Wednesday, September 10, 2008

6-7th Sept Trip - CAVING

First and foremost, a loud applause to out 1-man-committee OCP Durian for organising and making this trip possible.

On the 6th of September (Saturday), 17 Sky Adventurers gathered at TBS ground floor, eagerly waiting for Mr.Nanda and his team to arrive with the bus. As time was, is, and will be precious, we played cho dai di in the mean time. Can you believe that there are SAC member who don't know how to play cho dai di??? How can this be??? SAC = cho dai di pros la..

In the bus, some slept, some continued to play cho dai di. We stopped at Tapah rest stop for a heavy breakfast, then continued our journey to Gua Kanthan.

Upon arrival near Gua Kanthan, life jackets were distributed. We had to walk through an estate-like road, then walk passed a river and few ponds, then a snake temple in a cave, and finally the entrance into a jungle. After 15minutes of hiking, we reached the opening of Gua Kanthan, where we were asked to wear the life jackets, and tie a string tightly in between our legs to secure it *ouch*.

Caved awhile, and came to an in-cave, underground river which happens to be the starting point of Sungai Kanthan. We went in the river one by one, and boy was the river freezing cold. The river was very deep, even Coconut couldn't touch the ground with his toes. Occasionally while swimming, where will be high rocks in the middle of the river that can't be seen as it was dark. BUMB! There goes a swollen butt. Swam, swim and continued to swim, we finally reached the inner part of the cave, where our sight cave-seeing trip starts. Caved while, got out from the other side somewhere above some mountain, where the view was breath-taking. Then we caved back out through the same route.

Back at the starting point, we went to the other side of Gua Kanthan, which was a dry cave. Walked around, sight-see awhile, and we headed back. According to Mr. Nanda, if the sun was shining really bright through the opening above the cave, the walls will glow and sparkle like diamonds. Too bad it wasn't a sunny day T.T. On our way back to the opening of the cave, there was a very loud sound out of the sudden. To our horror Wave fell from quite a high ground. Thank God her life jacket cushioned her a little, thus no serious injuries, only bruises.

Before we hiked out through the jungle again, we were given a task to find our own way out. Nanda and another guide went out first, leaving the last guide behind the line. Banana was elected to lead us out. After few mistakes and errors, we managed to find our way out. We washed up in the river outside and also cleaned our life jackets.

Fortunate for the girls, they managed to use the toilets in a nearby Indian Temple to change, while the boys changed in the open =). Headed to some small town in Ipoh for dinner, and went straight to Gua Kandu.

As we were walking into Gua Kandu, it started to rain alittle. Nevertheless we reached our destination without much problems. At the 'mouth' of Gua Kandu, we settled down, opened up floor sheets, cleaned up a little, opened sleeping mats and sleeping bags. A small group of us slept for 1hour before night activity, while the rest continued to play cho dai di.

Finally night activity came. Without our torch lights, we went in Gua Kandu. Only the 3 guides had torches. After caving in quite a distance, we were separated and placed in different corners of the cave. There was no one in at least a 5meter radius. No torch lights, no sound, no nothing. We sat there for almost 30minutes. In the mean time, the guides made some sound to try to scare us. It was really a test of courage. After that, Teddy was given a candle, and he have to find all of us and bring us out. Holding hands, we formed a string of 16people. Notifying each other whats coming ahead, whether its on the ground or on the top. Soon enough we realised Wave was missing. The guide made us walk back to look for her. After a long detour, we found Wave, who was hidden by the guides and told not to respond to our calls. After coming out, most people blamed the guides for hiding her. But personally, I think its our fault for not noticing she was missing. Imagine if it was a real situation and she had fainted instead *touch wood*. Dangerous wei.

Upon coming out, we cleaned up a little again. This time was the inverse of just now. Those who were playing just now went straight to bed, while the smaller group who were sleeping just now stayed up to play cho dai di. Sushi brought mess tins and portable stove+solid fuel to cook maggie mee, nice. After getting quite sien of cho dai di, we played the SAC signature card game - Indian Poker, or commonly known as SAC Poker. Whats so signature about it was the punishment. We started with kissing lips to lips with a card in between, and proceed to kissing the neck, with a card also of coz. Around 1am+, we all went to bed.

The next day, we had our self-brought breakfast. Packed up, and went into the cave for flying fox. It was a great experience overall. Few people got injuries. Mew Mew injured her knee so badly that she had to use a stick as her walking stick. Coconut's spectacles flew away also, but Wave managed to find it back. After 2hours of rotting in the cave flying fox, we split into 2 groups, 1 took the cave way out, and the other took the jungle way. We met back at the 'mouth', cleaned up the place, packed, and left for Subang.

On the way back, we dropped by Tapah rest stop for lunch. All along the journey back, seniors (pros) taught the juniors (learning/noobs) how to be a cho dai di pro. We called it a 'training session' for juniors. If they wanna join SAC, they got to be cho dai di pros. LOLZ!!

That about sums up our caving trip. More editing will be done to this post later. Meanwhile, pictures are already up in the multiply. Have a nice day!

1 comment:

Chelsina said...

Hi.. wanna ask can u intro me the guides to gua kanthan? his contact no. maybe.. coz im interested in going for this tour.. and u have pics of the cave tour?