Texan adrift in Malay(Asia): April 2011

Janet and I needed a little adventure - so we found a Waterfalls Club of Malaysia - with trips and Waterfall recommendations. Chiling Waterfalls is the "prettiest" waterfall in Selangor (the state KL would be in if it wasn't it's own state). 1.5 hours from KL - our first trip to the jungle.

We (Matt) has decided that it's cheaper to taxi everywhere (costs more to park at my office than taxi rides back and forth) so we could rent a car for the weekend, or find a friend with a car ................. Actually found two friends with cars who wanted to go this weekend so we were set for this Sunday - Easter in nature - actually very nice.

Janet waiting for our ride to show up (Chris our driver got lost with a GPS - easier than it sounds in KL) got on a toll road and had forgotten to bring any cash so had to do the white man beg to go from toll booth to toll booth until he made it 30 minutes late.

Uneventful drive without getting lost and the last 30 minutes a nice trip through rainforest and past very cheap looking dam and a beautiful lake (think Lake Shasta x4) with nobody on it. It's against my cheapskate nature to own a boat but man - you would have the lake to yourself.

Directions were perfect - not much parking so even with the 20 cars, we had to park along side the road. 100 meter walk to the ranger station (took longer to sign in with 20 teenage boys ahead of use trying to work out the math of 1 RM / person - I almost offered to pay for them).

Then with our passport numbers (like they were the correct ones, duly entered into the sign in book) we were off with the warning to check out by 5:30 or if there were heavy clouds (as flash flooding makes the return trip a wee bit dangerous) return immediately. We crossed the bridge.

Nice walk - challenging but not too difficult - even for an old man like me. Just follow the river. After the suspension bridge (no more than 4 people allowed at one time) which bounces quite nicely there were 5 river crossings before we got to the waterfalls.

Chris (driver so we let him slide) even a bigger ham than me shows several of the more casual crossings. The designers of this trail did a nice job - each river crossing got a bt more challenging until at the last one we passed backpacks over our heads to make sure they didn't get wet.

We were actually helped by a group of Malaysian teenagers (in general we were a point of attraction all day) on this last river crossing but on the way back we realized that they had picked (or didn't realize) a deep part of the crossing (maybe to get their girlfriends T-shirts wet). They enjoyed helping Americans (actually asked for Green Card's in payment) so it was a win all around.

Typical wide range of Malaysian - Chinese in flip flops and short shorts on a spiky, rough trail to full Malaysian (not Middle East) garbed teenagers.

The falls were nice (about 1 hour hike - not pushing at all)

A relaxing lunch (and drinking lots of water so my pack was lighter - thankfully) and then back up the trail.

The website said there were two falls further up (much more difficult hike) but we didn't see a trail and a 30 year old told me she had gone up to those falls as a child but too many people had died so they closed the trail. So we wimped out and didn't try and fnd them.

Amazing how much easier it is to cross the river the 2nd time.

For my C&C co-workers and example of going anywhere and whatever it takes to collect the cash and bring it home dry

Actually I think I got bit by a spider or something as I felt a bad sting and then have had some allergic reactions Sunday night and Monday. Typically Janet is more worried than I am (it's good to be male).

A picture of a sign in Malay.

I went on to explain what it said, Chris and Petra were impressed. Janet was somewhat dubious but said if you don't know it's hard to call Matt on his stories. I claimed that it was a message of thanks to the Sultan for establishing the park

Actual message a couple of hundred meters ahead

They'll learn but probably a couple of months of fun for me first. Another year older, another year better at making shit up.

Home stretch for the MIGHTY (Petra, Janet and Chris) jungle explorers

Then back to where we started

Adventure wasn't over - Janet was worried about the monkeys (based on Batu caves experience) I assured here there wouldn't be monkeys around since the food source wasn't there. So we set our packs down, cleaned the grit out of our shoes and then went and looked at the map to see that yes the trail only went to one waterfall (50 meters from our packs - and food) and two monkeys came running for our packs. We ran at them yelling and they ran away across the river.

As we left the park we saw a trash can with trash everywhere and multiple monkeys - they were where the food was. Actually very sad.

We made it home only getting turned around 2 times (laughing all the way at the GPS pronounciation - even worse than mine) in an 1.5 hours even in the daily huge rainstorm / lightening strikes for the last 20 minutes.

Janet and I got distracted so didn't join Petra at the night market (but that will be a future adventure).

We will bring guests who like a little adventure here - a very nice day trip. The Malaysians we saw were all very nice and welcomed us to Malaysia.

Next weekend Ipoh and 800 year old Chinese temples carved in limestone rocks. But amazing to me - all the Malaysians talk about is how good the food is in Ipoh (we'll do both). Maybe also a day to the beach since it's a 3 day weekend but I'm leery of traffic as I hate traffic jams.

Chin Ming - helpful wikipedia link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qingming_Festival

Roman Catholic version (All Souls Day) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dead

Janet went on a guided tour with the American Association of Malaysia. A number of my team took time off work to pay their respects. They came back, glad to be at work - too much work paying observances. Several friends in Poland say they pay their respects a week early to avoid the overwhelming crowds at the cemetaries. Chinese are more practical - the holiday observance is over several weeks.

Chinese Cemeteries are open to all, regardless of religion, provided you observe the burial conventions (individual graves) so practically are open to all but Muslim. There are two Chinese cemeteries in KL (Old and new).

There are a mix of burial plots and Urn ashes storage (I'm sure there is a official name)

The traditional Chinese can be much more colorful (so would say Magpie like - everything possible bright and shiny) than Christian graves

There is the average person's burial site

and then Millionaire's row.

There is much about the ceremony Janet didn't capture but what she did was
Lighting candles and incense to your ancestors

Buying paper replica's of everything the dead would need in the next life (cars, houses, iPads, etc). In fact there were some newspaper stories that the paper iPhones and iPads had become so popular that they had run out. Ancestors have been dead for awhile, but I guess the appeal of Apple products transcends physical presence.