Life's Like Coffee: Caving at Batu Maloi Cave

I have submitted my research proposal!!! woohoo!! Finally! Now I can have a lil bit of fun before proposal defence!

Last Saturday, I joined a caving activity held by Kaki Rayau Official. -a group started by some UiTM students a long time ago. Thats what I've been told la.

One of my lab mates asked me if I'd be interested. Since my mom said I should have fun dulu after I wrote my research proposal, mestilah nak pergi! Moreover, I've never done caving before.

My friends and I left UTM jalan semarak around 7am. Once we reached there, the head of the group checked the attendance and then we had breakfast while our guide gave a briefing.

There were more girls than the guys! Most of them were actually fixing their make up (touch up their lips with lip gloss, etc) while waiting for our guide to come. I was and still am amazed by these girls.

attendance, check!

Right after breakfast and briefing, we went off to the cave! It was just a short hike before we reach the entrance of the cave. The interesting part about this cave is that it is a talus cave -formed by boulders. Not the usual limestone cave. Another interesting part of this cave is the river and waterfalls inside the cave. There are 25 checkpoints. checkpoints 1-5 are partially dark and 6-25 are total darkness zone.

At the entrance. Head lights, on!

The track was as what as I imagined it would be. I really enjoyed it. Climbing, jumping, crawling and so on... it was such an adventure!! We started the journey by crawling under a huge boulder.

This is how the entrance was like

We even had to abseil right after that. It was scary but fun at the same time

This was not as scary as I thought it would be

Then, we had to walk to the other side of the boulder by crossing a tree's root. I've seen some photos of it on the internet and it looked so scary! But it was not as high as I thought it would be. hahaha.

It was super slippery

Then it was more climbing. The boulders were really slippery so it was quite hard for me to get a grip even with my shoes.

Yep, river in the cave

The track was 70-80% wet. Even though it was a very sunny day, we were okay as we were in the water most of the time (plus, we were in the cave). It hasn't been raining for about 2 months there, so 3 of the waterfalls in the cave dried out.

So when we went out of the cave, there was this boulder... I climbed it, fell, hit my right knee and my left foot got stuck in between the boulders. Nice one ili! And thank you, my dear lab mate for not counting how many times I fell this time. (lab mate has this weird habit counting how many times I stumbled, fell, etc). Lab mate got scolded by the girls who were still waiting to climb the boulder. "Why didn't you grab her?!! She was right behind you!". Thanks girls, but I can handle myself. It's okay to fall and get injured sometimes. I'm used to it ;)

can you see the red circle? that was where I fell

(this photo were taken by one of the members seconds before I reach that red circle)

Can you spot a triangle shaped space between the boulders in the photo below? Its one of the way to go to the other side of the boulder. I climbed a boulder on the photo's right instead.

getting near to a waterfall

After that we had a short hike to go back to our starting point. We had the chance to see Batu Maloi on the way back. Batu Maloi is a gigantic boulder which people believed that it is alive (a long time a go) because it seemed to grow bigger in time. The truth is, it was due to soil erosion. I don't have the photo of the rock though...

Group photo, at the exit of the cave

The track was not as long as I expected which made me hungry for more!! But it was a very fun, thrilling and adventurous trip. I don't know about other people but I had so much fun! We had lunch at the starting point (provided), then we jumped into the small dam nearby. Yeah... swimming after food is never a good idea but we had fun anyway. hahaha.

We cleaned up and all, and went back to KL. Singgah Seremban kejap konon nak makan cendol, cendol dah habis! oh well, theres always next time.