Sunday, 6th August 2006:
Woke up very early, made our own breakfast and headed to the park’s office to keep our unwanted bags at the store room. Once every one arrived, we were guided to a small jetty for our boat ride. Along with 7 of us were our guide, Bagio, a village lady and the boatman. Our first destination was to visit a nearby longhouse then to Clear Water Cave and Wind Cave, which, was included in our package. The caves were located up stream; hence we need to use motorboat to push against the current especially on shallow water. Every time the motor hits the rock, the boatman stops the motor and lady uses her long magic stick to push the boat. This went on till we arrived at Wind Cave.
Woke up very early, made our own breakfast and headed to the park’s office to keep our unwanted bags at the store room. Once every one arrived, we were guided to a small jetty for our boat ride. Along with 7 of us were our guide, Bagio, a village lady and the boatman. Our first destination was to visit a nearby longhouse then to Clear Water Cave and Wind Cave, which, was included in our package. The caves were located up stream; hence we need to use motorboat to push against the current especially on shallow water. Every time the motor hits the rock, the boatman stops the motor and lady uses her long magic stick to push the boat. This went on till we arrived at Wind Cave.
School near long house
School
Eating area near Long House 
Long House The entrance to the Wind Cave is through Moon Milk Cave. We had to climb approximately 100 to 150 mossy slippery old stairs to reach the entrance of the Moon Milk Cave. Unlike Deer Cave or Lang Cave, the stalactites and stalagmites in Wind Cave was not so white or alive. Nevertheless, just as the name describes, it was indeed windy. From there our journey continued to Clear Water Cave by boat, which was just around the corner. The reason it was known as Clearwater Cave was due to its underground river that spilled into the cave and formed natural swimming pool. We walked on a concrete stairs to reach the swimming pool. The water was indeed crystal clear and cold. The legend says that, the water can cure ill and keep a person young. Hence, we all went down to wash our face with that icy cold water.
Clear water cave..
The joint stalactites and stalagmites on wall of Wind cave
Inside Wind caveAfter resting there for about 20 minutes, we continued our journey to Kuala Berar. The journey started out well. In other words, we had smooth boat ride. The further we went upstream, the shallow the river was. Every time the boat hits the rock, the boatman stops the engine and the lady uses her magic stick to push the boat forward or sometimes simply jump into the river to push the boat. Soon, Bagio jump into the water and then followed by Rain. Finally came a point when they could not push all 6 of us anymore. Hence, we all had to jump out of the boat to push. The moment the boat goes to high water level we would jump back into the boat. Just when felt that the agony was over, the engine hits the rock again, the boatman shut the engine and we go into the river to push it again.
I came across an article by fellow traveler who describes similar situation. She said, “we stayed in the boat if it was floating, we walked if it was shallow, and we helped push if the current was strong.” Yah, that’s pretty much what we did! However, in our case, we had 4 healthy man pushing the boat and it was very difficult to keep up with their strength. So instead of pushing, it was easier to just hang on to the boat and keep up with their phase. But that would make the boat heavier and it was unfair to them. So, after falling down several time into the river, I totally gave up on pushing. I would just walk by and jump in when it starts moving. Finally after pushing the boat for sometime, we reached Kuala Berar at about 12 o’clock. We stopped for lunch before proceeding with our journey. Of course, we just settle down for musli and lemon tea.
I came across an article by fellow traveler who describes similar situation. She said, “we stayed in the boat if it was floating, we walked if it was shallow, and we helped push if the current was strong.” Yah, that’s pretty much what we did! However, in our case, we had 4 healthy man pushing the boat and it was very difficult to keep up with their strength. So instead of pushing, it was easier to just hang on to the boat and keep up with their phase. But that would make the boat heavier and it was unfair to them. So, after falling down several time into the river, I totally gave up on pushing. I would just walk by and jump in when it starts moving. Finally after pushing the boat for sometime, we reached Kuala Berar at about 12 o’clock. We stopped for lunch before proceeding with our journey. Of course, we just settle down for musli and lemon tea.
Camp 5 was another 7 to 8 km away. So we continued with our journey. The trail from Kuala Berar to Camp 5 easy as it was flat ground all the way though we had to cross-rivers and bridges. Since it was flat ground, we refer to our third rule of climbing; run/walk fast! Hence with our heavy bag we walked as fast as we could, competing with each other to reach Camp 5. Half way through our walk, Uncle Annad who was ahead of us went missing. Finally after less the 2 hours walks, we saw the sight of Camp 5. Not only that, we even saw Uncle Anand standing on the riverbank washing his clothes! Yah, amazing old man!
Akka, Uncle Annand (from India) and me - to read more on uncle Annand adventure in Malaysia, you can visit his webpage http://www.borneowonders.com/Camp 5 is a simple hostel that consists of dorm, kitchen and flushable bathroom. It’s a large open room with no door, no window and looked like goat shed. A simple planked that was about our knee height, stretches both side of the wall and served as our bed. For more comfort, we were provided with hard matters to sleep. The kitchen was well equipped with gases, cooking utensils, kettle and so on. All one need is to bring food. This was way better then camping outside, as we need not bring extra things.
Front view of Camp 5..thats not the pinnacles
Camp 5As soon as we unpacked our bag, we quickly changed and headed to the upper part of Melinau river where, lies crystal clear natural swimming pool. Absolutely no one goes to Camp 5 without jumping in the pool. Despite the weather being warm, the water was extremely cold. After a long day of pushing the boat and walking, relaxing at the pool was indeed nice.
After almost an hour swimming, we headed back to our hostel to bath and prepare for our dinner. Since we didn’t take packaged tour, we had to cook by our self. Upon arriving at the kitchen, I was shocked to see Rain still with his sexy swimming trunk cooking for Sara and Elious. The way he cooked, I am pretty sure he must be good cook. But what amazed me most was his passion for coffee. He actually brought his brewing tools in the middle of the jungle to make coffee. No one can do that except for Rain.
Unlike others, we had very simple packed instant 3 in one food. All we need to do was boil our water, dump the packet into the boiling water and wait till it heats up. Mine, being vegetarian was rather tasteless. Thank good I brought my pickles and fried salted chilies. Uncle Anand look at us and laughed as he never thought Indian in Malaysia will be so fond of India food, even in the jungle. After our dinner, we chatted for a while with Uncle Richard and his kids, Rachael and Rosy, tourist from UK before heading back to our hostel to rest. Since we were practically sleeping on open air, I had to put on my jacket, socks and gloves to avoid being frozen. With all that clothes on, I still felt cold and find it difficult to sleep.
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