To the Caves!
The night we spent in Tokyo Hotel was the worst one I had in Asia. Mosquitoes sucked my blood with no mercy and when the sun finally came up I hadn't got almost any sleep and my body was covered with red spots. I wasn't nearly as disturbed by the pain as I was worried about diseases I could have received from the tiny flying monsters.
We got up at six, packed our bags and left the room to check out. Inna was going down the stairs ahead of me and right after turning towards the reception desk she turned 180 and rushed back up. The expression on her face was priceless. I had no idea what she had seen and I even got worried a bit. Quickly I asked what she saw and I had hard time believing what she told: the receptionist was naked!
And it truly was so. I peeked around the corner in the stairs and there he was, a man in maybe his seventies without any clothes on. The situation was quite awkward as we were in a hurry to catch the bus to the caves. We decided to make some noise on purpose, hoping he would come to his sense and wear something. Some minutes later I took the risk and walked down the stairs on thankfully he was wearing something.
The cave HQ
We checked out without any problems and caught the bus just in time. The bus took us to the town of Gopeng for five ringgits. In Gopeng we had to take a taxi to get to Gua Tempurung but at fifteen ringgits it wasn't expensive either. We arrived at the caves quite early in the morning and found out that they wouldn't arrange the longest and the most demanding excursion unless they got a bigger group of people. There weren't many people there but a group of locals had arrived just after us and I asked if they wanted to join us, and they did!
I had read about the longest excursion a bit beforehand and it was said that it's really demanding and one should be in good shape to take part in it. I was slightly concerned because of Inna but she was brave enough to give it a try anyway :). Just before entering the cave I ate the chicken and rice we had bought earlier from KFC. It was probably the fastest breakfast I've ever had. The staff was really polite towards us and we were allowed to leave our huge backpacks in their small booth. We also changed some clothes because they told that we would get wet on the way. That's the reason why I didn't take my camera and don't have any pictures from inside the cave!
Wan Chew, one of the girls in the Malaysian group that joined us was very talkative and friendly and smiled and laughed all the time :). We took some pictures together with them and she was quite interested in our travelling. Perhaps I can add some of the pictures she took to this page.
The first part of caving was easy, a walk along stairs. Our guide told us about the cave, how it had formed, what animals live there and so on. He also showed us some of the most interesting patterns and shapes they had discovered earlier. The cave itself was amazing: the main opening was huge and there were stalactites and stalagmites everywhere. A gentle breeze kept us cool and the temperature dropped a bit too.
Our extreme caving group :). Thanks to Wan Chew for the photo!
After walking for about forty minutes the group was split in two. The ones taking the shorter excursion turned back and everyone else started climbing down a slippery slope to reach the river running down on the bottom of the cave. The water was pretty cold and we had to walk in it quite often to be able to continue deeper into the cave. Without our headlamps it would have been pitch black.
One of the funniest thing in the cave was one of the members of our group: a drunken Greek-looking tourist. He kept hitting his head continuously to the stalactites hanging from the ceiling and after every time he cursed and remembered to crouch for a while, only to hit his head again in a few minutes. I bet he hated alcohol the next morning even more than usually.
Outside the caves
I guess you figured out already that the cave wasn't that big in all places. Not too long after meeting the river for the first time we were already crawling in it. Our clothes were completely soaked and there was no way the camera could have survived there! Sometimes there was only about 20 - 30 cm between the water and it was close we didn't have to dive to get through :). All in all the cave adventure took about four hours but wasn't strenous at all. We were walking or crawling slowly all the time and the biggest problem was climbing down a few steep and slippery walls. It wasn't frightening either because the light from our headlamps made everything bright. Even though it wasn't so extreme I still enjoyed it very much! The water and crawling in it made it exciting and we saw a few animals too. The ceiling was full of bats and I think we were the only ones to notice a medium-sized frog leaping to safety :).
After getting out we were in a hurry to catch the bus to Cameron Highlands from Ipoh. We changed our clothes quickly and Wan Chew called a taxi for us. Many many thanks to her for helping us! We had taken a risk by buying tickets to the earlier bus and this time it paid off. We made it to Ipoh in time and I guess there weren't any seats left in the bus. The curvy road to Cameron Highlands was very beautiful with tea terraces and jungle all around. The only downside were the curves. My head felt dizzy once again but I think Inna felt better because she slept :).
In Tanah Rata, the biggest town in Cameron Highlands, we checked all the hotels and guest houses and finally took one for thirty ringgits per night. We had a shared kitchen and bathroom but there were no other people in the house with us so it was a great deal. In the evening we went to eat in the night market, which closed really early for some reason, and checked for hiking tours and excursions to check the biggest flower on Earth. Both seemed a bit dull or overpriced and we went back to the guest house to have the rest we deserved, after killing a horde of cockroaches of course.
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