Nik


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Sunday, December 4, 2011 @ 10:00 PM PERMALINK

When we got up, I changed into my swimsuit and decided to do a little reading in the sun before Bong came over and asked if I wanted to join the boys in climbing to the upper course of the waterfall.

Last year when I did this, I had hell of a hard time, I kept slipping and I couldn't climb as fast as everyone AND! I actually fell into the waterfall. I'm honestly such a city girl. But anyway, I decided to give it another shot.

Running through the forest (in our slippers, I might add) to avoid the leeches. I had to stop numerous times to pick the buggers off before they latched onto me. Yuck.



One has to be very careful climbing up the falls because the moss that grows on the rocks makes it very slippy. As with every waterfall, there are huge narrow plunges which you would not survive if you fell into.



Jordan almost fell into one of those plunges. It is a funny story now but it wasn't as humerous when I was watching it unfold in front of my eyes.

This is what happened (extended version as requested by Jordan)

Jordan is pretty sure footed, last year when I fell into the waterfall, he was the one who pulled me out of the pool while BONG was taking pictures with his Iphone.

Jordan climbs things that no one else thinks of climbing and almost never falls, which is why, I liken him to a mountain goat.

Well, this time, the mountain goat slipped. While trying to cross an area he had ventured before, Jordan slipped and fell just slightly in front of a steep plunge. With all the water rushing down on him, the only thing preventing him from falling into the falls was a notch in the rock that he had miraclously caught on to.

Ian was the first to react and extended his arm to pull Jordan up but he too slipped and ended up on top of Jordan. Super duper! So now, Jordan was left holding on to a notch in the rock, with the weight of running water and Ian pushing down on him.

After what felt like too long (but was only like 5 seconds), Christopher's brains kicked into action and he put out his leg so that the two boys could grab on and pull themselves up.

What was I doing? Erm. Standing at a safe, dry distance ensuring that I didn't fall in too and praying that Jordan and Ian wouldn't die. Yes, I am pretty useless.

The only victim of this near death incident? One side of Jordan's slippers.

After this, the boys calmly talked how it happened, shook the incident out of their minds and contuined trekking.

My trusty 'make sure this clumsy girl doesn't fall into the waterfall and die' guides



We climbed up until the vegetation prevented us from going any further and settled down in some pools to relax in

The boys posing in the deeper rock-pool. This pool is impossible for clumsy short people to climb out off; thus I did not attempt going in...



And stayed in this tiny pool to hide from the sun instead 



The only injuries I got from this mini expedition were vicious grass cuts from the lalang when we were leaving the trail.

When we got back to the property, there were a ton of kids running towards the house.

Uncle Steven's sister is a teacher and she brought her class out on an excursion to play in the waterfall pool by the house.



It is such a delight to see children run around the pool, they seem to have no sense of fear and their natural balance is amazing. In areas where we struggled to climb because it was too slippy, these little humans climbed up effortlessly.

We let the children have the area and I went back to read on the balcony with a glass of wine.

A family of monkeys came to visit





After relaxing for a bit and when the kids were gone, the boys set to work on clearing a tree Uncle Steven had just cut down while the girls started cooking.

To clear the tree from the property, the boys had to chop it up into smaller parts and throw it down the river.

The boys hard at work






And the girls? We decided to cook porridge. The porridge was kind of burnt and too sticky because we added in too much sweet potato but the boys sweetly ate most of it and didn't complain (mostly because they were probably starving and partly because if they did, they would have nothing else to eat for the next couple of days)

Porridge, omlette with chicken franks, fried lunchon meat and various other condiments from cans/jars.



Also! We eventually did recover Jordan's missing slipper. While we were watching the boys work, I noticed something slipper-shaped caught in the branches of the fallen tree.

Jordan wasted no time in climbing over to confirm it was his missing slipper, retrived it and boy and footwear were safely reunited. Nothing broken, no deaths and no missing belongings; the magic of adventure.

In Part 3:  More driving, food and frolicking in the waterfall (many many pictures). Stay tuned! 

Labels: kedah, malaysia, merbok, travel

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