On 14th January, which was last Saturday, there were 10 of us, namley Jian, Shee Chia, Ally, Wei Jing, Chee Wai, Choon Hong, Horng Jau, Yin Foong, my brother and I, embarked on a Gua Tempurung Grand Tour caving expedition.
We chose to do the Grand Tour (entrance fee cost us RM 21 per person including shower; normal price is RM 22 without shower) because it is much more adventurous than the other three offered. Most importantly, it is going to be a wet one. Having nothing to be assured of how fun it would turn out to be, we just went on ahead without fear... I think.
The energy level for all of us was high. Jian, being the funniest always have his funny bones tickle, of course made us laugh and become "higher".
Anyway, we were introduced by the cave guide of the wonderful imaginative resemblance of the limstones within the cave. Remarks like
kaki ah moi, monkey driving, world cup trophy, giraffe, George Bush and so forth still resonnates in my ear. It was funny how the guide can imagine things by the look at these peculiar yet special limstones. Throughout the tour, we saw some mild shine, which was emitted from the stone's crystal pieces. Beautiful indeed.
At one point of the tour, our guide just turned off the lights for two minutes just to show us how dark it is. Truly enough, it was really dark, scary dark like the chinese saying "shen shou bu jian wu zhi" (litt. cannot see the five fingers on the hand, means it is really dark). The guide even told us a story about a Singaporean couple who went caving alone without proper guide was caught in the cave for a night, and the girl who were there was so scared stiff until her crying tears dried off. I can imagine the fear she was facing at that time.
The hardest part of the expedition has yet to come. After crossing "Top of the World", the tour began its slippery and our climb began to take place. It was hard. We had to climb up steep rocks and walked down steep slippery slopes; and the most difficult part of it would be the grand slide before reaching a hole, which leads to the tunnel of underground rivers. It was scary, yet I have made it! Well done to the scary girls, and the strong young men that rendered their support!
Throughout the trip, observation of bat guano (as bat will only comes during April and May) and other creepy crawlies like spiders and crickets (python will be around in June) were in place. It's something I hardly see in real life in the city. That's what make it exciting.
At the end of the journey, we played at the marble laid natural pool and mini waterfall just to stay relax after a 4 solid-hours hardwork in the cave. It was cooling and the water is so clean and refreshing. It was a tiring and wet journey.
I enjoyed the whole trip even more because I know that the company I was with are truly marvelous and trusted partners. Hope to do more adventurous event this year, maybe water rafting?