Hani Khaursar

Surviving the Falls

March10

On Sunday the boys (Henry Golding, David Barton-Grimley and Khalid Hilaby) and I decided to venture out of KL for a little rest and relaxation. Thanks to Omar (and Mariq and Effa), we found our way to the waterfalls at Sungai Dua, off the Karak highway. It was actually supposed to be a post birthday celebration for Chuong, but then birthday boy didn’t show up so we had all the fun for him (Happy Birthday Chuong)!

I shamefully admit that this is the first time I’ve been to such a pretty waterfall. Not that I’ve only been to ugly falls, but they’ve all been small and trickly rather than big and gushing. There is something rather magical about falls. Especially when you finally manage to claw your way to the back of one. It is a mixture of silence and noise. To one side the stillness of the ‘cave’ and on the other side the sound of water beating down on the rocks.

We spent the better half of the day just monkeying around, jumping off branches into the water, swinging from ropes and trying to get under the falls. It isn’t easy business because the water was pounding down furiously almost mockingly!

Anyway, here are some tips on surviving the falls (from your professional fall surviver – moi – of course):

Wear the right gear. Take a tip from Dave who wore his sneakers. We had to walk across a small body of water and Dave thought the best course of action is to just walk through with his sneakers only, which equals to soaked sneakers.
Bring a towel. Or two. You will need to dry yourself off and nobody likes sharing towels!
Bring a mat. We forgot to bring one, and had to make do with the rocks around us. It wasn’t horrible but it would’ve been awesome to have a mat to lie on to relax and catch some rays.
Sunblock. The boys were well and truly burnt by the end of the day! The thing about the falls is that you can’t tell when the sun is working its magic cause it’s so nice and cooling there. But rest assured that you will get burnt, so best to be prepared.
You don’t need that much food! So we learnt. We brought enough food to feed… a lot of people. Didn’t even manage to make a sizable dent in our ration. So just bring easy to make food (Khalid’s bread and turkey ham slices was a big hit, mainly because it was so easy to put together) and lots of water.
Be prepared to get wet. It’s a waterfall. Full of water. At some point you will get wet. Wear your swimmers underneath and don’t worry about your hair.
Pick up after yourself. When we finally made it to the back of the falls, we found empty bottles of Coke! Seriously, it won’t kill you to just throw everything into a bag and carry it out with you. It take about a minute but the effect is priceless.
Have as much fun as you possibly can! I felt like a child again. It’s been awhile since I was scrambling up rocks, jumping off branches and screaming at gushing water (don’t ask me why but, I was just standing there screaming at the water – happily of course). By the end of the day we felt exhausted but good.

My whole body is aching now but I’m loving it. The boys and I have decided to take a trip out of KL every month just to get away. It doesn’t have to be expensive or very far away. Sungai Dua took us about an hour to get to. Next month we’re going to try Kuala Kubu Baru. There’s Sungai Chenang there and I hear it’s got a real pretty waterfall.

Trala, la, la, la…

All the photos you see here are from Omar’s Flickr Photostream! You can find more photos from the trip there too!