep WTF.

So in the end both Jon and I went out in search of food.. and he brought me to Cendul Famous Kampar. =)

Only RM1 cendol (if you eat it there) would you believe it! It’s cold, refreshing and delicious and a definite quench-thirster with the right amount of santan in the mix (plus it’s lactose-free! I knew that ‘cause I asked the Indian lady wtf).

With my money, Jon bought some cucur udang and popiah basah at a stall (at the same row as the cendol stall). It was fairly cheap too (we bought RM2 worth of them) and gobbled them down.. and was quite contented with our cincai lunch ‘cause it was nearly 4pm when we were there, and we were gonna eat our dinner soon anyway..

Location of Cendul Famous Kampar (and the row of food stalls) can be found in the Google Maps I pinpointed below:

View Larger Map

After catching the Discovery Channel song titled I Love the World (with the catchy boom de yada beats) on TV, I quickly Youtube-d it and kept watching the ad repeatedly, with the words “The World is Just Awesome” hit me as I realised that it’s true. =) Very uplifting theme song too.

For dinner, we merely walked out to Dataran Kampar (the so-called mini-Taipan of Kampar wtf) and ate at this large field, where the restaurant operator had set up a large projection screen. We watched this Taiwanese game show, where people would perform and judges would give them money based on what they feel about it, and we laughed a fair lot. It actually entertained us so much that we ended up glued to that game show for 1-2 hours wtf. As for the food, it reminded me a lot of that restaurant at ss15 – mostly western food, fresh fruit juices (mm) for reasonable prices.

Played The Game of Life again when we got back. I wasn’t concentrating half of the game ‘cause I was busy watching The Amazing Race Asia 3: Memories on TV (thank god my hotel has AXN!).

Esther and I (eating junk food).

Jon was also sleeping a lot before we coaxed him to wake up, and he was struggling to open our final bottle of white wine. Even after some help from Heng and hotel staffs, the cork was still stuck and we had to follow Esther’s idea of pushing the cork downwards instead, and quickly pour our wine out.

Kai was also quite high and I got into a stupid argument with him over his drunk driving LOL.

Jon and I ended up sleeping on the queen-sized bed again for the night, with Heng on the sofa again.

Kampar Day 3 – 30th November 2008

We were up late this time (at about 8am-ish) and ate our breakfast – there were way more people than usual and we had to sit outside as a result. This time for some odd reason we weren’t charged for the extra 2 people (forgot to mention that it was coupon-based) and the guy who accepted it merely nodded his head and ushered us in. 0_o

Then at about 11am as the rest were getting ready, I headed up to the rooftop to snap some pics (I was up there for the first time wtf, dunno why apart from Heng, we didn’t bother to visit it at all).

Click to enlarge this panoramic snapshot of Kampar – well mostly Dataran Kampar.

My favourite shot of the entire trip. =D I learnt from some photography forums that landscapes should be snapped with a very narrow aperture (for sharpness from end to end) which I put into practice here, and I loveee the gorgeous reflection. That kid in the pool kinda spoiled it a little though imo.

We checked out at 12pm sharp, then went upstairs to snap some final group shots.

Playing around a bit at the small gym on the rooftop.

Group pic! Too bad about the harsh sunlight.

I love this shot too.

Another group shot but very off-centre haih, didn’t check properly (hard to, when the camera is merely supported by my Gorillapod on the ground, and it was bloody hot).

Me with Esther, Jess, and Kai.

In the car before we finally depart the Grand Kampar Hotel for good.

Stopped by at the Cendul Famous Kampar stall again as the rest had yet to taste it.

We also ate at the cheap asam laksa stall again for lunch (the rest had chicken rice and something else), and here’s the location on Google Maps that I had not posted up on the previous Kampar entry:

View Larger Map

The rest were chatting animatedly at the back before they..

..slept soundly.

I was struggling to keep myself awake to teman Jon, so we chatted for a while, occasionally myself exclaiming something trivial and unimportant just for the sake of having something to talk about to keep ourselves awake lol! The sacrifices that the driver and co-driver had to make wtf.

I reckon that we only finally reach Subang at about 4pm – that’s about 2 hours drive plus.

Would’ve preferred to stay a night longer ‘cause frankly, even though there’s nothing to do in Kampar, going for holidays for merely 2 nights felt a little short for me. But doing an actual intensive (sorta) exploration of a cave was an amazing experience. :) That, plus we merely spent only a little less than RM200 per person to cover every single expense that we had for the 3 days 2 nights we were there.