Tahan expedition - Feb 2012

This is a blog about the 6D5N hike to the summit of Tahan which is positioned at 7186 ft or 2187 meters above sea level.  It is a one way hike from one entrance of the Malaysia National Park (Merapoh) to another entrance/exit of the park at Kuala Tahan. The total distance for the hike is approximately 105 kilometers and an average of 7.5hours hike everyday.

We departed at 4pm from Penang on Feb 4 by bus to KL KTM at about 8.30pm. It was a shame to say that it was my first time seeing KTM in KL. Then we took a train to PJ bus terminal then took a bus again to Merapoh. The road to Merapoh was quite bumpy that the bus was shaking up and down throughout the entire trip to Merapoh. We reached Merapoh at about 4am in the morning and we took a nap at the Surau just a few meters away from the bus stop.

Putrajaya KTM Station

The next morning we took the four wheel drive to the office of the national park and surrender some of the controlled items such as plastic bags, bottles, batteries, garments, shoes and towers. Each and everyone of us have to pull out all the items and count them individually in-front of the officer and he will record all the numbers and check it again when we exit the park. This is to ensure that all the hikers did not leave any unwanted items in the park. The officer also play us the video about the park and brief us a list of do and don'ts inside the park. Porters brought the weighing scale to ensure the things we passed to them is less than 15kg per porter.

Four wheeled drive for the back packs

Surrender all the belongings

After all the necessary check in and briefing, we hopped on the four wheel drive again and started our journey to the starting point of the hike at Sungai Relau. From there, the 6D5N is started!! We go through Sungai Relau twice where the height of the water is just at knee level that we can go through pretty easily. It was a muddy trail after that throughout the way to Kem Kor. We reached Kem kor in about 3hours time to wash up. Porters were late by about 2 hours. We started the cooking and setup the tent after that.

After muddy spa on the shoes

Bonsai Tree

Very muddy trail

Leading to the peak!!

Feb 6 - We started the hike to the summit at about 8am. We reached Bonsai at about 3pm and then Bukit Botak at 4.40pm which is 3km away from Bonsai. Botak is just 2.5km away from the summit of Tahan. We washed up and rest at Botak for awhile before heading up to the summit. We started to hike to the summit at about 5.50pm and reached about 7pm. The tent and the rest of the utilities were with porters that yet to arrived, luckily we brought stoves with us and borrow some instant mee from the hikers of other group that stay at the same summit. After that, we lay down on the plastic sheet on the floor and wrapped ourselves with plastics and sleeping bag due to the strong wind and cold weather on the summit. Porters only arrived on 2.30am which is about 7hours later than us. We then wake up and setup the tent and quickly sleep inside the tent.

The view of clouds at 2178meter. 

Airplane pieces left over from WW2

Feb 7 - I was not able to wake up for the sunrise because of the late night sleep the night before. After wake up and breakfast, we went up to take the photos at the summit sign post as a memory that we have reached the peak of Tahan!! Then we started to descend to Gedong at about 11am. We reached Gedong at about 3.30pm. Similarly, we washed up and changed the clothing for the night while waiting for Porters to arrive. Porters once again late for about 2 hours to reach at about 5.30pm. We then cooked and setup tent for the night again. It is a open space at Gedong so at night, it was windy and getting even colder at midnight.

Feb 8 - This time I can get up in time for the sunrise at Gedong and the panoramic sunrise view was just awesome. We were standing above the clouds and all other mountains peak were just lower than where we stand. After caress the scenic sunrise view for awhile, we quickly pack up and continue our journey to descend to lower peak at about 9am. This time we were told that we need to go through the cliffs that are with narrow ladders. We were warned to make sure only one people at a time while climbing down the ladder because it is quite dangerous if we did not hold the ladder properly or another person make shake the ladder unintentionally that may hurt others. It was quite a challenging day that we are descending at most of the time through ladders and jungle trekking. We reached Teku camp site beside the river at around 5pm. As usual we waited for around 2 hours for porters to reach before we start cooking and settle down for camping.

Armageddon!

Gedung Campsite

Japanese? 

Beautiful sunrise at Gedung peak (2065m)

Feb 9 - This is a day full of RIVER challenges where we need to cross 8 hip height rivers with considerable strong current flow in the middle of the river. A few of us fell back on the river sometimes when they were out of balance, but we still managed to cross all the rivers safely. The second challenge of the day is how to avoid Leeches that were dancing on the floor, leaves or branches along the hike. All kinds of insect repellent such as mossi guard, salt spray etc has been applied to all over the leg and shoes but most of us still not able to avoid leeches bite. We reached melantai campsite at around 6sth and once again waited the porter until 9 something at night before we can start cooking and set up the camp.

Feb 10 - This is the last day of the Tahan hike. The trail was not so tough but it was so long that we feel it is hardly finished. Anyway we still managed to finished the hike per plan! Thanks to Bunny for preparing the soft drinks at the finishing point to quench our thirst and ease our tiredness! We quickly wash up and clean up our stuffs. We put all the rubbish into a big plastic for declarations and also take out all the belongings to check out with the officer. We then took a boat back to the restaurant beside the main road for lunch. Then we quickly buy some souvenirs at the souvenir shop before took the bus back to Jerantut town. We then hop on to another bus to pudu KL then took LRT to KL sentral. Our group leader Bunny treat us with a big meal at KFC as a celebration for finishing the hike per planned! We then took KTM to PJ to wait for the bus to Penang. We reached Penang around 4am in the morning on Feb 11.

Giant Tree

Old button on an old bus.. 

on the way back to Jerantut