Royal Rangers Selangor 7

By Christopher Tan

It was already 7.16am. Four commanders and 7 rangers waited at the church entrance. There were supposed to be 12 rangers actually, but only 7 came. Seven is a good number anyway, and so we left for a 2 hours journey to Gua Tempurung, Kampar.

We arrived at Gua Tempurung around 9am, and the first thing we did was to…get off the van. Although we brought backpacks and water bottles along, all we took were just our torch lights and headlights, though we kept a bottle among ourselves just in case someone gets thirsty. Believe it or not the toilet cost 30 cents, and if wanted to take a shower or change, you had to pay one dollar. The trees and underground rivers looked mysteriously appealing…

After some waiting we and another tour group were assigned to a guide. I have never seen people with so much enthusiasm. So first we went along some man-made stairs and walkways and the guide gave some description about the place, usually showing us some interesting rock formations. There was one that looked like a cat’s face, a goat, a drumstick, an elephant, a cowboy, and even a “Bangladeshi Singh”. We passed another tour group and kept on walking while observing the beauty of the cave. We descended a steep stairway and at the bottom the guide asked us to temporary switch off our lights. It was then when we realized how dark it actually was. It was so dark that you can put your palm in front of your face and can’t even see it. After that we switched on our lights again and departed from concrete paths to paths of limestone and clay.

The guide (actually called a ranger) led us through some tunnels with occasional pools of water on the floor. Along the way we could see plenty of stalactites, stalagmites, marble rock, and lots of graffiti, not to mention an assortment of bottles and lost shoes. Finally we came to a slope, where we all had to slide down. I was lucky number one. The rangers and commanders went down first noiselessly, and we waited at the base while listening to the thrills and screams of the group that followed. After the slope was a hole in the ground, which led to the underground rivers of Gua Tempurung. That’s where the waters were. Thus from there our feet constantly got wet and at some places the passageway was so narrow we had to crawl. If we were lucky it was half filled with water. If we were unlucky it was half filled with water with more dripping from the ceiling. A few passages later, we finally saw a bright light…we had reached an end of Gua Tempurung. It was around 1pm, and we all sat at the banks of the shallow brook drying our shoes, while some kept their shoes in the water anyway. Commander Terence said that there would be sun bears around during the early morning, but unfortunately there were no sign of any. Maybe it was because of the clouds (editor’s note: forgive Chris’ lameness).

After we rested we continued the trip back, but by a different route. More crawls ensued, and finally we exited back to the entrance greeted by a lovely radiance and fluttering butterflies by the banks. We took a photo, and changed our clothes, and hopped onto the van for lunch. And no we didn’t need to pay for changing our clothes. Go figure out yourself.

We had lunch in a Kampar town. The lunch was “herbal chicken wrapped with bread”. Woah! There was curry chicken too. Commander Wei Sern asked whether Kampar was famous for its cendol, so after lunch we decided to search for some cendol, and along the way found out that our chicken bread was taken from another shop a few streets down. We finally found a cendol stall (its sign said “Famous Kampar Cendol”), and stopped for some desert. This cendol was special, mainly because it had pulut in it and thick brown sugar!

I thank God for our safety during this expedition, and the rangers proved their stamina and strength, especially since one of us just joined in recently. The caves themselves showed the marvel of God’s handiworks and the beauty of His creation. I could come back 4050 years later and finally see joined columns where stalagmite stumps once stood, and the caves would then have a new story to tell.