Final Part of 'kuantan-Pos Pantos-Bangi-Terengganu-Gunung Liang,Tanjung Malim'

Hey there, it has been almost a month since my last post (in fact it’s exactly one month! What a coincidence). I have so many things to blog about:-

1. Mount Liang Expedition
2. International Bamboo Rafting Expedition
3. Community Posting Stories
4. New short true stories for hikers
5. Lesson learnt – Case Study
6. Career Options
7. And many more that I wish to share with others.

Maybe I should write first thing first:-

Mount Liang Expedition (8th – 10th May 2009)

The desire to use my new 40L+ Karrimor hiking bag leads to the decision to join Mount Liang East West Expedition organized by ARC Gombak, which gives me 1001 expectations because this time, most of my friends were not able to join. There were 31 participants that include me, Kak Yani, Hasan (the only people that I know), UIA Gombak students and students from Monash University and UniKL.

8th May 2009 (Friday)

We had to gather at KL central to catch 8.00pm train to Tanjung Malim. The trip was fun as we got the chance to meet Abu Bakar Othman, Malaysian actor (he happened to be in the wrong train, if i'm not mistaken), and he was very funny. We also spent the time playing cards. We finally reached the destination, (Tanjung Malim station was not that bad after all) and had dinner before going to the ‘kaki gunung’. We set up the place simple enough for a few hours of sleep before early hike on the next day.

9th May 2009 (Saturday)

I can’t really recall what time we began our climb, but the tracker had estimated that we shall reach the second base camp by 5 pm. The track most of the time were gentle slopes but as usual, I’ll be among those who were left behind as one by one went past us. Before reaching the second base camp, we came across 2 streams and one tributary. We spent more than 1 hour at the third stream as there were mini waterfalls. The temptation to bathe was so strong that we end up sitting under the waterfall enjoying the free spa!

After that we continue our journey and the track was no longer ‘mendatar’. That is when, I started to breathe heavily. Moreover, after the ‘free spa’, we were all wet and that slows down our pace. Whenever one of us feels tired, we stopped for a while to have a short rest. One of the participants, Ilham offered me and Kak Yani her Red Bull drink. The bottle was very small so I just took one sip of the Red Bull. Believe it or not, after that, we had like an energy boost as we climbed non-stop for quite some time! We were like Red Bulls..! I was so surprised with myself. However, towards the end, I was panting heavily and my pace was extremely slow. We finally reached the second base camp at 3.45pm and that was early than estimated! The second base camp was very cold and foggy, which is perfect for a good sleep. That night, the Monash students set up campfire and we gather around for Taaruf session.

10th May 2009 (Sunday)

We woke up as early as 5 am so that we can start climbing early and reach the summit before the sunrise. One of us had brought along his SLR camera to capture the beauty of ALLAH’s creation during the sunrise. Having that as the driving force, we climbed non-stop with a quicker pace, It was not as tiring as the previous day but it was dark, and that was the challenge. However, we were disappointed because we did not make it to the summit before the sunrise. By the time we reached the East Summit, it was already bright. But, that did not stop us from taking photos..say KONICA! The distance from East to West Summit was not far, only 5 minutes long. But I and Kak Yani took almost half an hour as we were mesmerized by beautiful wild flowers, and magnificent spider webs! MasyaALLAH.

The west summit however was surrounded by tall trees which prevent us from enjoying the view. Not like the East summit whereby the view was magnificent. We can see range of mountains and hills at different tone of colour. Everything on the land seems very tiny. I’m not sure if I am exaggerating, but this may be the best summit view ever compared to Irau (maybe because of the fog), Senyum, and Stong. For your information, the height of Mount Liang is roughly around 6000+ ft (which is slightly lower than Puncak Irau). I don’t really know how to put this right; I had the chance to perform subuh prayer at the summit (take note that we reach there after sunrise). Opinions from you guys needed here!

Around 9 a.m we start moving down to the base camp. The pace was much faster and it was fun especially when we had episodes of ‘shuffle’ haha. We reach the ‘kaki gunung’ around 5 pm and clean up before go back home.

Well, personally I enjoyed this expedition and everybody was being very nice and friendly, funny and crazy too, they bring along 'the moon' flag everywhere! In fact, they are super helpful.To name all, there is 31 of them! Special thanks to Hasan for lending me his strong stamina to carry along my sleeping bag, my sweater and my water bottle, and also Kak Yani for slowing down her pace for me and Ilham for her Red Bull!