The 1-day Expedition to Gunung Muntahak

My fickle-minded mind stays fickle as I grow.
For example, I don't have a favourite colour because I cannot decide which colour to like. If one had compiled all the little diary books my primary school friends passed to me to fill in my biodata, you would see the inconsistencies:

In Ming Peng's book: Favourite colour = BLACK! (proceed to blotch some black ink here for emphasis)
In Meenatchi's book: Favorite colour = PINK!! (draw pink dolphin bottle here)
In Rosmidah's book: Favourite colour = RAINBOW!!! (insert cute mini rainbow with clouds and the 'M' birds here)

Same goes for favourite food. And hobbies. And which Animal do I like.
(But favourite friend would HAVE to be the person who owned the book, no questions asked. Politics, babe)

Until today, I can never tell you a specific colour, hobby, animal, hp brand, sports brand, makeup brand, lingerie line etcetc that I most adore.

But one thing I can tell your for certain is that
I LOVE OUTDOOR ADVENTURES.

Give me an option between a FREE 1 hour jacuzzi bubble massage session with Shah Rukh Khan at some celeb resort and a pay-yourself 3 day water-rafting trip at Pahang, I'd chose the latter without a blink.

Ok so this long intro brings you to the grand point, which is:
I went to Gunung Muntahak just now.
Hahahaha.

Big deal because it was a spontaneous YES! from me at 6.30pm on Tuesday despite enduring severe muscle strains from a gruelling 3.5 hours of touch rugby training on monday (I quit liao, please don't ask anymore questions thank you. hahaah) and netball on tuesday. So there was no time to rest poor muscles but really, whoever could resist such offer!

Eh wait, I know who can.
THOSE 10 PEOPLE I MESSAGED TO GO ALONG WITH ME BUT REFUSED BECAUSE:

1) MY MOTHER HAD BOOKED ME TO GO SHOPPING LAH, (stoppit eh freeloader!)
2) HAHAHA STOPPIT LAH IKAH PERGI TIDO, (biadap tak ni. aku serious oi bangau!)
3) JANGAN BEDEK.BYE, (ni lagi satu)
4) SORRY BEB AKU ADA HAL TAPI AKU INTERESTED LAIN KALI AJAK. (ye, kau ingat nak organise panjat gunung senang kan! kau cuba organise nak meet up for lunch!)

and I shall stop at these reasons because it just hurts my heart to read on.
(-_-)




But it's ok. Because my uncles were the ones organising, my bro and his friend tagged along and my uncles' other friends were a merry, friendly bunch of easy-going old timers. So it's cool. I'm adaptable. Who needs friends anyways. hmph.

I have absolutely no clue what/where/how/why is Gunung Muntahak. Turned out, none of the others knew too. The uncles decided to want to try something new. So it was our first time trying this mountain. From an Internet source (as quoted by the uncles), it's a 634m hike up a mountain located at the outskirts of Kota Tinggi, it's not as difficult as Gunung Ledang (which is a pretty easy hike), and one can complete the hike in 3 hours.
All's cool.

Until we met the Ranger named Jalal or Dalal or Dajjal or I don't know. Let's call him Bob. He is a man of many words and a man who never answers our questions.
Try asking him the time. He'll probably go:

Time is of the essence. Time, cannot be wasted because it is like precious dewdrops in the morning. No lah, I'm not saying I am an expert in philosophy but if we all just and think for a moment, say when we are lying on the bed, or when we're eating, you know we always have small time to spare to think for awhile. or even in the toilet! it's not wrong to think in the toilet what am I right.. so we will think and we will see the importance of time and we all will understand that time is not to be wasted and it will be a terrible waste if we waste time. Recently, we have people throwing waste at the upper end of the kampung's river and we were all bathing in shit without knowing can you believe it no neither could we until somebody noticed a floating one, greenish in colour too...

-.-
annoying kan.

But because the uncles were all so gentlemanly and merry, they merely nodded and smiled and after while crack a few jokes or two about Bob behind his back.

To cut to the chase, Bob, and his two other assistant guides have no clue how to bring us to Gunung Muntahak. We all knew the moment we asked: How do we get to Gunung Muntahak.
From Bob's beating about the bush and getting lost in the bush and never finding a way out, we gathered that:
Gunung Muntahak is actually the foot of a larger mountain called Gunung Tahak. There are 3 layers to scale to the peak of Gunung Tahak. The base level is known as Gunung Muntahak.

But anyhoots. We gots our game on so onward we bravely marched!




