First expedition to Chiling Falls (continued from Lola's post)

Words and Images by Ben

On Sunday, 1st of July, 2007. The Ulutopians went on a trip to Chiling Falls in Kuala Kubu Baru.

The day started early for me. I woke up at 3 a.m. and got ready. At about 4.30 a.m. I drove out from my house in Sepang. I stopped by Wak Jam's house in Bandar Baru Bangi. There, I picked up Wak Jam and Puck. From Bandar Baru Bangi, we went to Ali's house in Taman Datuk Harun to pick him up.

After that we went to JR's house in Kinrara so that Puck could hand over to JR the last night's collection (Puck works at JR's bundle shop in Ampang). Otai, his brother Hafiz and Lola were already at JR's house. They conducted their Subuh prayers at JR's house while Puck, Ali, Wak Jam and I prayed at a surau at the Awan Besar rest area.

We finally departed to Kuala Kubu Baru about 6 a.m. from Puchong. We took the MRR2 and stopped at the Projet petrol station in Gombak to fill up on petrol. We then headed to Ulu Yam. From Ulu Yam, we headed to Kuala Kubu Baru.

We went to the Chiling Falls in two cars; my car and Hafiz's car. Ali, Puck and Wak Jam were passengers in my car, while Lola, Otai, Hafiz and JR were in Hafiz's car. Ali got headaches listening to Puck, Wak Jam and I singing along to Alice in Chains and Soundgarden songs. The reason for the headaches? The three of us were singing in Sesame Street voices (imagine Elmo singing "The day I tried to live").

Puck was also having a field day using the walkie talkie, saying funny things, causing Lola (who was the operator of the other walkie talkie)to get pissed off. In the end, Ali took over from Puck as the walkie talkie operator.

We stopped a short while near the Kuala Kubu dam as from the road, we could see a magnificent view of the river.

After that brief stop, we went on a bit further and found the bridge which was the landmark to the place to enter Chiling.

We went in and after a short walk, found a campsite. From there, we had to trek using a jungle trail to get to the Chiling waterfall. It was quite a walk, we had to go through ferns, jungle, climb up and down hills and cross the river several times. The trail was pretty clear though. We could see plenty of damselflies, katydids and Iswara butterflies, though I didn't manage to capture any images of these insects.

When we finally arrived, there were already some people there. We unpacked and started to enjoy ourselves. From where we were, we could see 2 levels of the waterfalls ( I believe there are 7 levels). The pool area of the waterfall was big and the water quite clear, and there was space to picnic.

There were lots of fish in the river, the fish were quite tame too. These fish ( called Tengas in Malay)are protected and catching them in Chiling is prohibited.

After awhile, the place got quite crowded as more and more people arrived. One group of about 50 people came and even brought kids and babies. I really don't think that going to the waterfalls with small children and babies is a good idea. As I wrote before, to get there you have to go through ferns, jungle, climb up and down hills and cross the river several times. JR received scratches on his neck from low branches, and many of us nearly slipped because of wet and slippery rocks, tree roots and vines. I can't imagine how they brought the small kids and babies to the waterfall. Yet they all seemed to be in good condition and the kids still energetic and happy. They certainly didn't look like people who had a hard time getting there.

We decided to go down to a more quiet spot. We found a place where there was a fallen tree trunk over the river. Lola was first to try and jump from the tree trunk into the river. After that Puck wanted to try. He spent 3 minutes standing on the tree trunk trying to find the courage to jump. After he finally jumped, he got himself hurt because he didn't know you had to tuck your legs together before you hit the water. I also got myself hurt that way jumping from the tree trunk the first time I jumped, but luckily my injury wasn't as bad as Puck's. However, he was only hurt for a short while thankfully.

After that we trekked back to the campsite as it looked like it was about to rain. Reaching the campsite stopped to rest and also chatted with 2 of the park rangers there. They gave us some info on the place, for example things like the species of fish in the river. We also found out that we could camp there overnight if we notified them beforehand. We obtained a phone number to call if we wanted to contact the ranger to arrange camping or to get info.

After that we headed out of Chiling and drove to Kuala Kubu Baru town. There we stopped at a restaurant to eat. After eating, we all headed home. We drove home from Kuala Kubu Baru at about 5 p.m.