On the first stream, my beloved uncle, Cik Mamat slid and fell.
Later do we know that it was the opening fall for many falls (by others) to come.
Hahaha.



As we progressed, we realised that not many people treaded the routes and so the tracks were not well-grooved. Plus, it rained in the early morning so the ground which were mostly covered with leaves were wet and slippery. Many slid and fell (funnily, upon reflection. hahaha) but thankfully none were injured.



There were many challenges in this hike. We had to scale algaed rocks and steep slopes snaked with roots, we had to jump over slippery rocks to get to the other side of the stream, we went on irregular rhythm: up up down down down up down up up...



This hike beats Ophir's challenge which is essentially a long upward gradient hike and a couple of scaling here and there. It also beats Gunung Datok, which I heard, was a leisure Bukit Timah stroll, and even Kinabalu lost for it's only challenge is the long arduous hike up.




But we were rewarded. Our rewards were the majestic waterfalls, Wonderfully cooling, fresh, and sublime. To cross a waterfall means to submerge our throbbing feet into icy coolness, which relieved our tired feet even for just a little while. Most fortunately, the waters were not tainted by litters since not many people go there, and so it was at its best. I swear nothing could beat Nature's beauty. Not even the hot worked-out bod of Shah Rukh Khan.









Still, we had to scale up the waterfalls.
It was GREAT. FUN.



I love it! See my exuberant face!



ok the smile is abit guilty because while others are slipping on rocks, and getting pricked by thorny plants, I am camwhoring.





Then suddenly Bob did not know where else to go and decided to bring us all to a sand hill in the middle of the forest (-_-)



Worse, the old man happily led the first three unlucky people behind him (me, and 2 others) through a trail where we had to walk into mud that went as deep as your ankle, dammit! As adventurous as I am, I love my shoes!! (T_T)
So after I got nice thickly caked shoes,
I waited for the others to share our demise, and LO! they approached looking mud-free. WHY? BECAUSE there was an easier route that required no mud-trampling.
(T_T ||) From that moment on, I vowed never to walk behind Bob again.



So we trudged up that insignificant mini plateaus of sand, and suddenly...



...Off came the sole of my left shoe.
Seems like leaving a footprint is not enough, unlike Armstrong on the moon. Hahah!
But I'm a rugged chick, babe, no worries. I could still go on.
(acheeeeeyyyyyyyyyyy)



After entertaining Bob for some time (we were all trying to stall time to steal some rest hahaha), the uncles decided to head down to one of the waterfalls and have a dip. I should be jumping for joy like how I wanted to jump in those clear waters, but sadly, I did not bring any spare clothes (yeaaaa well I thought it was going to be something like a Bukit Timah hike) and eventhough I was wearing a cute lingerie set... no.



So there I enviously watched as one by one peeled their shirts off and submerged in the refreshing coolness. Sigh. I wish I am a guy sometimes. You species have no idea how lucky you are to be able to just take off your shirt anytime you want without causing mayhem. Sigh.
It's not nice to stare.
So I spent my time looking at these:



By the time we reached the waterfall, my right sole had come off. So I was basically walking on socks and a thin piece of cloth. Wheeeeee.



Then suddenly, I saw a strange creature floating towards me.



It looked strange, like an ancient fish or some sort.
I peered closer. Suddenly, in a squeaky voice it said: Kiss me! And I will turn into a prince!

..............

Ok fine. I had to preoccupy my mind with something right.
My shoes are gone, I can't swim, what do you expect me to do.
It's a plant which has a name I've forgotten, in case you're wondering.



After their bathes, we took our shaking knees and throbbing feet back to the start.

The guides weren't much of a help, safety factor being -10 and they were most of the time BEHIND US, all the bloody three of them, and we overpaid them for the trip.
We also found out did not even go to Gunung Muntahak, but instead, was taken into Sungai Pelepah Kiri, which is a small part of the gunung. We didn't even go to Kanan ok. We were also not rewarded with a "peak". A hike is always never complete without reaching the peak. What we actually did was to scale up the waterfalls and that's it.
In these senses, our trip was actually unsuccessful.

But luckily for Bob, there were beautiful waterfalls and rugged challenges and everyone pretty much had a memorable experience.
ESPECIALLY ME! LOVED IT
despite the bruises, the scrapes and the now bloody excurciating muscle strains!
:D



I can't wait for their next planned trip, which I heard is water-rafting at Sungai Linggi. Woooooohoo. I'm so in.





So, friends, how. Want to join me now?

P.S: Pictures taken by my dutiful N85. Pleasing how the pictures turned out eh! :D